Shell Oil and the Institutions Greenwashing Them Feel the ‘Heat’ on Climate Change
bristol |
the environment |
news report
Saturday December 15, 2007 19:35
by Josh Hart - Arctic Associates
velorution at yahoo dot com
Effective Direct Action and Public Protests Mark Exhibition’s Release in Bristol
It hasn’t been an easy week for the organisers of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award and the Bristol Museum, or their sponsor and proud wildlife destroyer— sugardaddy Shell Oil Company. All week, concerned individuals from around Bristol have been exposing the truth about Shell and the public institutions who are helping to greenwash them.
On Tuesday, activists staged a protest in the national offices of the BBC Wildlife Magazine in Broadmead, bringing work to a halt and reviving controversy within the organization about their relationship with the oil industry. See further details of this action in previous article
On Friday evening, Bristol Museum hosted a private, posh wine and cheese reception to kick off their hosting of Shell’s exhibit, with attendees including Dawn Primarola, Labour MP from South Bristol and Helen Holland, leader of the Bristol City Council, who were all patting themselves on the back for caring about wildlife. Bristol Rising Tide activists, dressed up to the nines, were admitted to the event under fake names, with one activist gaining access to the mic, and posing as the Shell public relations director. He then launched into a two minute speech (in the style of the yes men) thanking the city council and museum for helping to allow Shell’s destruction of wildlife to continue and calling the melting of the Arctic ice cap a “tremendous business opportunity” by allowing access to millions of barrels of oil under the ice cap. Amazingly the mic was kept on through the entirety of the speech. (Full text of speech and video below)
Saturday saw a highly successful and well-attended protest, marking the opening of the SHELL sponsored Wildlife photographer of the year exhibition. Dozens of humans, about a dozen polar bears, a snow leopard, and a tiger gathered, complete with the Wild Lie counter-exhibit. Protesters gathered in front of the museum, handed out leaflets, creating quite a spectacle. Some eventually made their way into the exhibition hall, where Shell’s crimes were recounted, and a die-in took place to symbolize all the wildlife who have been killed because of oil greed, and who continue to suffer the effects of climate change. The protest, organized by Bristol Rising Tide, Friends of the Earth, and People and Planet, showed that Bristolians will not be quiet in the face of corporate greenwash in our public institutions.
Protests are expected to continue at the museum through Jan. 13, in an effort to educate the public about the true nature of Shell’s activities, and to maintain pressure on the BBC Wildlife Magazine and Natural History Museum to drop Shell as a sponsor. People are encouraged to go and see the photographs and let the museum know about their displeasure about allowing a Shell sponsored exhibit space in a city-owned museum.
The protest today also coincided with a shocking report in this weekend's Financial Times. It highlights Shell's role in the imminent devastation of the athabasca tar sands.
See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53058af8-aaaf-11dc-a779-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Brian Straub, Shell Canada's vice-president for oil sands makes the companies position very clear: "We're clearly putting all we have across the Shell world toward developing this resource. If we weren't here it would just be woods"
Take action:
If you want to protest about Bristol Museum and the BBC Wildlife Magazine greenwashing Shell then please write briefly to each of these organisations. There will be many within each organisation sympathetic to our stance - letters will support their position.
Bristol Council: customer.services@bristol.gov.uk
Bristol Museum: general.museum@bristol.gov.uk
BBC Wildlife Magazine: wildlifemagazine@bbcmagazinesbristol.com
Editor Evening Post: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144933&command=newPage
Read more about Shell’s horrific environmental record and the controversy surrounding oil company sponsorship of cultural events:
"Shell Wildlife Destroyer of the Year", Friends of the Earth,
October 2006
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/shell_wildlife_destroyer.pdf
Arctic Ice Free by 2013: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm
Tragic History Museum: http://www.shelloiledwildlife.org.uk/
Art Not Oil: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/shell
Full text of speech read by Derrick Leavussum, “public relations director for Shell”
Good evening my name is Derek Leavussum, public relations director for Shell. I want to welcome you all to the 2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award. As you can imagine- I don’t have an easy job, what with all this fuss about melting glaciers, extreme weather and wildlife extinctions. I’d like to thank the Bristol City Council, BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum for making my job all that much easier by allowing us to sponsor your wild lie- I mean wildlife- exhibition.
We prefer not to see the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a threat to human civilization. We see it as a business opportunity. After all, there are millions of barrels of oil under there just waiting to be extracted. And we’ll need all the energy we can get since we’ve just abandoned our solar program. When you see the Shell logo, we don’t want you to think about the whale habitat we’re destroying in Siberia and Ireland, human rights violations in Nigeria, and especially not climate change. This may all be true but the fact is that the world needs oil and this is simply the price of progress.
Some say it’s ironic that the world’s second largest oil company is sponsoring a wildlife photography exhibition- but Shell is truly committed to preservation of the polar bear and other wildlife- in photographs if not in the real world. Some say it’s the end of the oil age- but we say it’s just the beginning- we’re thrilled about digging into Canada’s oil sands and with your help we can continue to deceive the public into thinking we’re a responsible corporate citizen. Thank you all for coming tonight and we hope you enjoy viewing these amazing photographs of wildlife that Shell is destroying- I mean conserving.
Also a special thanks to Dawn Primarola and the Labour party for supporting a third runway at Heathrow and ensuring that there remains a healthy demand for our products.
The revolution will not be motorised!
Derrick Leavussome, Shell "public relations director" speaks to the posh reception at Bristol Museum
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Comments (12 of 12)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12It's great to see people take action on what matters. It is outrageous that the BBC and council - things we pay for - are being used to promote a corporation like Shell.
What's even funnier is that, halfway through my speech, another activist in the crowd, Diane, started heckling me, and a security guard went over to her and insisted that she LET THE MAN FROM SHELL FINISH. At least a quarter of the 150+ people in the room thought that I was actually from Shell, which is scary in and of itself, considering what I was saying.
What CAN"T corporations get away with these days???
Why does Bristol City Council lack a spine?
These are all questions to ponder......
...do you think Shell are gonna give up just cos you pull off an amusing stunt at an event they sponsored? Not like you actually disrupted their business activity is it?
Shell dont give a monkeys for a bunch of middle class students & ex-students acting like clowns at a silly wildlife event they sponsor. As you said, they are already abandoning their 'green' credentials, with oil at $100 a barrel, and likely to rise, they have their eyes on the profit prize and you are a mere fly to be swatted, or more likely ignored.
Maybe you should take a look at the tactics of the indigenous peoples of the Niger delta in their struggles against Shell and other oil companies? If you start to hit them where it hurts instead of playing around at their own PR events they may begin to worry.
Why was my comment censored?
It was hidden under the following;
Respect:
Bristol indymedia is intended to represent the world we are striving to create, rather than the world we live in. A cornerstone of this principle is respect for others, therefore articles or comments that are abusive rather than relying on force of argument are not acceptable.
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/editorial.php
What better method do you propose against Shell, and why are you asking others to do what you are just as capable of doing yourself?
What a a corker! A good week's work in my eyes, hats off to the polar bears!
Of course this isn't going to stop shell on its own, but its a start and its a good way of exposing the hypocrisy of shell, the museum, primarolo etc. They shouldn't be allowed to gather like this and slap themselves on the back without being challenged.
Whats this thing about dismissing an action just because middle class students are involved? They seem to be doing a lot more than working class people are at the moment, and what would you have them do? Nothing, just wait for the working classes to do it for them?
Whatever the reasons behind the protest on Friday evening as well as its desired and actual effects please don't forget that while the core exhibition was being celebrated, some additional work (that has nothing to do with Shell) by ESOL students was going to also be celebrated. The students had been to Slimbridge to photograph wildfowl and their efforts was going to be recognised through the giving out of certifcates. This was the first time most of them had been out to the British countryside and had the opportunity to speak to other English speaking people other than their tutor. These students had nothing to do with Shell and didn't understand what was going on and sadly they were the losers (no-one else) that evening. A confused and sad impression they may now how of living in the UK and taking part in what is supposed to be an exciting project. Fortunately their photos are on display separate to the main exhibition for everyone to see. Doing the photography andlearning more about Britain's nature has has been an amazing experience for them.
How does icepick know what class the protesters are from anyway? They may very well be from a variety of different backgrounds. It's a very black and white way to look at the world. There seems to be a real contingent of burnt out bitter activists who troll Indymedia looking for things to criticise, and who are jealous of those who haven't burnt out---or maybe they are just very vocal and leave a lot of comments. Right on Derrick for having the balls to speak the truth, and good job polar bears and everyone involved- power to the people!
Pochard- You and the ESOL students have no one to blame but the BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum- vent your frustration at these organisations who have made a mockery of wildlife photography, and ruined the reputation of an amazing institution.
These students, and the waterfowl they photographed will have to deal with climate change as we all will- it's high time they began understanding what's at stake, rather than allowing corporate profit free reign to determine their fates.
Perhaps some of them are in the UK because their homeland has been polluted and destabilized by Shell or other oil companies, anyway. They deserve to know the truth.
It's unfortunate, but these days wildlife is a politicized subject- as it is being destroyed by government and corporate policy.
icepick: the tactics for resisting an oil corporation where they physically operate are likely to be different where they culturally operate.
They can support each other through solidarity - like the protest on saturday showed with protesters challenging the cultural operations of Shell - whilst drawing attention to the resistance in Nigeria.
In rossport, county mayo, there is a mixture of both as shell both physically and culturally operate there.
I'm sure if you have ideas for other ways to oppose shell here , then you should organise something and publicise it. IWho knows - its possible that people might even show you solidarity! Or maybe just criticise the action on the internet for not bringing a complete halt to shells activities in one perfect moment.
all the best
s
I think all of us who participated in the demonstration last week were fully aware that the behemoth Shell would probably not give much attention to our stance. The people we were trying to communicate with (and I think we were successful here) were the museum going public, the museum decision-makers, Bristol City Council and BBC Wildlife Magazine. They needed to be made aware of how inappropriate it was to be doing Shell the massive favor of allowing their Green wash in our city museum.
Starry-Eyed (students and non-students from all classes) we may be, but we realize where we can be effective and where we cannot.