Phil Gutis's Blog
Press Clips: corporate green, safe sushi, energy diet, more
May 7, 2008
Posted by Phil Gutis in The Media and the Environment
NRDC in the News (May 7, 2008)
Going green may be all the rage in corporate America, but some are starting to question what it all means. Linda Greer, Director of NRDC’s Health and Toxics Program, tells the Christian Science Monitor that "true sustainability requires independent certification, extensive consumer-education campaigns, and a desire and ability to review entire supply chains."
Sometimes this supply-chain analysis is beyond consumers' capacity.
"How do I know if a garment is 'green'?,” Greer explains. “The answer is: there's no way to know that. Even if you buy a T-shirt that's organic, you don't know the factories and the chemicals that went into dyeing it, or how much carbon they emitted into the air."
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Similarly, Fox Business News.com carries a piece on oil juggernauts’ “green” PR programs and turns to NRDC advocate Deron Lovaas for analysis of campaigns by the likes of Exxon Mobil. "Presumably, these companies are following up on their promises to invest a part of these profits in alternative energy, but the amount they are investing at this point is unclear at best,” Lovaas said. “Exxon does some work with lithium ion batteries and BP some work with biofuels. But we need a clearer plan for the future."
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So you bike to work and shop at the Salvation Army? Well, you're still not off the hook – pun intended – when it comes to your choice of fish. O, The Oprah Magazine recommends NRDC's guide to sushi for the safest scales for your body and world.
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Even if you squirm at the sight of sushi, we all eat electricity in hefty helpings. Putting New Yorkers on a more responsible energy diet, the energy utility National Grid has proposed a sweeping efficiency initiative. In an article in the Syracuse Post Standard, NRDC's air and energy policy director Ashok Gupta applauded National Grid's “leadership in advancing this cost-effective energy efficiency program."
"The proposal presents a model for aligning company and customer interests in reducing New York's energy consumption,” Gupta told the newspaper.
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One questionable use of national energy devotes our tax dollars to predator eradication programs across the country. In a recent article in High Country News by NRDC wildlife advocate Lisa Upson, we learn that "the federal agency euphemistically known as Wildlife Services" provides "a taxpayer handout to the livestock industry" by spending over "80 percent of its mostly public funding as a political favor to agribusiness."
According to Upson, Wildlife Services often uses unsafe and inhumane tactics, including "gas cartridges to asphyxiate pups in dens" and "Compound 1080, a poison so lethal it's been banned in several states and countries." Upson identifies Wildlife Services as "a major force in eliminating wolf and grizzly bear populations in the early 20th century, [which] today spends over $100 million each year...to kill more than a million animals." Upson also reports, "Wildlife Services has killed an increasing number of endangered species... between 1996 and 2006."
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Finally, NRDC senior lawyer Ann Alexander has won recognition on a Crain's Chicago Business list of the city's "Women to Watch," rubbing shoulders with Michelle Obama and, in the process, offering a nice plug for NRDC. Crain's writes, "[A] love of nature and concern over humans' impact on it are at the core of her work as an environmental lawyer in the Chicago office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group with 350 lawyers, scientists and policy experts in five national offices plus a new outpost in Beijing."
The article describes how Alexander worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley last summer to fight a BP's proposal to increase it's pollution of Lake Michigan and Chicago's drinking source. The mayor's director of external affairs, Joe Deal, praises, "She's the kind of person you want in the room when you tackle a complicated issue."
Alexander graciously shares the credit. "I am working for an organization that could actually turn this country around on climate change," she says.
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Press Clips is a new feature on Switchboard that will provide a highly selective view of the world as seen through the eyes of NRDC staff quoted by mainstream media outlets. Roundups will appear daily, Monday through Friday.
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