Corporate Ethics International.. "Respect Our Authoritah"
Well.
I started my little facebook page mostly to vent my own frustration with a group of Californians wanting to throw stones from their own glass house.
But I've been pleasantly surprised with the growth - from one (me) to 32 this morning.
Thank-you for all of have joined the group - for those of you who haven't yet joined - you still can join Re-Think California here.
Just a comment though.
The point of Re-Think California isn't to suggest everyone in California should be tarred with the same brush - and it isn't to suggest that we don't have an obligation in Alberta to assure that our environment is kept as clean as reasonably possible.
It is to expose the hypocrisy of "Corporate Ethics International" seeking to make a scapegoat of a Province that in fact has a very strong environmental protection program and a Province which has, in fact, done a good job of protecting it's resources - while California has in many respects failed miserably.
When Los Angeles is named the most polluted city in the United States, and Calgary is named the cleanest city in the world - you know something is wrong.
When Corporate International is spending millions of dollars to slag Alberta, and 25% of children in California are in poverty - you know something is wrong.
I might suggest that these clowns be well-advised to spend a little time helping to correct the numerous wrongs in their backyard before they appoint themselves as hall monitors of the world.
3 comments:
Compared to the cesspool that is southern California, Alberta is an untouched, pristine wilderness.
this is heather lehman, a frequent commenter on the rethinkAlberta Facebook page and a librarian who works for corporate ethics international. i am a fan of CEI BECAUSE of their lack of hypocrisy. the claim that they are hypocrites is silly and comes from people who have no idea of either campaigning or the issue at hand.
CEI actively works against polluters in the energy sector everywhere. I have asked Dr. Marx about the rethinkCalifornia campaign response to rethinkAlberta - his response was "I very much hope that people campaign against any state, nation, province that engages in greenwashing of the dirty energy corporations and their facilities. CEI would certainly look into endorsing ANY campaign that aimed its sites at the energy sector." So, while I don't have the ins and outs of the whole rethinkAlberta campaign, I think it would be worth your time to drum up support for a rethinkCallifornia Campaign!
Remember, CEI is not California and the whole world is everybody's backyard when it comes to energy infrastructure.
CEI may be doing a great public service with their campaigns, however, they need to do their research a lot better. The 'ponds' of the oilsands are horrible, there is no disputing that. But the companies involved are working very hard to come up with clean up and mitigation plans so that these ponds will be a thing of the past. Most 'harvesting' of the oilsands is done in much the same way that conventional oil is recovered, with the addition of steam etc.The process is much cleaner and leaves a much smaller carbon footprint. CEI and other environmental activist groups would be more believable and have a lot more credibility if they actually visited all of the sites in the area and come up with a realistic approach to their campaigns rather than jumping on the bandwagon because 1600 ducks were unfortunate enough to land in one of the ponds, because that's what the media has focused on. California/Alberta are only a small scratch on the surface compared to what the world continues to do to mother earth - a lot of which is far worse than anything done on this side of the pond. Perhaps a visit to Russia or China would be a good eye opening experience.
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