Our Response to TckTckTck (GCCA) – February 26th, 2010

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From: Canadians for Action on Climate Change [mailto:canadiansforactiononclimatechange@bell.net] Sent: February-26-10 9:01 PM
To: ‘Ben Margolis’
Cc: ‘GlobalComplianceResearch@gmail.com’
Subject: Response

Dear tcktcktck.org – GCCA,

We appreciate your agreeing to circulate our response. We reply as follows;

Tcktcktck monopolizing the dialogue at COP15 and undermining COP15

At COP15 the tcktcktck.org campaign monopolized the NGO response to climate change, and either intentionally or unintentionally, undermined other NGOs, and the developing countries that were demanding more.  Tcktcktck.org, through its listing of NGOs as partners, some of which now claim they had never agreed to be listed as partners, gave a skewed sense of support for the weak demands of the tcktcktck.org campaign. The tcktcktck.org dominance, either intentionally or unintentionally, eviscerated NGO activism and consequently influenced the weak outcome of COP15. Whether it was intentional or unintentional, the organizers of the tcktcktck.org campaign were grossly negligent.

Targets

AT COP15, one of the major demands of the developing states was to call upon the developed states to both commit to strong reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, and to stabilize the rise in temperature. Many developing states called for the rise in temperature to be well below 1.5°C, and a number of developing states were calling for the temperature to not exceed 1°C from pre-industrial levels. Furthermore, most developing states called for the ppm to return to below 350ppm, and a number of developing states called for ppm to 300ppm. The tcktcktck.org campaign that dominated the discussion was completely out of sync with the strong demands of most developing states.

On the www.tcktcktck.org/partners website, there was a list of over 200 NGOs who were described as partners. A survey was initiated (ANNEX-attached in word) and sent to some of the NGO partners. The purpose of the survey was to determine whether the partners were aware of the tcktcktck.org campaign’s corporate connections, and whether the partners were also aware of the inadequate targets advanced by the tcktcktck.org campaign. In the survey, it was pointed out that tcktcktck.org had failed to use a baseline when they called for developed states to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020. The spokesperson for tcktcktck.org, Ben Margolis, Campaign Director for ‘Global Campaign for Climate Action’ wrote a letter to the authors of the survey and acknowledged the following;

“You also note that the policy positions stated on the www.tcktcktck.org web site failed to mention a baseline year for emissions reductions. We would like to thank you for pointing out this omission. There has always been an implicit recognition that we were referring to 1990 levels (as can be seen in the more detailed publications of our partner organizations). We have now amended the clause explicitly to read reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% on 1990 levels by 2020.”

The spokesperson for tcktcktck.org now intimates that the listed partner NGOs and the global community should have been able to understand that, even though 1990 was left out, it was meant to be included. However, the question remains, how could over 200 NGOs listed on the tcktcktck.org website have agreed to exclude the 1990 baseline, because everyone was supposed to know that it was understood [even though the US was using 2005, and Canada was using 2006 as baselines].  Or, was a baseline excluded without the knowledge and consent of the partners, and thus, were they unaware of the absence of a baseline? Even worse, were the partners aware and complicit in omitting the baseline?  Were the partners involved in building a consensus of necessary targets based on the current science, or was the omission of the baseline decided on their behalf?  It seems unbelievable that all NGOs partners listed on the tcktcktck.org website would have been supportive of such weak demands.

Furthermore, on the tcktcktck.org site it states;

“TckTckTck is an unprecedented global alliance, representing hundreds of millions of people from all walks of life, who are united by a desire to see a strong global deal on climate change.”

Surely the leaders of a campaign which presents itself as representing hundreds of millions of people, and which thereby also sees itself as speaking for hundreds of millions of people must recognize the incredible responsibility such a statement implies. In assuming their self-appointed role, the leaders of tcktcktck.org demonstrated dereliction of duty in not advancing the targets necessary to ensure survival; the moral imperative to demand that the temperature not exceed 1°C.

Corporate Ties

In your response, you did not indicate whether the NGO partners of tcktcktck.org were made aware that they would be promoting a logo which was copywritten by PR firms Havas and Euro and, if the NGOs were made aware of the implications of being associated with PR firm clients such as those in the nuclear, biotech, biofuel, oil, etc. industries.

We still have grave concerns about the tcktcktck.org campaign / campaigns, as now being presented under the parent coalition name, the GCCA, and the Global Humanitarian Forum.  We would like to, at this time, direct your attention to the following items below. The items refer to The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change – presently listed on your website as a partner. http://tcktcktck.org/partners/our-partners/more-partners

The attachments are as follows; if you open them in the order as they appear below, you can follow the links as they appear on the tcktcktck.org website;

• Tcktcktckpartnersfebruary25th2010 – the partner (The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change) is found on your site (screenshot – February 25th, 2010)

http://tcktcktck.org/partners/our-partners/more-partners

• Tcktcktcklistedpartner-thecorporateleadersgrouponclimatechange
• Tcktcktckcorporateleadersonclimatechangemembers
• Tcktcktckcorporateleadersgrouponclimatechangesignatories (including Royal Dutch Shell)
• Tcktcktck-current-copenhagen-communique-signatories-clq (using the tcktcktck post COP15 slogan ‘Not Done Yet!’)

A way forward

To rectify the irreversible damage caused by the undermining of the strong resolve of many NGOs and developing states to seriously maintain the rise in temperature below 1°C and the ppm to return to 300 ppm, the tcktcktck.org campaign must apologize to the partner NGOs that may not have wished to be listed as partners, or may not have wished to be associated with weak demands.

Regards,

Cory Morningstar | Canadians for Action on Climate Change
Joan Russow – PhD | | Global Compliance Research Project

“Our objective is to save humanity and not just half of humanity. We are here to save mother earth. Our objective is to reduce climate change to [under] 1°C. [above this] many islands will disappear and Africa will suffer a holocaust. The real cause of climate change is the capitalist system. If we want to save the earth then we must end that economic model. Capitalism wants to address climate change with carbon markets. We denounce those markets and the countries which [promote them]. It’s time to stop making money from the disgrace that they have perpetrated.”

Evo Morales, December 16th, 2010, Copenhagen Climate Summit

tcktcktck-current-copenhagen-communique-signatories-clg

To partners and allies of the TckTckTck Campaign

Letter from TckTckTck (GCCA) to GCCA Partners – February 25th, 2010

Letter from TckTckTck

—–Original Message—–
From: gccaall@googlegroups.com [mailto:gccaall@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ben Margolis
Sent: February-25-10 2:58 AM
To: gccaall@googlegroups.com
Subject: [gccaall] Response to TckTckTck survey

Dear GCCA partner,

Many of you have recently received a survey that raises concerns about

the GCCA and the TckTckTck campaign, particularly with regard to

corporate support, backing and control. As you are aware, the GCCA has

a strict policy to not accept any corporate partners, although we do

recognize the vital role that some corporations have to play in

preventing catastrophic climate change.

In response to this survey, and to recent blog posts by the same

author, the GCCA secretariat has written to the author this morning

with a letter to clarify the situation. The letter is attached here

for your information. We would ask that you do not circulate this

letter widely.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any further

questions.

Yours,

Ben Margolis

ACTION ALERT! Is Greenpeace International set to become GE – Greenpeace Electric?

Greenpeace International or Greenpeace Electric???

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”­ – Chinua Achebe ­ Nigerian Writer

First the tcktcktck scandal and now this. AT COP 15, the spokesperson for TckTckTck was Kumi Naidoo.  Kumi Naidoo is the Chair of  TckTckTck, as well as the executive director of Greenpeace International.

The recent decision by Greenpeace International to hire Tzeporah Berman to direct its global climate and energy campaign could be the most disastrous decision that Greenpeace has ever made. It is quite possible that this move may destroy the organizations reputation in such a damaging way it may never recover. The current economic system has caused us to have entered into what Dr. E.O. Wilson describes as ‘the sixth extinction’ – a phrase that many scientists are now using. We now face climate catastrophe on a dying planet already well on the pathway to a 6C temperature rise which will kill off most life. This recent appointment of Tzeporah Berman could be the greatest threat climate change justice has yet to face. Who is Tzeporah Berman anyway? Tzeporah Berman could be described as a Trojan horse for the biggest corporations on the planet. She has successfully entrenched her way into the position of bargaining away nature to the corporations, under the guise of an environmentalist. Perhaps this is a seemingly much better strategy than just having Pat Moore “ex-Greenpeace” running around supporting the corporations. The corporations have finally succeeded in placing a compromised ‘environmentalist’ into the very heart of Greenpeace – the most recognized environmental organization on the planet. The day after Tzeporah Berman announced her new Greenpeace role, she walked into an exclusive General Electric (GE) banquet (past the real environmental protesters) and delivered a speech supporting the privatization of some 600 rivers in British Columbia, Canada, for the benefit of GE and their subsidiaries and partners. So there was Greenpeace (not officially, of course, but in the public mind) endorsing the wholesale surrender of our environment to one of the most predatory corporations on the planet – GE has paid fines for illegal weapons trade fraud, money laundering, etc.

“There is nothing more dangerous than a shallow thinking compassionate person.” – Garrett Hardin

On a positive note – such a scandal may be the one that will finally expose the corporatization of compromised NGOs and the deafening silence on the reality of climate change which has been going on behind the scenes for quite some time – to which the public are mostly unaware.

Also amazing; right now, in the climate justice movement something extraordinarily important is happening.  After Copenhagen – a line is finally being drawn in the sand. True climate justice groups are now refusing to sign onto to any statement that endorses a temperature which exceeds a 1C temperature rise. As compromised NGOs are still clinging to the suicidal 1.5C – 2C temperatures, we will now finally see a clear divide. True climate justice groups verses the compromised NGOs. As well, true climate justice groups are now mobilizing to endorse a global emergency declaration on climate change. Again, those who do not sign on will be easily identified as those with vested interests.

The Tzeporah Berman specialty: Disaster Capitalism

The message behind disaster capitalism campaigning is this; climate change is “so urgent” that we have to turn the planet over to GE and other corporations to “save us.” This is all bullshit. This messaging is designed with the purpose of gaining corporate control of Earths natural assets. The question is, what has gone wrong at Greenpeace International? Is it i) lack of due-diligence, ii) lack of research ii) lack of knowledge or iv) is this the new direction of Greenpeace? Did they not speak to anyone in Canada who has dealt with Tzeporah Berman? (See extensive list of comments below including comments from Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler). With the Earth now passing several planetary boundaries and ecosystems now failing, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world – disaster capitalism is now set to explode.

General Electric

To help sell their corporate privatization of British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, GE placed Tzeporah on the cover of their magazine, Reader’s Digest. General Electric, which owns one of the world’s largest media conglomerates – as well as weapons production, weapons trade, and military contracts – owns Reader’s Digest through GE Capital with partners Bank of America and JPMorgan. GE has a history of using Reader’s Digest to hype its offspring, including a health Insurance company, its astroturf organizations, and now, their well trained “environmentalist,” Tzeporah Berman. Keep in mind that General Electric plays both sides of the climate “debate”. While they support astroturf organizations – such as Tzeporah’s “Power UP Canada” to sell their private acquisition of Canadian public assets; allegedly to build “alternative power” and “reduce global warming”, they simultaneously fund the organizations that deny global warming. GE funds the American Petroleum Institute, for example, and it’s astroturf affiliates such as “Energy Citizens,” who stage “grassroots” rallies to deny climate change and defeat climate legislation in the U.S. General Electric is a member of American Petroleum Institute (API), along with Dow, Bechtel, Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP America, ConocoPhillips, General Siemens, Enbridge, and so forth.

GE is also a member of United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) – an organization which supports a target of 450-550 parts per million of CO2 – which is suicidal. USCA consists of corporately funded NGOs such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute, Pew Center on Global Climate Change and these corporatized NGOs partner with the likes of Shell, The Dow Chemical Company and many more multinational corporations who continue to exploit both people and planet in the name of insatiable corporate profits. Will Greenpeace International be the next to get in bed with USCAP?

GE is a member through GE Oil & Gas Conmec and General Electric Inspection Services (both link directly to GE Energy) GE Energy is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and delivery from coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy. GE is now moving into renewable resources such as water, wind, and solar by acquiring rights to those energy resources worldwide. In B.C. their plan is to privatize some 600 watersheds, acquire the water and energy resources, and then sell it back to the public at exorbitant prices they set with the corrupted government that they support. GE takes B.C. public and ecological assets and not even pays trinkets, but rather makes citizens pay with a liability to buy their power at a rate they’ve wrangled from Gordon Campbell and his accenture (former Arthur Anderson of the Enron cookie jar crowd) advisors. General Electric helped fund these climate change denial campaigns, while simultaneously using the urgency of global warming to make a grab for hundreds of rivers, tributaries, and watersheds in British Columbia, Canada. They’ve attached Tzeporah Berman to the deal to give it a green patina. One could argue that, Tzeporah, in essence, represents General Electric. She is now their allegedly friendly face of privatization. She stands in opposition to the people of British Columbia, the grass roots environmental organizations, the long-standing Canadian ecology groups – Greenpeace, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, BC Citizens for Public Power, Indigenous Environmental Network and others. General Electric: one of the most destructive corporations on the planet. Involved in global weapons manufacture and trade, with international criminal convictions for weapons trading fraud and money laundering, deeply institutionalized in the U.S. Defense Contract community, controlling massive media ownership – including Reader’s Digest.

Copenhagen – For some, a tiny tax outweighs massive environmental destruction

On December 29than article by Roger Annis appeared on Climate & Capitalism; Here is an excerpt;

At first glance, it seemed that the “Yes Men” had scored another comedic coup for Mother Earth. CBC Radio news reported on December 16 that on the previous day, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell was feted and presented an environmental award by many of Canada’s well-heeled “environmental groups” during the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. Hah! Great gag, guys! And very timely. An embarrassingly large number of people and agencies in Canada and abroad have been hoodwinked by the BC government’s claims to environmental stewardship and its greenwashing propaganda. But wait, the story proves to be true and not a gag at all! Campbell actually did receive an ‘Economy Wide Carbon Pricing’ award from Tzeporah Berman of PowerUp Canada, one of ten of Canada’s best funded “environmental groups” that endorsed the award, presented at a gala recognizing “acts of climate leadership” by municipal and provincial governments across Canada. Other award endorsers are the David Suzuki Foundation, the Ecology Action Centre, Environmental Defence, Équiterre, ForestEthics, the Green Energy Act Alliance, the Pembina Institute, TckTckTck, and WWF Canada.

Voices of dissent

The Sierra Club did not participate in the Copenhagen award gala. Executive Director George Heyman, a former long-time president of the BC Government Employees Union, said the BC Liberals have taken a lot of actions that are “deeply contradictory” to its greenwashing propaganda. Heyman pointed out that fuel is exempt from the soon-to-be-imposed Harmonized Sales Tax, but the labour for energy efficient home retrofits is not. “They’re also providing massive subsidies to the oil and gas industry. . . and supporting a massive pipeline to move dirty tar sands oil across B.C.,” he said. Voices of concern are on the rise from the Indigenous peoples living in the coal and gas rich regions. Writing in the Vancouver Sun on December 22, Kathie Dickie, Chief of the 800-member Fort Nelson First Nation, expressed grave concern over two giant gas processing facilities being built near Fort Nelson, in northeast B.C. Chief Dickie wrote there has been no meaningful consultation with her people concerning the environmental impacts of En Cana Corporation’s Cabin Gas Plant nor a Spectra Gas plant to be located 15 kilometers away. Cabin Gas, once constructed, will be the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the province. One BC government official told the Fort Nelson First Nation that its 100-year old treaty with Canada does not guarantee clean air. “Imagine being told by a government official in 2009 that you have no say on the quality of air you or your children breathe! What parent would stand for it?” Dickie asked. The pale green groups that honored Gordon Campbell should be ashamed. His government should be condemned, not praised.

This must be stopped

There must be an international response. Please circulate this to all of your contacts concerned for the environment and climate justice. See the email addresses for Greenpeace staff below. We now stand on the cusp of the bleakest periods where we are confronted with the zero point of systemic collapse. Now is the time to be bold. No more compromise. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the corporatized NGOs who have hijacked the environmental movement. Such compromised NGO behaviour has been nothing less than an absolute detriment to the real environmental movement. The same compromised NGOs have and continue to obstruct real climate justice by keeping the public in the dark on the necessary targets we must demand to avert the climate crisis we now face. Below is one of the most truthful videos on climate change that exists today.

The Vancouver Media Coop in Canada are promoting an excellent idea of having Greenpeace members and donors contact Greenpeace expressing their disapproval. This must happen on the largest possible scale.

The Pale Green Patina; How General Electric promotes their trained “Environmentalist”

General Electric is hyping Tzeporah Berman, BC’s pale green media princess, as “The New Face of Environmentalism” while she helps them sell their private power deals in Canada. Their goal: to privatize Canadian rivers for corporate profit. Stumping for GE: Sunday, February 15, 2010: The day after announcing her new “greenpeace” role, Tzeporah marched into the private General Electric banquet with the GE executives and security guards, past the Wilderness Committee and other protesters. Inside, she delivered a stump speech supporting the corporate privatization of B.C. wilderness rivers. She is also in favour of the Canadian Tar Sands … with similar phoney-green promises.

Here is the result of Tzeporah’s brand of industrial corporate faux environmentalism;

The once pristine Toba Inlet watershed

This individual who Greenpeace International has hired has successfully betrayed her homeland and alienated the real environmental movement. She crossed an environmental picket to promote the global privatization plans of General Electric.

Pale Green Goes Hollywood

Tzeporah & Paris: savouring the taste of fame

Ego knows no bounds. A taste for power

while cutting deals with corporations and selling of the natural world.

Ms. Berman presenting a “Green” Award to the man who privatized British Columbia, sold it to General Electric and other international corporations, who built highways across farmland and called it “green;” who reversed dioxin effluent safeguards that we fought for and instituted in B.C. to protect our water; who sold off the public and natural heritage of British Columbia and opened the doors to General Electric to occupy hundreds of watersheds, devastate riparian ecosystems, and destroy forests for transmission lines to carry expensive power to mines in the north and to sprawling cities in the U.S.

It’s not easy being the pale green patina over the corporate industrialization of Canada.

Comments from BC environmentalists

Barbara Stowe:

Barbara was a teenager at the first Greenpeace meetings in 1970. Her parents, Dorothy and Irving, are founders of Greenpeace.

“Tzeporah’s support of our anti-environmental, union-busting, social-program-slashing government during an election campaign last year appalled me. She certainly knew her remarks would be used to help the powers that be get re-elected (as did occur). At the best, her actions showed a disturbing lack of judgement. Her stance on the Run of River projects deeply concerns me, and as for applauding our premier because he was sly enough to know that instituting a carbon tax would pull votes from the Greens and other left leaning parties…well, I’m very concerned that GPI would consider working with someone with her views. Given the response of environmentalists in BC to her actions last year, there is no doubt that this hire would cause serious rifts between Greenpeace and the environmental community.”

Clayoquot Sound original activists:

The founders of Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) consider Tzeporah an opportunist who used them and Clayoquot to climb the publicity ladder into cozy deals with the logging companies. Tzeporah used other people’s jail time for her own advancement. She stepped on a lot of people to get inside the corporate boardrooms that she is now so comfortable in. Here are comments from early Clayoquot activists in Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS):

Andrew Struthers in his history, The Green Shadow:

“Summer faded. The face of Mother Winter appeared in the sky over the Black Hole. Things got tense. Tzapata got into a giant queen bee struggle with Artemis, a woman who had been with the Friends since the Sulpher Pass days. Artemis got fired. When The Boss can tell you to clean out your desk, it’s just not anarchy anymore.”

Janie Jones:

Berman continued to queen bee her way through the FOCS, Greenpeace and then into her own organization ForestEthics and now, PowerUp Canada. Berman did not “lead” the blocades at Clayoquot Sound as she claims. They were organized, led and financed (one American heiress pretty well underwrote the whole thing) by the Friends of Clayoquot Sound of whom Berman became a member. Most of the original Friends, all residents of the area, had already been convicted of protesting the clearcut logging the summer before and, as part of their conditions, could not attend the daily blockades at Kennedy Lake, which is why they invited the world come there and protest for them. Ms. Berman, a former fashion student from Toronto with no direct experience or knowledge of the forest industry or the BC culture it supported, was one of over ten thousand who showed up. Because of the void at the site combined with her natural leadership qualities, the charismatic and photogenicyoung Berman rose to prominence as model/spokesperson for the daily ritual of blockading, readings of injunction and arrests.”

Betty Krawczyk: The real Clayoquot forest activist – Author of Clayoquot: The Sound Of My Heart (January 1997) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Krawczyk

Krawczyk is the woman who stood up to police, logging companies, and the courts, arrested many times at Clayoquot, Eagle Ridge Bluff, and other forest destruction sites. She did her first jail stint in 1993 at the age of 65, blockading logging trucks, and she’s still at it, today, at age 82. Here are some of her thoughts on Tzeporah’s betrayal of the B.C. environmental movement:

“Tzeporah Berman has evidently gone over to Gordon Campbell’s camp. Perhaps she is seeking a Liberal political appointment. Too bad. I can remember when she was an agent for change. But change will happen without her. It’s happening right now. She can allow herself to be used by the Campbell government as she likes, but the likes of the Campbell government have already been condemned to the dustbins of history. The private business model she advocates is no longer workable. It is killing the earth. And the economy. Good-bye, Tzeporah.”

Anita Burke: Former Sustainability Director for Shell Oil | Founder of the Catalyst Institute |http://www.catalystinstitute.com/

After leaving her Shell International sustainable development and energy portfolio Anita founded Catalyst Institute to do the work she was not allowed to do for the oil company, actually create a genuine sustainable future. She advises governments and businesses on operationalizing real sustainable development and socioeconomic change. Her comments, regarding the “green rift” created in Canada by Tzeporah and General Electric:

“The division was no accidental by-product of their actions. It was the purpose, at least for General Electric. Shell Oil purposefully planned and executed these types of rifts within the environmental movement when I was at Shell. Get em so busy arguing amoungst themselves that it will use up their resources and redirect them from the issues. Tzeporah is just a pawn in their game, and her ego is what they feed on, ego and fear. Sad day for BC. Sorrowful future for Tzeporah’s manipulated and misguided soul.”

Rex Weyler: 40 years in the Canadian environmental movement, Author of “Greenpeace: The Inside Story,” a co-founder of Greenpeace International:

Tzeporah Berman may be well intentioned, but she has embraced Disaster Capitalism, as described by Naomi Klein. She claims that climate change is so urgent, we must turn our natural assets over to General Electric, Plutonic Power, and other global corporations. She talks of “solving global warming,” and “new energy” but she possesses very little knowledge of ecology, energy, or biophysical economics. Perhaps she’s been duped into thinking that since climate warming is urgent, we should turn over our watersheds to General Electric to “solve global warming.” This is a new “green” phase of Disaster Capitalism. At best, this is a sad case of Garrett Harding’s “shallow thinking compassionate person.” At worst, this is an all-out betrayal of environmentalism, of the groups and activists who built the environmental movement in Canada and in the world, and a betrayal of the Earth itself. In any case, Tzeporah now speaks for General Electric, not for the Earth, not for wilderness, and not for our children’s future. And General Electric – one of the largest corporations in the world, involved in illegal weapons trading (for which they’ve paid fines), money laundering, and nuclear power – has one single agenda: acquire assets, increase company value, make profits, take the cash. And for this goal, they have one simple strategy regarding nature: Privatize everything. Turn the world into the private property of corporations, and sell it back to the public. On Sunday, February 14, 2010, at an exclusive General Electric banquet in Vancouver, Tzeporah supported GE’s privatization of Canadian rivers. She now represents corporate power, not ecology. Those of us in the ecology and environmental movement have to move on and do the real work.”

Donna Passmore: Campaigner with the Fraser Valley Conservation Coalition, battling the proposed Gateway project that Tzeporah’s “green” political friends in the B.C. Liberal government are building.

“I am disgusted by her stand on run-of-river private power projects.”

Notes from David Shipway:

35 year resident of Cortes Island near Toba Inlet | shipway@island.net | February 3, 2010

Run of river site plan details; Bute Inlet example; This is what the Tzeporah / General Electric “climate policy” is doing to Canadian Watersheds. GE is the big money behind this … with JPMorgan, & the usual crowd ..

“Plutonic Power” is a local GE partner ..

The hydrocarbon cost of Tzeporah Berman’s scheme with General Electric to occupy 300 rivers and watersheds in British Columbia, including 17 rivers in the Toba watershed. First you do the feasibility studies: fly all kinds of engineers, hydrologists, biologists and potential investors around in helicopters a few dozen times, have them work up a detailed plan in well-lit gas-heated offices somewhere, and deliver your plan to govt/public so they can spend lots of time and energy deliberating and dismantling it. Once it’s all a GO, Phase 1 is to build new access or fix any existing roads/bridges, clear various sites and bring in a huge temporary camp facility on several barges. This is the one Pluto set up in Toba, which houses 300 in luxury, was purpose built and shipped from Kamloops… Add a 100KW diesel generator running 24/7 for a year too. Phase 2 is to log and clear turbine and penstock sites with conventional diesel equip. This next pic is the steep trench for Montrose penstock beside the McGyver-Kennedy waterfall, soon barely a trickle. It has a total 2000 m. vertical head. This is approx. 6′ diam steel pipe is laid in a trench that often has to be dynamited through rock, then buried, presumably revegetated later:

A later photo shows they had a slide/blowout near the base, so assume some work has to be repeated. I don’t know how to quantify energy/carbon expense, but it looks like some of this route is heli-access only, so that means some earth-moving machinery and penstock pipe is flown in by chopper, after it has all been barged up the inlet, along with oodles of diesel and such. Not sure where the 2m. diam D penstock pipe comes from (China?), but it’s about 12mm wall thickness, and is epoxy or poly-coated, and the 10m. pieces are double-welded together on-site with portable diesel-powered welders. About 3Km of pipe for each powerhouse. Bute will have 17 of these. Phase 3 is “adjustable dam” and intake- lots of diesel-powed terraforming and concrete:

Phase 4 is turbine/powerhouse construction – first lots of site work with heavy equip.

then Build reinforced concrete powerhouse with steel roof, untold amounts of specialty materials and copper, Pluto’s turbines are imported from Austria, electrical stuff from US.

This is East Toba Powerhouse – 2 turbines with total of 123MW capacity, annual output estimated at 465 GWh. The output of those turbines require stepping up in voltage- so add power substations/transformers. Are they still using PCB’s ?

Phase 5 is transmission corridor – or as Tzeppie says, using General Electric language, “the transmission backbone” – built with road-based equipment and helicopter, for each plant, some 150 Kms x 50m wide transmission corridor logged (a permanent clearcut):

Most of the timber is just left to rot because helicopter time is too expensive to retrieve it. Finally, General Electric and their partners will plant 30m-tall steel towers by helicopter every few hundred metres, with big ceramic insulators and 3 runs of transmission wire. The Bute transmission line will run all the way down to Saltery Bay /Jervis Inlet, where it plugs into the Cheekeye-Dunsmuir line.

Vancouver Media Co-op | http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/blog/macdonald/2824

Tzep calls for gentle tar sands, promotes GE

Tzeporah Berman is readying the ground to sell-out both Greenpeace and the anti-tar sands struggle… Berman is a master of publicity and is already setting the groundwork for future campaigns and betrayals, backroom deals and greenwashing the un-greenable. Since there is no such technology as “clean tar sands” anymore than clean coal, one must assume that this is right in line with why she is promoting the destruction of rivers in BC: to use them as “clean energy.” All members and donors to Greenpeace should IMMEDIATELY alert the organization that if she takes office they will pull all contributions to the organization that once had actual opposition to these kinds of massive destructive developments. Txeporah Berman will make deals with Suncor, in private backrooms. SHUT DOWN THE TAR SANDS, DO NOT MAKE THEM “FRIENDLY”.

Delores Broton: 30 years in the B.C. environmental movement, editor of the Watershed Sentinel for 15 years. One the most highly respected environmental voices in British Columbia. On the idea of Greenpeace hiring the person who betrayed the Canadian environmental movement:

“What were they thinking? Did they talk to anyone? Does Greenpeace do any due diligence?”

Bob Hunter (October 13, 1941–May 2, 2005) was a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972. Hunter, the first President of Greenpeace, was a long-time campaigner for environmental causes. In 1971, the word “Greenpeace” hadn’t yet been coined.  Bob was a hippy journalist in Vancouver, a town which he described as having “the biggest concentration of tree-huggers, radicalized students, garbage-dump stoppers, shit-disturbing unionists, freeway fighters, pot smokers and growers, aging Trotskyites, condo killers, farmland savers, fish preservationists, animal rights activists, back-to-the-landers, vegetarians, nudists, Buddhists, and anti-spraying, anti-pollution marchers and picketers in the country, per capita, in the world.”

This is the Greenpeace the world fell in love with.   This is the Greenpeace that changed the world with a real movement.  Give us back our old Greenpeace!

What can you do? Take Action! Write Greenpeace today.

Forward this email or write your own concerns and comments to the following people:

• Kumi Naidoo: kumi.naidoo@greenpeace.org | Executive Director, Greenpeace International
• Jessica Wilson: jessica.wilson@greenpeace.org
• Bruce Cox: Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada | cell: | bruce.cox@greenpeace.org
• Nigel Campbell: nigel.campbell@greenpeace.org
• Anne Dingwall: anne.dingwall@greenpeace.org |  Fundraising Director
• Phil Radford: phil.radford@greenpeace.org | Exec. Director, USA
• Jo Kuper: jo.kuper@greenpeace.org
• Martin Lloyd: martin.lloyd@greenpeace.org
• Gene Hashmi: gene.hashmi@greenpeace.org

“We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves” | Marquis De Vauvenargues, 1715-1747)Greenpeace International or Greenpeace Electric???

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”­ – Chinua Achebe ­ Nigerian Writer

First the tcktcktck scandal and now this. AT COP 15, the spokesperson for TckTckTck was Kumi Naidoo.  Kumi Naidoo is the Chair of  TckTckTck, as well as the executive director of Greenpeace International.

The recent decision by Greenpeace International to hire Tzeporah Berman to direct its global climate and energy campaign could be the most disastrous decision that Greenpeace has ever made. It is quite possible that this move may destroy the organizations reputation in such a damaging way it may never recover. The current economic system has caused us to have entered into what Dr. E.O. Wilson describes as ‘the sixth extinction’ – a phrase that many scientists are now using. We now face climate catastrophe on a dying planet already well on the pathway to a 6C temperature rise which will kill off most life. This recent appointment of Tzeporah Berman could be the greatest threat climate change justice has yet to face. Who is Tzeporah Berman anyway? Tzeporah Berman could be described as a Trojan horse for the biggest corporations on the planet. She has successfully entrenched her way into the position of bargaining away nature to the corporations, under the guise of an environmentalist. Perhaps this is a seemingly much better strategy than just having Pat Moore “ex-Greenpeace” running around supporting the corporations. The corporations have finally succeeded in placing a compromised ‘environmentalist’ into the very heart of Greenpeace – the most recognized environmental organization on the planet. The day after Tzeporah Berman announced her new Greenpeace role, she walked into an exclusive General Electric (GE) banquet (past the real environmental protesters) and delivered a speech supporting the privatization of some 600 rivers in British Columbia, Canada, for the benefit of GE and their subsidiaries and partners. So there was Greenpeace (not officially, of course, but in the public mind) endorsing the wholesale surrender of our environment to one of the most predatory corporations on the planet – GE has paid fines for illegal weapons trade fraud, money laundering, etc.

“There is nothing more dangerous than a shallow thinking compassionate person.” – Garrett Hardin

On a positive note – such a scandal may be the one that will finally expose the corporatization of compromised NGOs and the deafening silence on the reality of climate change which has been going on behind the scenes for quite some time – to which the public are mostly unaware.

Also amazing; right now, in the climate justice movement something extraordinarily important is happening.  After Copenhagen – a line is finally being drawn in the sand. True climate justice groups are now refusing to sign onto to any statement that endorses a temperature which exceeds a 1C temperature rise. As compromised NGOs are still clinging to the suicidal 1.5C – 2C temperatures, we will now finally see a clear divide. True climate justice groups versus the compromised NGOs. As well, true climate justice groups are now mobilizing to endorse a global emergency declaration on climate change. Again, those who do not sign on will be easily identified as those with vested interests.

The Tzeporah Berman specialty: Disaster Capitalism

The message behind disaster capitalism campaigning is this; climate change is “so urgent” that we have to turn the planet over to GE and other corporations to “save us.” This is all bullshit. This messaging is designed with the purpose of gaining corporate control of Earths natural assets. The question is, what has gone wrong at Greenpeace International? Is it i) lack of due-diligence, ii) lack of research ii) lack of knowledge or iv) is this the new direction of Greenpeace? Did they not speak to anyone in Canada who has dealt with Tzeporah Berman? (See extensive list of comments below including comments from Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler). With the Earth now passing several planetary boundaries and ecosystems now failing, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world – disaster capitalism is now set to explode.

General Electric

To help sell their corporate privatization of British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, GE placed Tzeporah on the cover of their magazine, Reader’s Digest. General Electric, which owns one of the world’s largest media conglomerates – as well as weapons production, weapons trade, and military contracts – owns Reader’s Digest through GE Capital with partners Bank of America and JPMorgan. GE has a history of using Reader’s Digest to hype its offspring, including a health Insurance company, its astroturf organizations, and now, their well trained “environmentalist,” Tzeporah Berman. Keep in mind that General Electric plays both sides of the climate “debate”. While they support astroturf organizations – such as Tzeporah’s “Power UP Canada” to sell their private acquisition of Canadian public assets; allegedly to build “alternative power” and “reduce global warming”, they simultaneously fund the organizations that deny global warming. GE funds the American Petroleum Institute, for example, and it’s astroturf affiliates such as “Energy Citizens,” who stage “grassroots” rallies to deny climate change and defeat climate legislation in the U.S. General Electric is a member of American Petroleum Institute (API), along with Dow, Bechtel, Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP America, ConocoPhillips, General Siemens, Enbridge, and so forth.

GE is also a member of United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) – an organization which supports a target of 450-550 parts per million of CO2 – which is suicidal. USCA consists of corporately funded NGOs such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute, Pew Center on Global Climate Change and these corporatized NGOs partner with the likes of Shell, The Dow Chemical Company and many more multinational corporations who continue to exploit both people and planet in the name of insatiable corporate profits. Will Greenpeace International be the next to get in bed with USCAP?

GE is a member through GE Oil & Gas Conmec and General Electric Inspection Services (both link directly to GE Energy) GE Energy is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and delivery from coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy. GE is now moving into renewable resources such as water, wind, and solar by acquiring rights to those energy resources worldwide. In B.C. their plan is to privatize some 600 watersheds, acquire the water and energy resources, and then sell it back to the public at exorbitant prices they set with the corrupted government that they support. GE takes B.C. public and ecological assets and not even pays trinkets, but rather makes citizens pay with a liability to buy their power at a rate they’ve wrangled from Gordon Campbell and his accenture (former Arthur Anderson of the Enron cookie jar crowd) advisors. General Electric helped fund these climate change denial campaigns, while simultaneously using the urgency of global warming to make a grab for hundreds of rivers, tributaries, and watersheds in British Columbia, Canada. They’ve attached Tzeporah Berman to the deal to give it a green patina. One could argue that, Tzeporah, in essence, represents General Electric. She is now their allegedly friendly face of privatization. She stands in opposition to the people of British Columbia, the grass roots environmental organizations, the long-standing Canadian ecology groups – Greenpeace, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, BC Citizens for Public Power, Indigenous Environmental Network and others. General Electric: one of the most destructive corporations on the planet. Involved in global weapons manufacture and trade, with international criminal convictions for weapons trading fraud and money laundering, deeply institutionalized in the U.S. Defense Contract community, controlling massive media ownership – including Reader’s Digest.

Copenhagen – For some, a tiny tax outweighs massive environmental destruction

On December 29than article by Roger Annis appeared on Climate & Capitalism; Here is an excerpt;

At first glance, it seemed that the “Yes Men” had scored another comedic coup for Mother Earth. CBC Radio news reported on December 16 that on the previous day, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell was feted and presented an environmental award by many of Canada’s well-heeled “environmental groups” during the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. Hah! Great gag, guys! And very timely. An embarrassingly large number of people and agencies in Canada and abroad have been hoodwinked by the BC government’s claims to environmental stewardship and its greenwashing propaganda. But wait, the story proves to be true and not a gag at all! Campbell actually did receive an ‘Economy Wide Carbon Pricing’ award from Tzeporah Berman of PowerUp Canada, one of ten of Canada’s best funded “environmental groups” that endorsed the award, presented at a gala recognizing “acts of climate leadership” by municipal and provincial governments across Canada. Other award endorsers are the David Suzuki Foundation, the Ecology Action Centre, Environmental Defence, Équiterre, ForestEthics, the Green Energy Act Alliance, the Pembina Institute, TckTckTck, and WWF Canada.

Voices of dissent

The Sierra Club did not participate in the Copenhagen award gala. Executive Director George Heyman, a former long-time president of the BC Government Employees Union, said the BC Liberals have taken a lot of actions that are “deeply contradictory” to its greenwashing propaganda. Heyman pointed out that fuel is exempt from the soon-to-be-imposed Harmonized Sales Tax, but the labour for energy efficient home retrofits is not. “They’re also providing massive subsidies to the oil and gas industry. . . and supporting a massive pipeline to move dirty tar sands oil across B.C.,” he said. Voices of concern are on the rise from the Indigenous peoples living in the coal and gas rich regions. Writing in the Vancouver Sun on December 22, Kathie Dickie, Chief of the 800-member Fort Nelson First Nation, expressed grave concern over two giant gas processing facilities being built near Fort Nelson, in northeast B.C. Chief Dickie wrote there has been no meaningful consultation with her people concerning the environmental impacts of En Cana Corporation’s Cabin Gas Plant nor a Spectra Gas plant to be located 15 kilometers away. Cabin Gas, once constructed, will be the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the province. One BC government official told the Fort Nelson First Nation that its 100-year old treaty with Canada does not guarantee clean air. “Imagine being told by a government official in 2009 that you have no say on the quality of air you or your children breathe! What parent would stand for it?” Dickie asked. The pale green groups that honored Gordon Campbell should be ashamed. His government should be condemned, not praised.

This must be stopped

There must be an international response. Please circulate this to all of your contacts concerned for the environment and climate justice. See the email addresses for Greenpeace staff below. We now stand on the cusp of the bleakest periods where we are confronted with the zero point of systemic collapse. Now is the time to be bold. No more compromise. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the corporatized NGOs who have hijacked the environmental movement. Such compromised NGO behaviour has been nothing less than an absolute detriment to the real environmental movement. The same compromised NGOs have and continue to obstruct real climate justice by keeping the public in the dark on the necessary targets we must demand to avert the climate crisis we now face. Below is one of the most truthful videos on climate change that exists today.

The Vancouver Media Coop in Canada are promoting an excellent idea of having Greenpeace members and donors contact Greenpeace expressing their disapproval. This must happen on the largest possible scale.

The Pale Green Patina; How General Electric promotes their trained “Environmentalist”

 

General Electric is hyping Tzeporah Berman, BC’s pale green media princess, as “The New Face of Environmentalism” while she helps them sell their private power deals in Canada. Their goal: to privatize Canadian rivers for corporate profit. Stumping for GE: Sunday, February 15, 2010: The day after announcing her new “greenpeace” role, Tzeporah marched into the private General Electric banquet with the GE executives and security guards, past the Wilderness Committee and other protesters. Inside, she delivered a stump speech supporting the corporate privatization of B.C. wilderness rivers. She is also in favour of the Canadian Tar Sands … with similar phoney-green promises.

Here is the result of Tzeporah’s brand of industrial corporate faux environmentalism;

The once pristine Toba Inlet watershed

This individual who Greenpeace International has hired has successfully betrayed her homeland and alienated the real environmental movement. She crossed an environmental picket to promote the global privatization plans of General Electric.

Pale Green Goes Hollywood

Tzeporah & Paris: savouring the taste of fame

Ego knows no bounds. A taste for power

while cutting deals with corporations and selling of the natural world.

Ms. Berman presenting a “Green” Award to the man who privatized British Columbia, sold it to General Electric and other international corporations, who built highways across farmland and called it “green;” who reversed dioxin effluent safeguards that we fought for and instituted in B.C. to protect our water; who sold off the public and natural heritage of British Columbia and opened the doors to General Electric to occupy hundreds of watersheds, devastate riparian ecosystems, and destroy forests for transmission lines to carry expensive power to mines in the north and to sprawling cities in the U.S.

 

It’s not easy being the pale green patina over the corporate industrialization of Canada.

Comments from BC environmentalists

Barbara Stowe:

Barbara was a teenager at the first Greenpeace meetings in 1970. Her parents, Dorothy and Irving, are founders of Greenpeace.

“Tzeporah’s support of our anti-environmental, union-busting, social-program-slashing government during an election campaign last year appalled me. She certainly knew her remarks would be used to help the powers that be get re-elected (as did occur). At the best, her actions showed a disturbing lack of judgement. Her stance on the Run of River projects deeply concerns me, and as for applauding our premier because he was sly enough to know that instituting a carbon tax would pull votes from the Greens and other left leaning parties…well, I’m very concerned that GPI would consider working with someone with her views. Given the response of environmentalists in BC to her actions last year, there is no doubt that this hire would cause serious rifts between Greenpeace and the environmental community.”

Clayoquot Sound original activists:

The founders of Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) consider Tzeporah an opportunist who used them and Clayoquot to climb the publicity ladder into cozy deals with the logging companies. Tzeporah used other people’s jail time for her own advancement. She stepped on a lot of people to get inside the corporate boardrooms that she is now so comfortable in. Here are comments from early Clayoquot activists in Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS):

Andrew Struthers in his history, The Green Shadow:

“Summer faded. The face of Mother Winter appeared in the sky over the Black Hole. Things got tense. Tzapata got into a giant queen bee struggle with Artemis, a woman who had been with the Friends since the Sulpher Pass days. Artemis got fired. When The Boss can tell you to clean out your desk, it’s just not anarchy anymore.”

Janie Jones:

Berman continued to queen bee her way through the FOCS, Greenpeace and then into her own organization ForestEthics and now, PowerUp Canada. Berman did not “lead” the blocades at Clayoquot Sound as she claims. They were organized, led and financed (one American heiress pretty well underwrote the whole thing) by the Friends of Clayoquot Sound of whom Berman became a member. Most of the original Friends, all residents of the area, had already been convicted of protesting the clearcut logging the summer before and, as part of their conditions, could not attend the daily blockades at Kennedy Lake, which is why they invited the world come there and protest for them. Ms. Berman, a former fashion student from Toronto with no direct experience or knowledge of the forest industry or the BC culture it supported, was one of over ten thousand who showed up. Because of the void at the site combined with her natural leadership qualities, the charismatic and photogenicyoung Berman rose to prominence as model/spokesperson for the daily ritual of blockading, readings of injunction and arrests.”

Betty Krawczyk: The real Clayoquot forest activist – Author of Clayoquot: The Sound Of My Heart (January 1997) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Krawczyk

Krawczyk is the woman who stood up to police, logging companies, and the courts, arrested many times at Clayoquot, Eagle Ridge Bluff, and other forest destruction sites. She did her first jail stint in 1993 at the age of 65, blockading logging trucks, and she’s still at it, today, at age 82. Here are some of her thoughts on Tzeporah’s betrayal of the B.C. environmental movement:

“Tzeporah Berman has evidently gone over to Gordon Campbell’s camp. Perhaps she is seeking a Liberal political appointment. Too bad. I can remember when she was an agent for change. But change will happen without her. It’s happening right now. She can allow herself to be used by the Campbell government as she likes, but the likes of the Campbell government have already been condemned to the dustbins of history. The private business model she advocates is no longer workable. It is killing the earth. And the economy. Good-bye, Tzeporah.”

Anita Burke: Former Sustainability Director for Shell Oil | Founder of the Catalyst Institute |http://www.catalystinstitute.com/

After leaving her Shell International sustainable development and energy portfolio Anita founded Catalyst Institute to do the work she was not allowed to do for the oil company, actually create a genuine sustainable future. She advises governments and businesses on operationalizing real sustainable development and socioeconomic change. Her comments, regarding the “green rift” created in Canada by Tzeporah and General Electric:

“The division was no accidental by-product of their actions. It was the purpose, at least for General Electric. Shell Oil purposefully planned and executed these types of rifts within the environmental movement when I was at Shell. Get em so busy arguing amoungst themselves that it will use up their resources and redirect them from the issues. Tzeporah is just a pawn in their game, and her ego is what they feed on, ego and fear. Sad day for BC. Sorrowful future for Tzeporah’s manipulated and misguided soul.”

Rex Weyler: 40 years in the Canadian environmental movement, Author of “Greenpeace: The Inside Story,” a co-founder of Greenpeace International:

Tzeporah Berman may be well intentioned, but she has embraced Disaster Capitalism, as described by Naomi Klein. She claims that climate change is so urgent, we must turn our natural assets over to General Electric, Plutonic Power, and other global corporations. She talks of “solving global warming,” and “new energy” but she possesses very little knowledge of ecology, energy, or biophysical economics. Perhaps she’s been duped into thinking that since climate warming is urgent, we should turn over our watersheds to General Electric to “solve global warming.” This is a new “green” phase of Disaster Capitalism. At best, this is a sad case of Garrett Harding’s “shallow thinking compassionate person.” At worst, this is an all-out betrayal of environmentalism, of the groups and activists who built the environmental movement in Canada and in the world, and a betrayal of the Earth itself. In any case, Tzeporah now speaks for General Electric, not for the Earth, not for wilderness, and not for our children’s future. And General Electric – one of the largest corporations in the world, involved in illegal weapons trading (for which they’ve paid fines), money laundering, and nuclear power – has one single agenda: acquire assets, increase company value, make profits, take the cash. And for this goal, they have one simple strategy regarding nature: Privatize everything. Turn the world into the private property of corporations, and sell it back to the public. On Sunday, February 14, 2010, at an exclusive General Electric banquet in Vancouver, Tzeporah supported GE’s privatization of Canadian rivers. She now represents corporate power, not ecology. Those of us in the ecology and environmental movement have to move on and do the real work.”

Donna Passmore: Campaigner with the Fraser Valley Conservation Coalition, battling the proposed Gateway project that Tzeporah’s “green” political friends in the B.C. Liberal government are building.

“I am disgusted by her stand on run-of-river private power projects.”

Notes from David Shipway:

35 year resident of Cortes Island near Toba Inlet | shipway@island.net | February 3, 2010

Run of river site plan details; Bute Inlet example; This is what the Tzeporah / General Electric “climate policy” is doing to Canadian Watersheds. GE is the big money behind this … with JPMorgan, & the usual crowd ..

“Plutonic Power” is a local GE partner ..

The hydrocarbon cost of Tzeporah Berman’s scheme with General Electric to occupy 300 rivers and watersheds in British Columbia, including 17 rivers in the Toba watershed. First you do the feasibility studies: fly all kinds of engineers, hydrologists, biologists and potential investors around in helicopters a few dozen times, have them work up a detailed plan in well-lit gas-heated offices somewhere, and deliver your plan to govt/public so they can spend lots of time and energy deliberating and dismantling it. Once it’s all a GO, Phase 1 is to build new access or fix any existing roads/bridges, clear various sites and bring in a huge temporary camp facility on several barges. This is the one Pluto set up in Toba, which houses 300 in luxury, was purpose built and shipped from Kamloops… Add a 100KW diesel generator running 24/7 for a year too. Phase 2 is to log and clear turbine and penstock sites with conventional diesel equip. This next pic is the steep trench for Montrose penstock beside the McGyver-Kennedy waterfall, soon barely a trickle. It has a total 2000 m. vertical head. This is approx. 6′ diam steel pipe is laid in a trench that often has to be dynamited through rock, then buried, presumably revegetated later:

A later photo shows they had a slide/blowout near the base, so assume some work has to be repeated. I don’t know how to quantify energy/carbon expense, but it looks like some of this route is heli-access only, so that means some earth-moving machinery and penstock pipe is flown in by chopper, after it has all been barged up the inlet, along with oodles of diesel and such. Not sure where the 2m. diam D penstock pipe comes from (China?), but it’s about 12mm wall thickness, and is epoxy or poly-coated, and the 10m. pieces are double-welded together on-site with portable diesel-powered welders. About 3Km of pipe for each powerhouse. Bute will have 17 of these. Phase 3 is “adjustable dam” and intake- lots of diesel-powed terraforming and concrete:

Phase 4 is turbine/powerhouse construction – first lots of site work with heavy equip.

then Build reinforced concrete powerhouse with steel roof, untold amounts of specialty materials and copper, Pluto’s turbines are imported from Austria, electrical stuff from US.

This is East Toba Powerhouse – 2 turbines with total of 123MW capacity, annual output estimated at 465 GWh. The output of those turbines require stepping up in voltage- so add power substations/transformers. Are they still using PCB’s ?

Phase 5 is transmission corridor – or as Tzeppie says, using General Electric language, “the transmission backbone” – built with road-based equipment and helicopter, for each plant, some 150 Kms x 50m wide transmission corridor logged (a permanent clearcut):

Most of the timber is just left to rot because helicopter time is too expensive to retrieve it. Finally, General Electric and their partners will plant 30m-tall steel towers by helicopter every few hundred metres, with big ceramic insulators and 3 runs of transmission wire. The Bute transmission line will run all the way down to Saltery Bay /Jervis Inlet, where it plugs into the Cheekeye-Dunsmuir line.

Vancouver Media Co-op | http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/blog/macdonald/2824

Tzep calls for gentle tar sands, promotes GE

Tzeporah Berman is readying the ground to sell-out both Greenpeace and the anti-tar sands struggle… Berman is a master of publicity and is already setting the groundwork for future campaigns and betrayals, backroom deals and greenwashing the un-greenable. Since there is no such technology as “clean tar sands” anymore than clean coal, one must assume that this is right in line with why she is promoting the destruction of rivers in BC: to use them as “clean energy.” All members and donors to Greenpeace should IMMEDIATELY alert the organization that if she takes office they will pull all contributions to the organization that once had actual opposition to these kinds of massive destructive developments. Txeporah Berman will make deals with Suncor, in private backrooms. SHUT DOWN THE TAR SANDS, DO NOT MAKE THEM “FRIENDLY”.

Delores Broton: 30 years in the B.C. environmental movement, editor of the Watershed Sentinel for 15 years. One the most highly respected environmental voices in British Columbia. On the idea of Greenpeace hiring the person who betrayed the Canadian environmental movement:

“What were they thinking? Did they talk to anyone? Does Greenpeace do any due diligence?”

Bob Hunter (October 13, 1941–May 2, 2005) was a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972. Hunter, the first President of Greenpeace, was a long-time campaigner for environmental causes. In 1971, the word “Greenpeace” hadn’t yet been coined.  Bob was a hippy journalist in Vancouver, a town which he described as having “the biggest concentration of tree-huggers, radicalized students, garbage-dump stoppers, shit-disturbing unionists, freeway fighters, pot smokers and growers, aging Trotskyites, condo killers, farmland savers, fish preservationists, animal rights activists, back-to-the-landers, vegetarians, nudists, Buddhists, and anti-spraying, anti-pollution marchers and picketers in the country, per capita, in the world.”

This is the Greenpeace the world fell in love with.   This is the Greenpeace that changed the world with a real movement.  Give us back our old Greenpeace!

What can you do? Take Action! Write Greenpeace today.

Forward this email or write your own concerns and comments to the following people:

• Kumi Naidoo: kumi.naidoo@greenpeace.org | Executive Director, Greenpeace International
• Jessica Wilson: jessica.wilson@greenpeace.org
• Bruce Cox: Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada | cell: | bruce.cox@greenpeace.org
• Nigel Campbell: nigel.campbell@greenpeace.org
• Anne Dingwall: anne.dingwall@greenpeace.org |  Fundraising Director
• Phil Radford: phil.radford@greenpeace.org | Exec. Director, USA
• Jo Kuper: jo.kuper@greenpeace.org
• Martin Lloyd: martin.lloyd@greenpeace.org
• Gene Hashmi: gene.hashmi@greenpeace.org

“We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves” | Marquis De Vauvenargues, 1715-1747)Greenpeace International or Greenpeace Electric???

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”­ – Chinua Achebe ­ Nigerian Writer

First the tcktcktck scandal and now this. AT COP 15, the spokesperson for TckTckTck was Kumi Naidoo.  Kumi Naidoo is the Chair of  TckTckTck, as well as the executive director of Greenpeace International.

The recent decision by Greenpeace International to hire Tzeporah Berman to direct its global climate and energy campaign could be the most disastrous decision that Greenpeace has ever made. It is quite possible that this move may destroy the organizations reputation in such a damaging way it may never recover. The current economic system has caused us to have entered into what Dr. E.O. Wilson describes as ‘the sixth extinction’ – a phrase that many scientists are now using. We now face climate catastrophe on a dying planet already well on the pathway to a 6C temperature rise which will kill off most life. This recent appointment of Tzeporah Berman could be the greatest threat climate change justice has yet to face. Who is Tzeporah Berman anyway? Tzeporah Berman could be described as a Trojan horse for the biggest corporations on the planet. She has successfully entrenched her way into the position of bargaining away nature to the corporations, under the guise of an environmentalist. Perhaps this is a seemingly much better strategy than just having Pat Moore “ex-Greenpeace” running around supporting the corporations. The corporations have finally succeeded in placing a compromised ‘environmentalist’ into the very heart of Greenpeace – the most recognized environmental organization on the planet. The day after Tzeporah Berman announced her new Greenpeace role, she walked into an exclusive General Electric (GE) banquet (past the real environmental protesters) and delivered a speech supporting the privatization of some 600 rivers in British Columbia, Canada, for the benefit of GE and their subsidiaries and partners. So there was Greenpeace (not officially, of course, but in the public mind) endorsing the wholesale surrender of our environment to one of the most predatory corporations on the planet – GE has paid fines for illegal weapons trade fraud, money laundering, etc.

“There is nothing more dangerous than a shallow thinking compassionate person.” – Garrett Hardin

On a positive note – such a scandal may be the one that will finally expose the corporatization of compromised NGOs and the deafening silence on the reality of climate change which has been going on behind the scenes for quite some time – to which the public are mostly unaware.

Also amazing; right now, in the climate justice movement something extraordinarily important is happening.  After Copenhagen – a line is finally being drawn in the sand. True climate justice groups are now refusing to sign onto to any statement that endorses a temperature which exceeds a 1C temperature rise. As compromised NGOs are still clinging to the suicidal 1.5C – 2C temperatures, we will now finally see a clear divide. True climate justice groups verses the compromised NGOs. As well, true climate justice groups are now mobilizing to endorse a global emergency declaration on climate change. Again, those who do not sign on will be easily identified as those with vested interests.

The Tzeporah Berman specialty: Disaster Capitalism

The message behind disaster capitalism campaigning is this; climate change is “so urgent” that we have to turn the planet over to GE and other corporations to “save us.” This is all bullshit. This messaging is designed with the purpose of gaining corporate control of Earths natural assets. The question is, what has gone wrong at Greenpeace International? Is it i) lack of due-diligence, ii) lack of research ii) lack of knowledge or iv) is this the new direction of Greenpeace? Did they not speak to anyone in Canada who has dealt with Tzeporah Berman? (See extensive list of comments below including comments from Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler). With the Earth now passing several planetary boundaries and ecosystems now failing, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world – disaster capitalism is now set to explode.

General Electric

To help sell their corporate privatization of British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, GE placed Tzeporah on the cover of their magazine, Reader’s Digest. General Electric, which owns one of the world’s largest media conglomerates – as well as weapons production, weapons trade, and military contracts – owns Reader’s Digest through GE Capital with partners Bank of America and JPMorgan. GE has a history of using Reader’s Digest to hype its offspring, including a health Insurance company, its astroturf organizations, and now, their well trained “environmentalist,” Tzeporah Berman. Keep in mind that General Electric plays both sides of the climate “debate”. While they support astroturf organizations – such as Tzeporah’s “Power UP Canada” to sell their private acquisition of Canadian public assets; allegedly to build “alternative power” and “reduce global warming”, they simultaneously fund the organizations that deny global warming. GE funds the American Petroleum Institute, for example, and it’s astroturf affiliates such as “Energy Citizens,” who stage “grassroots” rallies to deny climate change and defeat climate legislation in the U.S. General Electric is a member of American Petroleum Institute (API), along with Dow, Bechtel, Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP America, ConocoPhillips, General Siemens, Enbridge, and so forth.

GE is also a member of United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) – an organization which supports a target of 450-550 parts per million of CO2 – which is suicidal. USCA consists of corporately funded NGOs such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute, Pew Center on Global Climate Change and these corporatized NGOs partner with the likes of Shell, The Dow Chemical Company and many more multinational corporations who continue to exploit both people and planet in the name of insatiable corporate profits. Will Greenpeace International be the next to get in bed with USCAP?

GE is a member through GE Oil & Gas Conmec and General Electric Inspection Services (both link directly to GE Energy) GE Energy is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and delivery from coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy. GE is now moving into renewable resources such as water, wind, and solar by acquiring rights to those energy resources worldwide. In B.C. their plan is to privatize some 600 watersheds, acquire the water and energy resources, and then sell it back to the public at exorbitant prices they set with the corrupted government that they support. GE takes B.C. public and ecological assets and not even pays trinkets, but rather makes citizens pay with a liability to buy their power at a rate they’ve wrangled from Gordon Campbell and his accenture (former Arthur Anderson of the Enron cookie jar crowd) advisors. General Electric helped fund these climate change denial campaigns, while simultaneously using the urgency of global warming to make a grab for hundreds of rivers, tributaries, and watersheds in British Columbia, Canada. They’ve attached Tzeporah Berman to the deal to give it a green patina. One could argue that, Tzeporah, in essence, represents General Electric. She is now their allegedly friendly face of privatization. She stands in opposition to the people of British Columbia, the grass roots environmental organizations, the long-standing Canadian ecology groups – Greenpeace, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, BC Citizens for Public Power, Indigenous Environmental Network and others. General Electric: one of the most destructive corporations on the planet. Involved in global weapons manufacture and trade, with international criminal convictions for weapons trading fraud and money laundering, deeply institutionalized in the U.S. Defense Contract community, controlling massive media ownership – including Reader’s Digest.

Copenhagen – For some, a tiny tax outweighs massive environmental destruction

On December 29than article by Roger Annis appeared on Climate & Capitalism; Here is an excerpt;

At first glance, it seemed that the “Yes Men” had scored another comedic coup for Mother Earth. CBC Radio news reported on December 16 that on the previous day, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell was feted and presented an environmental award by many of Canada’s well-heeled “environmental groups” during the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. Hah! Great gag, guys! And very timely. An embarrassingly large number of people and agencies in Canada and abroad have been hoodwinked by the BC government’s claims to environmental stewardship and its greenwashing propaganda. But wait, the story proves to be true and not a gag at all! Campbell actually did receive an ‘Economy Wide Carbon Pricing’ award from Tzeporah Berman of PowerUp Canada, one of ten of Canada’s best funded “environmental groups” that endorsed the award, presented at a gala recognizing “acts of climate leadership” by municipal and provincial governments across Canada. Other award endorsers are the David Suzuki Foundation, the Ecology Action Centre, Environmental Defence, Équiterre, ForestEthics, the Green Energy Act Alliance, the Pembina Institute, TckTckTck, and WWF Canada.

Voices of dissent

The Sierra Club did not participate in the Copenhagen award gala. Executive Director George Heyman, a former long-time president of the BC Government Employees Union, said the BC Liberals have taken a lot of actions that are “deeply contradictory” to its greenwashing propaganda. Heyman pointed out that fuel is exempt from the soon-to-be-imposed Harmonized Sales Tax, but the labour for energy efficient home retrofits is not. “They’re also providing massive subsidies to the oil and gas industry. . . and supporting a massive pipeline to move dirty tar sands oil across B.C.,” he said. Voices of concern are on the rise from the Indigenous peoples living in the coal and gas rich regions. Writing in the Vancouver Sun on December 22, Kathie Dickie, Chief of the 800-member Fort Nelson First Nation, expressed grave concern over two giant gas processing facilities being built near Fort Nelson, in northeast B.C. Chief Dickie wrote there has been no meaningful consultation with her people concerning the environmental impacts of En Cana Corporation’s Cabin Gas Plant nor a Spectra Gas plant to be located 15 kilometers away. Cabin Gas, once constructed, will be the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the province. One BC government official told the Fort Nelson First Nation that its 100-year old treaty with Canada does not guarantee clean air. “Imagine being told by a government official in 2009 that you have no say on the quality of air you or your children breathe! What parent would stand for it?” Dickie asked. The pale green groups that honored Gordon Campbell should be ashamed. His government should be condemned, not praised.

This must be stopped

There must be an international response. Please circulate this to all of your contacts concerned for the environment and climate justice. See the email addresses for Greenpeace staff below. We now stand on the cusp of the bleakest periods where we are confronted with the zero point of systemic collapse. Now is the time to be bold. No more compromise. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the corporatized NGOs who have hijacked the environmental movement. Such compromised NGO behaviour has been nothing less than an absolute detriment to the real environmental movement. The same compromised NGOs have and continue to obstruct real climate justice by keeping the public in the dark on the necessary targets we must demand to avert the climate crisis we now face. Below is one of the most truthful videos on climate change that exists today.

The Vancouver Media Coop in Canada are promoting an excellent idea of having Greenpeace members and donors contact Greenpeace expressing their disapproval. This must happen on the largest possible scale.

The Pale Green Patina; How General Electric promotes their trained “Environmentalist”

General Electric is hyping Tzeporah Berman, BC’s pale green media princess, as “The New Face of Environmentalism” while she helps them sell their private power deals in Canada. Their goal: to privatize Canadian rivers for corporate profit. Stumping for GE: Sunday, February 15, 2010: The day after announcing her new “greenpeace” role, Tzeporah marched into the private General Electric banquet with the GE executives and security guards, past the Wilderness Committee and other protesters. Inside, she delivered a stump speech supporting the corporate privatization of B.C. wilderness rivers. She is also in favour of the Canadian Tar Sands … with similar phoney-green promises.

Here is the result of Tzeporah’s brand of industrial corporate faux environmentalism;

The once pristine Toba Inlet watershed

This individual who Greenpeace International has hired has successfully betrayed her homeland and alienated the real environmental movement. She crossed an environmental picket to promote the global privatization plans of General Electric.

Pale Green Goes Hollywood

Tzeporah & Paris: savouring the taste of fame

Ego knows no bounds. A taste for power

while cutting deals with corporations and selling of the natural world.

Ms. Berman presenting a “Green” Award to the man who privatized British Columbia, sold it to General Electric and other international corporations, who built highways across farmland and called it “green;” who reversed dioxin effluent safeguards that we fought for and instituted in B.C. to protect our water; who sold off the public and natural heritage of British Columbia and opened the doors to General Electric to occupy hundreds of watersheds, devastate riparian ecosystems, and destroy forests for transmission lines to carry expensive power to mines in the north and to sprawling cities in the U.S.

It’s not easy being the pale green patina over the corporate industrialization of Canada.

Comments from BC environmentalists

Barbara Stowe:

Barbara was a teenager at the first Greenpeace meetings in 1970. Her parents, Dorothy and Irving, are founders of Greenpeace.

“Tzeporah’s support of our anti-environmental, union-busting, social-program-slashing government during an election campaign last year appalled me. She certainly knew her remarks would be used to help the powers that be get re-elected (as did occur). At the best, her actions showed a disturbing lack of judgement. Her stance on the Run of River projects deeply concerns me, and as for applauding our premier because he was sly enough to know that instituting a carbon tax would pull votes from the Greens and other left leaning parties…well, I’m very concerned that GPI would consider working with someone with her views. Given the response of environmentalists in BC to her actions last year, there is no doubt that this hire would cause serious rifts between Greenpeace and the environmental community.”

Clayoquot Sound original activists:

The founders of Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) consider Tzeporah an opportunist who used them and Clayoquot to climb the publicity ladder into cozy deals with the logging companies. Tzeporah used other people’s jail time for her own advancement. She stepped on a lot of people to get inside the corporate boardrooms that she is now so comfortable in. Here are comments from early Clayoquot activists in Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS):

Andrew Struthers in his history, The Green Shadow:

“Summer faded. The face of Mother Winter appeared in the sky over the Black Hole. Things got tense. Tzapata got into a giant queen bee struggle with Artemis, a woman who had been with the Friends since the Sulpher Pass days. Artemis got fired. When The Boss can tell you to clean out your desk, it’s just not anarchy anymore.”

Janie Jones:

Berman continued to queen bee her way through the FOCS, Greenpeace and then into her own organization ForestEthics and now, PowerUp Canada. Berman did not “lead” the blocades at Clayoquot Sound as she claims. They were organized, led and financed (one American heiress pretty well underwrote the whole thing) by the Friends of Clayoquot Sound of whom Berman became a member. Most of the original Friends, all residents of the area, had already been convicted of protesting the clearcut logging the summer before and, as part of their conditions, could not attend the daily blockades at Kennedy Lake, which is why they invited the world come there and protest for them. Ms. Berman, a former fashion student from Toronto with no direct experience or knowledge of the forest industry or the BC culture it supported, was one of over ten thousand who showed up. Because of the void at the site combined with her natural leadership qualities, the charismatic and photogenicyoung Berman rose to prominence as model/spokesperson for the daily ritual of blockading, readings of injunction and arrests.”

Betty Krawczyk: The real Clayoquot forest activist – Author of Clayoquot: The Sound Of My Heart (January 1997) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Krawczyk

Krawczyk is the woman who stood up to police, logging companies, and the courts, arrested many times at Clayoquot, Eagle Ridge Bluff, and other forest destruction sites. She did her first jail stint in 1993 at the age of 65, blockading logging trucks, and she’s still at it, today, at age 82. Here are some of her thoughts on Tzeporah’s betrayal of the B.C. environmental movement:

“Tzeporah Berman has evidently gone over to Gordon Campbell’s camp. Perhaps she is seeking a Liberal political appointment. Too bad. I can remember when she was an agent for change. But change will happen without her. It’s happening right now. She can allow herself to be used by the Campbell government as she likes, but the likes of the Campbell government have already been condemned to the dustbins of history. The private business model she advocates is no longer workable. It is killing the earth. And the economy. Good-bye, Tzeporah.”

Anita Burke: Former Sustainability Director for Shell Oil | Founder of the Catalyst Institute |http://www.catalystinstitute.com/

After leaving her Shell International sustainable development and energy portfolio Anita founded Catalyst Institute to do the work she was not allowed to do for the oil company, actually create a genuine sustainable future. She advises governments and businesses on operationalizing real sustainable development and socioeconomic change. Her comments, regarding the “green rift” created in Canada by Tzeporah and General Electric:

“The division was no accidental by-product of their actions. It was the purpose, at least for General Electric. Shell Oil purposefully planned and executed these types of rifts within the environmental movement when I was at Shell. Get em so busy arguing amoungst themselves that it will use up their resources and redirect them from the issues. Tzeporah is just a pawn in their game, and her ego is what they feed on, ego and fear. Sad day for BC. Sorrowful future for Tzeporah’s manipulated and misguided soul.”

Rex Weyler: 40 years in the Canadian environmental movement, Author of “Greenpeace: The Inside Story,” a co-founder of Greenpeace International:

Tzeporah Berman may be well intentioned, but she has embraced Disaster Capitalism, as described by Naomi Klein. She claims that climate change is so urgent, we must turn our natural assets over to General Electric, Plutonic Power, and other global corporations. She talks of “solving global warming,” and “new energy” but she possesses very little knowledge of ecology, energy, or biophysical economics. Perhaps she’s been duped into thinking that since climate warming is urgent, we should turn over our watersheds to General Electric to “solve global warming.” This is a new “green” phase of Disaster Capitalism. At best, this is a sad case of Garrett Harding’s “shallow thinking compassionate person.” At worst, this is an all-out betrayal of environmentalism, of the groups and activists who built the environmental movement in Canada and in the world, and a betrayal of the Earth itself. In any case, Tzeporah now speaks for General Electric, not for the Earth, not for wilderness, and not for our children’s future. And General Electric – one of the largest corporations in the world, involved in illegal weapons trading (for which they’ve paid fines), money laundering, and nuclear power – has one single agenda: acquire assets, increase company value, make profits, take the cash. And for this goal, they have one simple strategy regarding nature: Privatize everything. Turn the world into the private property of corporations, and sell it back to the public. On Sunday, February 14, 2010, at an exclusive General Electric banquet in Vancouver, Tzeporah supported GE’s privatization of Canadian rivers. She now represents corporate power, not ecology. Those of us in the ecology and environmental movement have to move on and do the real work.”

Donna Passmore: Campaigner with the Fraser Valley Conservation Coalition, battling the proposed Gateway project that Tzeporah’s “green” political friends in the B.C. Liberal government are building.

“I am disgusted by her stand on run-of-river private power projects.”

Notes from David Shipway:

35 year resident of Cortes Island near Toba Inlet | shipway@island.net | February 3, 2010

Run of river site plan details; Bute Inlet example; This is what the Tzeporah / General Electric “climate policy” is doing to Canadian Watersheds. GE is the big money behind this … with JPMorgan, & the usual crowd ..

“Plutonic Power” is a local GE partner ..

The hydrocarbon cost of Tzeporah Berman’s scheme with General Electric to occupy 300 rivers and watersheds in British Columbia, including 17 rivers in the Toba watershed. First you do the feasibility studies: fly all kinds of engineers, hydrologists, biologists and potential investors around in helicopters a few dozen times, have them work up a detailed plan in well-lit gas-heated offices somewhere, and deliver your plan to govt/public so they can spend lots of time and energy deliberating and dismantling it. Once it’s all a GO, Phase 1 is to build new access or fix any existing roads/bridges, clear various sites and bring in a huge temporary camp facility on several barges. This is the one Pluto set up in Toba, which houses 300 in luxury, was purpose built and shipped from Kamloops… Add a 100KW diesel generator running 24/7 for a year too. Phase 2 is to log and clear turbine and penstock sites with conventional diesel equip. This next pic is the steep trench for Montrose penstock beside the McGyver-Kennedy waterfall, soon barely a trickle. It has a total 2000 m. vertical head. This is approx. 6′ diam steel pipe is laid in a trench that often has to be dynamited through rock, then buried, presumably revegetated later:

A later photo shows they had a slide/blowout near the base, so assume some work has to be repeated. I don’t know how to quantify energy/carbon expense, but it looks like some of this route is heli-access only, so that means some earth-moving machinery and penstock pipe is flown in by chopper, after it has all been barged up the inlet, along with oodles of diesel and such. Not sure where the 2m. diam D penstock pipe comes from (China?), but it’s about 12mm wall thickness, and is epoxy or poly-coated, and the 10m. pieces are double-welded together on-site with portable diesel-powered welders. About 3Km of pipe for each powerhouse. Bute will have 17 of these. Phase 3 is “adjustable dam” and intake- lots of diesel-powed terraforming and concrete:

Phase 4 is turbine/powerhouse construction – first lots of site work with heavy equip.

then Build reinforced concrete powerhouse with steel roof, untold amounts of specialty materials and copper, Pluto’s turbines are imported from Austria, electrical stuff from US.

This is East Toba Powerhouse – 2 turbines with total of 123MW capacity, annual output estimated at 465 GWh. The output of those turbines require stepping up in voltage- so add power substations/transformers. Are they still using PCB’s ?

Phase 5 is transmission corridor – or as Tzeppie says, using General Electric language, “the transmission backbone” – built with road-based equipment and helicopter, for each plant, some 150 Kms x 50m wide transmission corridor logged (a permanent clearcut):

Most of the timber is just left to rot because helicopter time is too expensive to retrieve it. Finally, General Electric and their partners will plant 30m-tall steel towers by helicopter every few hundred metres, with big ceramic insulators and 3 runs of transmission wire. The Bute transmission line will run all the way down to Saltery Bay /Jervis Inlet, where it plugs into the Cheekeye-Dunsmuir line.

Vancouver Media Co-op | http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/blog/macdonald/2824

Tzep calls for gentle tar sands, promotes GE

Tzeporah Berman is readying the ground to sell-out both Greenpeace and the anti-tar sands struggle… Berman is a master of publicity and is already setting the groundwork for future campaigns and betrayals, backroom deals and greenwashing the un-greenable. Since there is no such technology as “clean tar sands” anymore than clean coal, one must assume that this is right in line with why she is promoting the destruction of rivers in BC: to use them as “clean energy.” All members and donors to Greenpeace should IMMEDIATELY alert the organization that if she takes office they will pull all contributions to the organization that once had actual opposition to these kinds of massive destructive developments. Txeporah Berman will make deals with Suncor, in private backrooms. SHUT DOWN THE TAR SANDS, DO NOT MAKE THEM “FRIENDLY”.

Delores Broton: 30 years in the B.C. environmental movement, editor of the Watershed Sentinel for 15 years. One the most highly respected environmental voices in British Columbia. On the idea of Greenpeace hiring the person who betrayed the Canadian environmental movement:

“What were they thinking? Did they talk to anyone? Does Greenpeace do any due diligence?”

Bob Hunter (October 13, 1941–May 2, 2005) was a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972. Hunter, the first President of Greenpeace, was a long-time campaigner for environmental causes. In 1971, the word “Greenpeace” hadn’t yet been coined.  Bob was a hippy journalist in Vancouver, a town which he described as having “the biggest concentration of tree-huggers, radicalized students, garbage-dump stoppers, shit-disturbing unionists, freeway fighters, pot smokers and growers, aging Trotskyites, condo killers, farmland savers, fish preservationists, animal rights activists, back-to-the-landers, vegetarians, nudists, Buddhists, and anti-spraying, anti-pollution marchers and picketers in the country, per capita, in the world.”

This is the Greenpeace the world fell in love with.   This is the Greenpeace that changed the world with a real movement.  Give us back our old Greenpeace!

What can you do? Take Action! Write Greenpeace today.

Forward this email or write your own concerns and comments to the following people:

• Kumi Naidoo: kumi.naidoo@greenpeace.org | Executive Director, Greenpeace International
• Jessica Wilson: jessica.wilson@greenpeace.org
• Bruce Cox: Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada | cell: | bruce.cox@greenpeace.org
• Nigel Campbell: nigel.campbell@greenpeace.org
• Anne Dingwall: anne.dingwall@greenpeace.org |  Fundraising Director
• Phil Radford: phil.radford@greenpeace.org | Exec. Director, USA
• Jo Kuper: jo.kuper@greenpeace.org
• Martin Lloyd: martin.lloyd@greenpeace.org
• Gene Hashmi: gene.hashmi@greenpeace.org

“We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves” | Marquis De Vauvenargues, 1715-1747)

TckTckTck (GCCA) Organizes “Partners Retreat” in the Netherlands following 2009 Conference of the Parties (COP15) on Climate Change

2010FebMeetingFinalDraftAgendaforPartners

From: gccaall@googlegroups.com [mailto:gccaall@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Manish S Joshi
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 8:07 AM
To: gccaall@googlegroups.com
Subject: [gccaall] Final Draft Agenda for Partners Retreat

 

 

Dear All

Please find attached the Final Draft Agenda for the GCCA Partners Retreat. Please note that the retreat is part of the overall planning process and if you are not attending the retreat your input and feedback is still valuable and I would encourage you to feed in via the weekly calls (GCT or CCT), via the working groups or directly to one of the GCCA Secretariat.

Please note that you can share any planning that you believe would be relevant to the process on the GCCA Intranet Site ( http://sites.google.com/site/gccaintranet/) under the ‘Partner Evaluation and Planning Documents’ Section. If you have any problems or would like me to upload documents for you please email me.

The final set of documents for the retreat will be emailed out on Tuesday 9th February 2010.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Manish
—
Manish Joshi
Logistics Coordinator
Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA)

t: +44 7879 423 340
e: manish.joshi@tcktcktck.org <mail to: manishsubhashjoshi@gmail.com>
s: mani0606

Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to. Thank you.

COP 15 – TckTckTck hoodwinked NGOs: bold demands sacrificed for PR coverage – PEJ News – Joan Russow

COP 15 – TckTckTck hoodwinked NGOs: bold demands sacrificed for PR coverage – PEJ News – Joan Russow – www.Climatechangecopenhagen.org

Did the many NGO groups that signed on to TckTckTck Campaign know what they were agreeing to? Were they aware of the corporate links to the Campaign? Do they know who owns the Trade Mark TckTckTck that they have been so dutifully promoting? Or do the NGOs care?
www.PEJ.org

SIGNIFICANT OMISSIONS IN TCKTCKTCK DEMANDS
In the TckTckTck Campaign for COP 15, they were calling for developed states to “Reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% by 2020. While most developed and developing states were calling for developed states to use 1990 as baseline, the TckTckTck Campaign did not have a baseline. Consequently what they were calling for was way below what developing states were demanding How could an NGO campaign have a percentage reduction without a base-line date. In the TckTckTck campaign demands it was stated: “Reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% by 2020” . Is that from 2009 levels? or Canadian 2006 levels, or US 2005 levels but not from what most of developing states wanted at least 45% from 1990 levels. Apart for calling for stabilization by 2015, there was no commitment proposed for subsequent years, such as [collectively reduce global emission by at least //[50] [85] 95 % from 1990 levels by 2050 (Chair’s December 11 draft) ]. The developing states were demanding that developed states reduce emissions by at least 95% below 1990 levels by 2050; TckTckTck campaign was silent on 2050 commitment. Key issues at COP 15 were the need for a common baseline such as 1990, and for developed states to commit to high percentage reduction of greenhouse gases from the 1990 baseline.

The PR CAMPAIGN BY HAVAS CORP AND ITS CORPORATE CONNECTIONS The Public Relations Campaign boasted at the 2009 ANA (Advertising) Annual Conference-The Masters of Marketing, David Jones, global chief executive officer, Havas Worldwide, spoke about a particularly important advertising program his agency recently created for the TckTckTck: Time for Climate Justice campaign. (the 2009 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference)
David Jones is global CEO of Havas Worldwide, running Euro RSCG Worldwide, Arnold Worldwide and all creative, marketing services and design companies throughout the global Havas network of 12,000 people and more than 250 offices. He is also the Director General of Havas.
And did the NGOs know that TckTckTck has corporate “partners” such as nuclear energy promoters: EDF and GDF Suez. (TckTckTck press release)
Also in the Press release, it is stated that Havas World wide incorporates EURO RSCG which has as its clients the Adventis and Novartis Biotech firms involved with Genetic engineering and biofuels. I contacted TckTckTck, and asked them to send me a list of their corporate clients. In response, I received what they described as a press release. In this release, it states that “the idea behind TckTckTck was to create a movement.. rather than a campaign, but a movement with a deadline. …the objective of the campaign was to make it become a movement that consumers, advertisers and the media would use and exploit.” Was this the perception by the corporation that the movement encompassing NGOs was to be a commodity to be used and exploited?
In the press release it mentions “Havas Worldwide incorporates the EURO RSCG”‘ EURO RSCG boast of clients such as Novartis and Adventis – biotech industries in Genetic engineering and biofuel (including the disastrous Jatropha).
Perhaps, at COP 15 biofuels and Nuclear energy which have often been proposed as solutions to climate change in violation of a principle that solutions should never be worse or equally bad as the problem they are intended to solve- were shrewdly promoted through their association with TckTckTck.

WHO OWNS THE TckTckTck TRADE MARK THAT NGOS HAVE BEEN PROMOTING AS BELONGING TO THE COP 15 It appears that on Monday, November 30, 2009, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for TckTckTck. This trademark is owned by Euro RSCG Worldwide, LLC, 350 Hudson Street, New York , 10014 .
The attorney or correspondent listed for TckTckTck is COLLEEN M. KEEGAN of DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP, 1633 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10019 . The TckTckTck trademark is filed in the category of Advertising, Business & Retail Services . The description provided to the USPTO for TckTckTck is Advertising services; marketing services; advertising agency services, direct marketing advertising; market research; business marketing consulting; public relations services; media planning, buying and placement. The USPTO has given the TckTckTck trademark serial number of 77882811. The current status of the trademark is NEW APPLICATION – RECORD INITIALIZED NOT ASSIGNED TO EXAMINER.

Have the NGOs been duped into assisting Euro RSCG Worldwide In promoting a new trademark for its clients? Will there be a TckTckTck, campaign to strengthen the push for nuclear energy and biofuels which will delude the public into thinking that the campaign has the support of environmental and social justice NGOs?

CLAIM BY TCKTCKTCK THAT THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT CAMPAIGNS

Jason Mogus from the TckTckTck http://tcktcktck.org campaign noted that there was a distinction between two campaigns.

“First, the Tck campaign with corporate connections is actually a separate one from what I worked on, their website is http://timeforclimatejustice.org and ours is http://tcktcktck.org. Our campaign only had NGO’s involved and did not work with the EURO PR firm or had any other PR firms in leadership roles. It is easy to get confused as there were 2 separate campaigns but the one I worked on was the most high profile, had 220 NGO partners, and is the one most of you will have seen. “

Did Jason no know that the TckTckTck logo and campaign was registered by the EURO PR firm on November 30, 2009, and that even though it was a different campaign as he said, it was the same logo and the NGOs, in promoting TckTckTck were linked by association. The result is that the NGOs in his campaign will be giving legitimacy to the corporate campaign which is using the same logo. Is he not concerned about this?

Inspiring and will inspire you, learn more by exploring their sites.

LIST OF GROUPS THAT SIGNED ON to TckTckTck (FROM TckTckTck WEBSITE)
. 1Sky
· 350.org
· ACT Responsible
· ActionAid International
· Africa2Green
· Age of Stupid
· Alliance for Climate Education (ACE)
· Alpe Adria Green
· Amnesty International
· AMYCOS-ONGD
· Apollo Alliance
· AQVIVA
· Ashoka’s Youth Venture
· Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (AQOCI)
· Atmosforests
· AVAAZ.org
· BeThatChange
· BirdLife International
· Botanic Gardens Conservation International
· Campus Progress
· CAN International
· Canadian Youth Climate Coalition
· Canadian Youth Climate Coalition – Powershift
· Carbon Danger
· Carbonfund.org
· CARE
· Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD)
· Centre for Social Markets
· China Dialogue
· Christian Aid
· Christian World Service
· CIDSE
· CIEDM: California Institute of Environmental Design & Management
· CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
· Climate Coalition (Belgium)
· Climate Counts
· Climate Justice Fast!
· Conservation International
· Consider Us
· Consumers International
· Copenhagen Climate Council
· Costa Rica Neutral
· CPAWS (Make Forests Count)
· Dana Mitra Lingkungan (Resource Foundation for Environment)
· David Suzuki Foundation
· Denmark.net
· Dogwood Initiative
· E3G
· Eco y Voz A.C. (Radio Mente Abierta)
· Eco-union
· EISI
· 350.org
· ACT Responsible
· ActionAid International
· Africa2Green
· Age of Stupid
· Alliance for Climate Education (ACE)
· Alpe Adria Green
· Amnesty International
· AMYCOS-ONGD
· Apollo Alliance
· AQVIVA
· Ashoka’s Youth Venture
· Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (AQOCI)
· Atmosforests
· AVAAZ.org
· BeThatChange
· BirdLife International
· Botanic Gardens Conservation International
· Campus Progress
· CAN International
· Canadian Youth Climate Coalition
· Canadian Youth Climate Coalition – Powershift
· Canadians for Action on Climate Change
· Carbon Danger
· Carbonfund.org
· CARE
· Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD)
· Centre for Social Markets
· China Dialogue
· Christian Aid
· Christian World Service
· CIDSE
· CIEDM: California Institute of Environmental Design & Management
· CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
· Climate Coalition (Belgium)
· Climate Counts
· Climate Justice Fast!
· Conservation International
· Consider Us
· Consumers International
· Copenhagen Climate Council
· Costa Rica Neutral
· CPAWS (Make Forests Count)
· Dana Mitra Lingkungan (Resource Foundation for Environment)
· David Suzuki Foundation
· Denmark.net
· Dogwood Initiative
· E3G
· Eco y Voz A.C. (Radio Mente Abierta)
· Eco-union
· EISI
. Environmental Media Association
· Equilibrium
· Equiterre
· Ethical Consumer Magazine
· European Journalism Centre
· Faiths United for Sustainable Energy (FUSE)
· FAQDD (Fonds d’action québécois_pour le développement durable)
· Federation of Environmental and Ecological Diversity for Agricultural Revampment and Human Rights (FEEDAR & HR)
· Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade International (FAST)
· Footprint Friends
· Footprint Network
· For My Sake! (Earth Reformers Foundation)
· France Nature Environment
· Friendship Ambassador Foundation
· Ghana National Youth Coalition on Climate Change (GNYCCC)
· Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)
· Global Green
· Global Humanitarian Forum
· Global Movement for Children
· Global voluntary Development Association (GVDA)
· Global Warming and Climate Change Initiatives for the International Youth Council
· GlobalGiving
· Goodness500
· GREEN Alpe Adria
· Green Thing
· Greenheart Project
· Greening the Beige
· Greenpeace International
· Grønn Hverdag (Green living)
· Healthcare Without Harm
· Helpage International
· Iceland Nature Conservation Association
· IndyACT – The League of Independent Activists
· INEX – International Network for Educational Exchange
· Interfaith Power and Light: Regeneration Project
· International Center for Sustainable Development & Environmental Studies (ICSDS)
· International Council for Adult Education
· International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
· International Federation of the Red Cross
· International Institute for Environment and Development
· International Tibet Support Network
· International Youth Council
· Jaringan Hijau Mandiri
· Julie’s Bicycle
· Kiko – Make the Rule
· Kiko Network
· Klima Klub
· Kyoto2 Support Group
· L’Ultimatum Climatique
· Make Poverty History
· MERCY Malaysia
· METIS Global Awareness Network
· Millennium ART
· Movement for Children and Youth Welfare
· Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC)
· NEKTARINA NPO
· New World Hope Organization
· Norwegian Church Aid
· Noticias Positivas
· “Ocean eXchange”> the GEO Project”
· OceanHealth.Org
· Oxfam GB
· Oxfam International
· Pacific Conference of Churches
· PASUMAI THAAYAGAM (Green Motherland)
· Peace and Collaborative Development Network
· Pensons Climat/ Think Climate
· People’s Climate Action
· People’s Initiative for Learning and Community Development (PILCD)
· Peopletech
· PGA Green
· Plan International
· Plant-for-the-Planet
· Practical Action
· Presencia Ciudadana
· Project Survival Pacific
· Rainforest Action Network
· Raising Awareness on Environment and Climate Change Program
· Raising Awareness on Environment and Climate Change Program (RAECP)
· Realizing Rights
· RESET – For A Better World
· Rock The Earth
· Sandbag Climate Campaign
· Save the Children
· Solar Generation
· Sri Lanka-United Nations Friendship Organisation (SUNFO)
· Stichting Dolphinmotion
· StopGlobalWarming.org
· Survival International
· Sustainable Environment & Ecological Development Society (SEEDS India)
· Sustainable Sanctuary Coalition of Greater Kansas City
· SustainUS’>www.climatecountdown.org””>SustainUS
· TakingITGlobal
· Team Earth
· Tearfund
· Tebtebba
· The Climate Institute
· The Converging World
· The Corporate Leaders’ Group on Climate Change
· The Green Initiative
· The Pachamama Alliance
· The Pew Trust
· The Rainforest Initiative
· The Women for a Change International Foundation
· This Place 09
· Trade Union Advisory Committee
· Transparency International
· Treehugger
· UN Seal the Deal
· Unión de Grupos Ambientalistas (Network of environmental groups)
· Union of Concerned Scientist
· Unite for Climate/UNICEF
· United Nations (Regional Information Centre for Western Europe) on Volunteers
· universe-projects international w.l.l
· US Climate Action Network (USCAN)
· Vitae Civilis
· Wechselwelle
· WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing)
· Wildlife Conservation Society
· Women’s Environment and Development Organization
· World Climate Community
· World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP)
· World Council of Churches
· World Mayors Council on Climate Change (WMCCC)
· World Resources Institute
· World Student Community for Sustainable Development
· World Vision
· World Vision Australia
· WWF International
· www.labor4sustainability.org/
· Xanvil – Cultura y Ecología
· Youth and United Nations Global Alliance (YUNGA)
· Youth Engagement in Sustainability (YES) Nepal
· Youth Partnership for Peace and Development

DO THE NGOS EVEN CARE ABOUT BEING ASSOCIATED WITH SUCH A CAMPAIGN
The question remains that if the NGOs are made aware (i) that they had agreed to emission reduction without the baseline of 1990, (ii) that among many corporate “partners” were key nuclear and biofuel/genetic engineering corporations, and (iii) that the TCKTCKTCK brand or logo that they have promoted could now have a corporate life of its own; would the NGOs now withdraw their support for TCKTCKTCK.

TckTckTck Partner: ‘Corporate Leaders’ Group on Climate Change’ – The business of climate change