Action:Greenwash

Fed Up Polar Bear Disrupts National BBC Wildlife Magazine HQ

This morning, Tuesday December 11th, at 10am, two members of “Arctic Associates” (aka Bristol Rising Tide), and one grumpy refugee polar bear paid a visit to the national offices of the BBC Wildlife Magazine at the top of Tower House in Broadmead, Bristol. More than a hundred employees looked on aghast (some winking in support) as “J. Smith” from Arctic Associates, flanked by Mr. Pole R. Bear, made a long and passionate speech about the sad and dangerous irony of allowing the world’s second largest oil company- responsible for endangering thousands of species through oil spills, toxic pollution, and climate change- to sponsor their Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award Contest, which is coming to Bristol Museum this Saturday December 15th.

Today, the International Rising Tide network pulled off a Yes Men style hoax targeting the 33 businesses and organisations that form the US Climate Action Partnership (including BP, Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, Dow, DuPont, Ford, General Electric, General Motors Corp., Shell and Xerox to name but a few). The hoax was timed to coincide with the opening of the United Nations climate summit in Bali in an effort to expose the disproportionate influence of large corporations on the climate negotiations, and the greenwash these companies spin instead of taking any real initiative on fossil fuel reduction.

On November 9th 2007, Aberystwyth Arts Centre finished hosting the 2007
Shell Wildlife Photographer exhibition, organised by the Natural History
Museum and BBC Wildlife magazine. On November 10th, the Centre began
showing the counter-exhibition, 'Shell's Wild Lie', which ran until
November 17th. It will feature at the after-party for the London Climate
March on December 8th, then head to Bristol to be hosted by Bristol Rising
Tide when the Shell exhibition is also in the city.

15 or so folk from all over Carbon Town gathered today to sing a new hymn of hope to an oil-free future in the co-opted cathedral that is the Unnatural History Museum, where the heartbreakingly beautiful Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition has just opened. For a short film click here.

Climate activists splatter oil across photo exhibition in outrage at Shell
greenwash tactics

Today at the Shell-sponsored Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition
at the Natural History Museum, 20 activists inspired by the Camp for
Climate Action (1), smeared oil over the photographs. This was an act of
outrage at Shell’s painfully transparent attempts to greenwash its
reputation via cultural sponsorship.

* for creativity, climate justice and an end to oil industry sponsorship of the arts *

Art Not Oil at The Foundry, 84-86 Great Eastern St, London EC2A 3JL, (Old Street tube)
June 29th-July 9th 2006

Image: Fabio Sassi
-----------------------------------
Art Not Oil sheds light and shadow on the oil industry...

Members of the provisionally musical theatre wing of climate justice
action group London Rising Tide (LRT) set out on April 20th 2006 to communicate their
warm feelings about BP in song to shareholders heading for the oil giant's
Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the ExCel Centre in Docklands.

ART NOT OIL runs at Mono (12 Kings Court, Glasgow) from February 1st until February 28th, sorted by the Camcorder Guerillas (www.camcorderguerillas.net), who will be hosting an evening of short oily films including 'Grangemouth-Brazil Video Letters' from 7-9pm on Monday Feb 13th.