Revolution will not be run by hypocrites - still
By Adam Estroff
I wrote last semester about how the environmental revolution will not be won through hypocrisy, in response to the Dow Chemicalsponsored Live Earth races taking place across the country this week.
The races are 6K long, to symbolize the distance the impoverished have to walk for clean water. Now, I am not against providing clean water for the world’s poor, but come on, Dow Chemical?
For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Dow is a publicly traded chemical corporation with net revenue of 57.5 billion dollars in 2008 and over 46,000 employees around the world.
Dow is responsible for some of the worst environmental catastrophes of our time. During the Vietnam War, Dow Chemical produced Agent Orange, a defoliant that produced horrific birth defects and caused strange mental and physical illnesses in veterans. Dow is also responsible for Dioxin, a potent chemical pesticide that has poisoned 22 square miles of watershed in Midland, Mich., Dow’s corporate headquarters.
If this were not enough, Dow also purchased Union Carbide — the corporation whose negligence led to the 1984 Bhopal Methyl-isocyanate leak that killed over 20,000 and has left 600,000 suffering with polluted water. The Bhopal disaster, the worst industrial accident in human history, was caused by the negligence of factory management, when it was seen that the Bhopal factory was not turning a profit.
Dow purchased Union Carbide in the 1990s, fully aware of that company’s outstanding criminal charges in India, and while Dow settled Union Carbide’s American debts (to workers poisoned in Texas), it did not make any effort to make right in India.
The Bhopali protest movement has pursued justice for these past 25 years, and the movement is recognized around the globe for its tenacity and commitment to non-violence. As the women of Bhopal say, “We are flames, not flowers,” as they resist the corporate paradigm that puts shareholders over community stakeholders.
The Bhopalis also seek a world where “no more Bhopals” will occur ever again. This fear was recently brought home when the Methyl-isocyanate plant (sister to the one in Bhopal — now run by Bayer) in Institute, W. Va. leaked out some of its toxic contents. Local protest and concern were quickly hushed up, showing that the same forces of complicity that perpetuated the disaster in Bhopal exist here as well.
This history of toxic pollution is not one of a provider of clean water; this is Dow’s greenwashing — pulling the proverbial wool over our eyes.
So what can we do?
First of all, we can take back our environmental movement from greenwashing corporations like Dow.
The Live Earth runs for water are going to be televised on Bravo — so boycott them this week. Flex your social muscles and vent about the hypocrisy on Facebook and Twitter, and tell your friends to boycott Bravo as well. We may all be drops in a pond but with social networking we can create ripples at will; let us not forget that those time-wasting sites can be tools as well.
It is time to stop hypocritical corporations that attempt to funnel our concern for our fellow man and ecosystem into guilt and profits, guilt is an easy chair and it is time to stand up.
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