Currently, I’m reading a terrific book entitled Good Cop, Bad Cop – Environmental NGOs and their Strategies toward Business. The title accurately describes the subject matter within the book. Edited by Thomas P. Lyon, the book is a collection of essays written by various experts within the field of the “private politics” between environmental NGOs (ENGOs) and business. In addition to articles by experts in sociology, economics, and political science, with each giving their own specialized view of ENGO and business engagement strategies, there are also articles by business and ENGO executives.
One of the articles in the book is entitled “Greenpeace” and is written by Kert Davies, who is listed in the book as being the research director for Greenpeace. Again, the title accurately describes the content. (Although, the book does not say if Kert is the research director for Greenpeace International, Greenpeace UK, Greenpeace Canada, etc.) In his article, Kert gives an historic overview of Greenpeace, and discusses its objectives and focus along with the organizational structure of that ENGO, as well as other topics. Toward the end of his article, Kert details some case studies describing some direct actions in which Greenpeace has engaged various corporations. One of those cases studies is titled the “ExxonSecrets Campaign.”
The ExxonSecrets campaign was a direct action against Exxon Mobil that started in 2001. Kert’s article states, on page 205 of Good Cop, that “the primary objective of this campaign was to remove or lessen corporate interference in U.S. climate policy . . . a key strategy was to put ExxonMobil in a negative light as a laggard among corporations, thereby motivating other companies to take proactive measures to avoid similar treatment.”
Although Kert’s article is not precisely clear on this next item, apparently one of the factors driving this Greenpeace direct action was a “leaked document” from the American Petroleum Institute (API), which Kert says was the subject of a New York Times front page article in April 1998. (I’ve read that New York Times article and will comment on it in the next paragraph.) Per Kert’s article, the “leaked document” indicated that Exxon had participated in the development of a group which would run a multi-million dollar, multi-year campaign “to promote contrary scientific opinions and raise . . . uncertainty among the public . . .” Also, per Kert’s article,
the leaked document stated, “Victory Will Be Achieved When . . . Average citizens ‘understand’ (recognize) uncertainties in climate science; recognition of uncertainties becomes part of conventional wisdom” and “Media ‘understands’ (recognizes) uncertainties in climate science.”
More is to be learned about this group. Referring back to that New York Times article, which was entitled “Industry Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty” (by John H. Cushman, Jr., New York Times, April 26, 1998, p. A1) and aside from the article, in my opinion, being somewhat polemic in its perspective toward the global warming debate, the Times article stated that “the industry group said it wanted to develop a ‘sound scientific alternative’
Continue reading Greenpeace Wants You to "Have It Their Way"
A few weeks ago, I was a panelist at the 10th Annual Symposium on Communication, The Future of Communication, held at Bernard Baruch College, City University of New York, in the Big Apple. The panel’s topic, “More than Friending: Social Media and Communication in Business and Education,” provided for a lively discussion about social media and its impact on business and education and how the two institutions overlap and complement each other.
In one section of the discussion, one of the panelists brought up the topic of crowd sourcing and alluded to its reliability in determining “truth.” And to recall a line from that American “classic” film about the absurdities of modern business, Office Space, I said to him that “I was going to have to sort of go ahead and kind of disagree with him there,” or words to that effect. (To make for an interesting and entertaining discussion, all the panelists had agreed ahead of time to be somewhat “feisty” in the panel discussion. Although, now that I think about it, this lead-in was a lot more silly than feisty. Well, perhaps at least it was entertaining.)
To make my point that crowd sourcing was not as reliable as many propose that it is, I drew upon an example from the offline world. I said to test the validity of the crowd sourcing theory, one could simply ask liberals how valid crowd sourcing was during the elections that gave the United States the presidency of George W. Bush or, conversely, one could ask conservatives how valid crowd sourcing was in the most recent presidential election that has given us Barack Obama. The other panelist countered with the theory that in the “long-run” crowd sourcing was a more accurate representation of “truth” than crowd sourcing in the “short-run.” Until now, I hadn’t remembered this quote by John Maynard Keynes, the early 20th century British economist, “In the long-run, we’re all dead.” Had I recalled this quote during the panel discussion, it might have been even more “feisty,” or entertaining, for the audience.
The Keynes quote points out that, yes, perhaps everything “evens” out fairly in the long-run, but the long-run may be too long. Specific to our panel discussion about truth in social media, if in the long-run the truth will out, crowd sourcing may be a valid approach to arriving at the “truth.” But, what’s the long-run? Is social media old enough to even have a “long-run?” We may need to wait too long for the truth to win within Web 2.0. By that time, we’d all be dead, and the truth wouldn’t matter.
An idea to keep in mind for the next time we’re perusing the world of Web 2.0.
On February 17, 2010, there was an article posted on a Greenpeace sponsored Web site named PolluterWatch.com. The article, “Polluters Charles and David Koch don’t deny it: they fund front groups to deny climate science,” dealt with Greenpeace’s ongoing battle with Koch Industries over the company’s reported financing of various research organizations who, according to Greenpeace, “deny” climate change and “obfuscate the truth about climate science.”
Well, I don’t want to insert myself into the battle over climate change and who or what causes it. I don’t have the scientific background or the technical qualifications to represent myself properly in that fight. But in that fight, I’m of the opinion that Greenpeace, and many other environmental NGOs, don’t have the background or qualifications to make a proper argument. I say that because in my research on these organizations, I’ve noticed that many of them periodically take great liberties with how they present information, and thus represent “truth.” It is into that fight that I want to insert myself because I have the background and the qualifications to represent myself in this “battle for meaning,” and how semantics is used as a weapon in that battle. My qualifications are strong here. In fact, I’ve written a book about that battle.
In my analyses of how various NGOs conduct this battle for meaning, I’ve noticed that Greenpeace, among others, is often “semantically-challenged” and this post on PolluterWatch.com represents at least one example of these challenges with which they deal.
In my previous post, “Living on a Meme,” I discussed a San Francisco Chronicle article entitled “Anti-corporate vs. Anti-government Anger: Who to Trust?” Written by psychologist Dr. Jim Taylor, the article discusses many reasons why he thinks people are angry at large corporations. What does he say about the anti-government reasons? Well, there aren’t as many of those given. If you haven’t read my Part 1 of Living on a Meme, you may do so by clicking here. Or if you would like to read the article by Dr. Jim, you may click here.
What you and I are discussing here in “Living on a Meme” is, specifically, how Dr. Jim, as an example of a meme writer in the “anti” article, not only contradicts his own views in that article, but also uses unsubstantiated claims, claims that just keep floating around in the popular culture, to put forth his “argument.” And, generally, what you and I are discussing here is how articles, like Dr. Jim’s “anti” article that is based on meme, can further generate and propagate misinformation, damaging the common “reality” that we must all share.
Two weeks ago Greenpeace launched their “Caught Red-Handed” campaign with a report of the same name. The issuance of the report was supported by a simultaneous social media campaign against Nestlé. These events were well-documented in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. I summarized the situation in my blog post titled “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” and you may go to that article for a synopsis if you are unfamiliar with this incident.
The subject of today’s post is the report itself, “Caught Red-Handed,” or rather the research integrity thereof. If you go to the report, which you may do by clicking here, and turn to page 13 (page 8 on the PDF version) you will see Greenpeace’s “Sources of Evidence” page. Or, as it would be more commonly called, the Bibliography. On this page of listed sources, Greenpeace shows a total of 73 sources. If you read through those sources, you will find that fully 22 of those sources are from Greenpeace documents or files. This means that 30% of the total sources used in this report were internal, and not of a diversified and external nature.
When I attended graduate school, I was instructed that, in performing research, a researcher should not use their own work as references in a research paper. And if doing so was absolutely, positively necessary, then reference to that researcher’s own work should be employed very, very sparingly. The reason against a researcher not using their own research in subsequent papers is obvious. The more diversified research sourcing is, the stronger is the research argument. “In-bred” references only weaken a case.
Is 30% a “sparing” employment of internal sourcing? Does 30% internal sourcing in “Caught Red-Handed” weaken the study’s argument? I suppose that depends on your point of view. My view is that 30% internal sourcing is highly excessive, and seeing that high of a percentage in this Greenpeace report makes me call into question the integrity of their research and, consequently, the validity of the Greenpeace argument presented in “Caught Red-Handed.”
Is this a case of being “caught red-handed” in an issue of reliable and fair research?
You know my opinion; you’re certainly entitled to yours.
A few weeks ago, I was attracted to an article turned up by one of my Google Alerts. This article link has been sitting in my “Things to Write About” folder. That is until today.
On March 8, 2010, the San Francisco Chronicle posted an article titled “Anti-corporate vs. Anti-government Anger: Who to Trust?,” written by Dr. Jim Taylor, a psychologist and author. The first line of this article reads: “This post is not a partisan polemic intended to attack those who hold different views than I.” I smiled when I read that line because when someone prefaces an article in this manner, a polemic is often what that article turns out to be. Polemic it is. And Dr. Jim puts forth his opinion. That’s fine. I don’t happen to agree with his opinion, to which he is most certainly entitled. But his opinion is not to what I object. What I object to in this particular article is the way he constructs the argument and presents the information that expresses his opinion. He constructs his argument and presents information in a way that not only contradicts his own views, but also in a way that generates and propagates unsupported meme, which can damage the “reality” that we must all share. Let me explain.
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About  Here at " Richard Telofski on The War on Capitalism," I discuss and analyze the individuals and groups conducting campaigns against capitalism. In the articles on this site, I provide analysis on lesser known facts about this movement. More . . .
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