[A-List] Shell's Game

[Paul Wright]

This is nothing new. A few years ago it was pointed out that Phillip Morris
donated a few million to domestic violence programs and then spent three
times as much publicizing their donations. This is simply business as usual.

Paul Wright, Editor
Prison Legal News
P.O. Box 2420
West Brattleboro, VT 05303
802-257-1342
pwright at prisonlegalnews.org
www.prisonlegalnews.org
 
Seattle Office:
2400 NW 80th St. # 148
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-----Original Message-----
From: a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu
[mailto:a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Bill Totten
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 6:20 AM
To: a-list
Subject: [A-List] Shell's Game


Why good people do bad things

by George Monbiot

The Guardian (January 06 2009)


For a while it seemed that Shell had stopped pretending. The
advertisements which filled the newspapers in 2006, featuring
technicians with perfect teeth and open-necked shirts explaining how
they were saving the world {1, 2, 3}, vanished. After being slated by
environmentalists for greenwash, after two adverse rulings by the
Advertising Standards Authority {4, 5}, Shell appeared to have accepted
the inescapable truth that it was an oil company with a minor sideline
in alternative energy, and that there was no point in trying to persuade
people otherwise.

The interview I conducted with its chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer,
broadcast on the Guardian's website today {6}, contains what appears to
be an interesting admission. I asked him whether Shell had now stopped
producing ads extolling its investments in renewable energy. Mr van der
Veer does not express himself clearly at this point, but he seems to
admit that his company's previous advertising was not honest. "If we are
very big in oil and gas and we are so far relatively small in
alternative energies, if you then every day only make adverts about your
alternative energies and not about ninety per cent of your other
activities I don't think that - then I say transparency, honesty to the
market, that's nonsense". So, I asked, Shell did not intend to return to
that kind of advertising? "Probably not", he told me. "I'm very much
keep your feet on the ground, tell them who you are and explain why you
are who you are".

But since the interview was filmed, Shell's messianic tendencies appear
to have resurfaced. In December the company ran a series of ads in the
Guardian suggesting again that it had come to save the world. "Tackling
climate change and providing fuel for a growing population seems like an
impossible problem, but at Shell we try to think creatively", one of
these advertisements boasts {7}. It features a diagram of a human brain,
divided into sections labelled "fuel from algae", "fuel from straw",
"fuel from woodchips", "hydrogen fuels", "windfarm", "gas to liquids"
and "coal gasification". This suggests progress of a kind, in that the
company is acknowledging that it sometimes dabbles in fossil fuels, but
its core business - oil - and its massive investments in tar sands are
missing from the corporate mind. Could Shell be having a senior moment?

The confusion deepens when you watch its latest publicity film. It's
called "Clearing the Air", and it does just the opposite {8}. It is
supposed to tell an inspirational tale of discovery, but the script and
the acting are so gobsmackingly bad that it inspires you only to rip
your clothes off and run screaming down the street. The lasting
impression it leaves is that Shell's staff are chaotic and incompetent.
Perhaps the clean-cut corporate clones featured in the ads of 2006 put
people off.

Mr van der Veer is neither an incompetent nor an automaton. He is
charming, friendly and smart. But he refused to answer some of the
questions I had prepared.

Reading Shell's reports and publicity material, I kept stumbling on an
absence. In 2000, the company boasted that it would be investing $1
billion dollars in renewable energy between 2001 and 2005. But since
then it appears to have produced no figures for its renewables budget.
The company now claims that "we're investing significantly in wind
energy" {9}, but it doesn't say what significantly means. Of the ten
wind farms listed on its website, only one appears to be in the planning
or development stage: the others are already in operation {10}. Where is
the evidence of new money? When Shell pulled out of Britain's biggest
windfarm, the London Array, last year, did this represent the end of its
major investments?

I asked Mr van der Veer a simple question - fifteen times. (Only a few
of these attempts feature in the edited film). "What is the value of
your annual investments in renewable energy?". He waffled, changed the
subject, admitted that he knew the figure, then flatly refused to reveal
it. Nor could he give me a convincing explanation of why he wouldn't
tell me, claiming only that "those figures are misused and people say it
is too small" and it "is not the right message to give to the people".
It strikes me that there is only one likely reason for these evasions:
that Shell's spending on renewables has fallen sharply from the figure
it announced in 2000. It's a fair guess that the current investment
would look microscopic by comparison to its spending on the Canadian tar
sands, and would make a mockery of its new round of advertising. I
challenge Shell - for the sixteenth time - to prove me wrong.

Nor would Mr van der Veer give me a straight answer to another straight
question: "is there any investment you would not make on ethical
grounds?". I asked this six times. He was unable to furnish me with an
example. It's not hard to see why. As well as exploiting the tar sands,
which means destroying forest and wetlands, polluting great quantities
of water and producing more carbon dioxide than conventional petroleum,
Shell is still flaring gas in Nigeria, at great cost to both local
people and the global climate. It has been fiercely criticised for its
secret negotiations with the Iraqi government, which led last year to
the first major access for a western company to Iraq's gas reserves
{11}. It is prospecting for oil in some of the Arctic's most sensitive
habitats. All this makes my question difficult to answer. Aside from the
greenwash, it is not easy to spot the practical difference between this
civilised, progressive company and the Neanderthals at Exxon.

Like all oil companies, Shell simply follows the opportunities. Shut out
of the richest fields by state companies, struggling to extract the
dregs from its declining reserves, it has been turning to ever more
difficult oil, some of which lies beneath rare and fragile ecosystems.
When the price of oil was high, it announced massive investments in the
tar sands. Now that the price has dropped again, it has cancelled
further spending {12}. It has even less of an incentive to invest in
renewables. Shell does what the market demands.

I don't blame Shell or van der Veer for this: they are discharging their
duty to their shareholders. I do blame them for creating the impression
that the company has a different agenda, and I blame governments for
allowing them to drift into whatever fields they find profitable,
regardless of the consequences for people or the environment.

On this issue Jeroen van der Veer and I agree. Oil companies, he says,
should not seek to determine a country's energy mix: that is for the
government to decide. Saving the biosphere, in other words, cannot be
left to goodwill and greenwash: the humanity of pleasant men like van
der Veer will always be swept aside by the imperative to maximise
returns. Good people in these circumstances do terrible things.
Companies like Shell will pour big money into alternative energy only
when more lucrative or immediate opportunities are blocked. Where is the
government that is brave enough to block them?

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. The three examples I have in my files are:

Shell, 30th May 2006. The world wants more energy, the planet wants less
pollution. Page 10, Financial Times.

2. Shell, 29th April 2006. One energy company is going further to make
hydrogen a reality. New Scientist.

3. Shell, 22nd May 2006. How can we produce more energy but lower carbon
emissions? Page 23, New Statesman.

4. ASA, 7th November 2007. Adjudication: Shell Europe Oil Products Ltd.
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Details.h
tm?Adjudication_id=43476

5. ASA, 13th August 2008. Adjudication: Shell International Ltd.
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_44828.htm

6.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/jan/06/george-monbiot-jeroe
n-van-de-veer

7. Shell, 20th December 2008. In the New Energy Future, if it doesn't
exist we'll need to invent it. Page 21, The Guardian.

8.
http://realenergy.shell.com/?lang=en&page=homeFlash&access=false&site_versio
n=flash&promo=shellbanner#ClearingTheAir

9.
http://www.shell.com/home/content/innovation/alternative_energy/wind/wind.ht
ml

10.
http://www.shell.com/home/content/shellgasandpower-en/products_and_services/
wind/project_case_studies/dir_case_0605.html

11. eg Terry Macalister, 24th September 2008. Shell's $4bn Iraq
breakthrough could boost Britain's natural gas supplies. The Guardian.

12. Kristen Hays, 13th December 2008. Petroleum companies delay
expansion, new projects
Houston Chronicle.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/01/06/shells-game/


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