Greenpeace in its effort to bring attention to Mattel’s use of rogue paper companies in Sumatra hangs a banner on one of their buildings (they also bring in a barbie look alike). The paper company in Sumatra destroys tiger habitat and is big into deforestation.
Let’s join Greenpeace’s effort to discourage Mattel from using this brand of paper. You don’t have to agree with all of Greenpeace’s philosophy. This is a good fight.
James Pilant
Barbie gets dumped as part of a new campaign by Greenpeace targeting the toy industry for its connections to deforestation in Indonesia.
SHE is more likely to be cruising yards in a pink convertible, plucking an item from her glamorous wardrobe or generally enjoying the lifestyle afforded an international fashion icon.
Up until now Barbie has yet to be seen with a chainsaw, hacking her way through pristine rainforests.
But a Greenpeace campaign is seeking to do exactly that as part of a global campaign to highlight the destruction of rainforests for pulp paper used in the toy’s cardboard packaging.
This is just too much fun but the comedy doesn’t end here. Here is Mattel’s response –
A letter from Mattel’s director of corporate responsibility Kathleen Shaver, which Greenpeace showed to the smh.com.au, said it was “advancing its sustainability strategy” by printing its catalogues on paper with a minimum of 10 per cent of recyclable materials and that its annual report and office paper was printed on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Mattel has faield to return emails from Farifax but a spokeswoman for APP said met all the legal requirements for logging in Indonesia and called upon Greenpeace to make public its analysis.
“Greenpeace may think citing popular children’s toys is a cute way to get attention for its extreme position. However, we believe it’s irresponsible to play on the emotions of children and their parents to rehash old, discredited allegations in order to attack the industry of a developing nation,” she said.
Wow, looks like Greenpeace hit a nerve. Apparently all that PR training can’t conceal a little arrogance about the “industry of a developing nation.”
James Pilant
This is delicious. This campaign is clever and fun. It shows how corporate PR and the billions spent on advertising and brand recognition can be turned against the company.
As time goes by, this kind of clever anti-marketing is going to become a necessity as corporate power in the government increases. More and more it will be necessary to turn the company’s power against it. It’s very much like judo.
James Pilant
I read some Daphne du Maurier when I was growing up and, in this case, I saw the movie. I had a good time with her novels and can recommend them without condition. Please enjoy the review.
By the way, this is a good web site to subscribe to, if you enjoy reading and books.
James Pilant
You may have become tired of my endlessly repeated statement that the Fukushima crisis is a almost daily event which shows no sign of a cure. Here is another writer with the same point of view. There is also an excellent summary of the current situation at the four nuclear plants.
Here are the two key paragraphs from the article –
Fukushima did not happen. Fukusima IS HAPPENING… still.
Unfortunately, the economic containment by Japanese corporations and policy officials could not have been much worse – exacerbated by their deafening silence and sheer communication vacuum of information. Despite this being initiated by a natural disaster of epic proportions, it does not provide cover for the blatant failings of the officials, management and system as a whole. Japanese utilities, and this TEPCO’s Fukushima power plant in particular, were repeatedly warned that they did not have enough tsunami protection. The tsunami did not just tip the scale for breaching defenses, it completely overwhelmed and destroyed them – it was not a marginal miscalculation. Given the pump design-flaws I highlighted earlier, this bodes for more than just an engineering mistake. It is a structural issue within the industry as a whole. This has not been a moment of shining glory for the Japanese utility companies.
It is hard not to be astonished at the level of incompetence of the Japanese government and TEPCO, the Japanese utility in charge. However, the government of the United States and its massive loan gurantees and indemnification of the nuclear industry is acting in an equally bizarre fashion. This is definitely the time to re examine what mix of elements will be used in the future to generate power in the United States.
James Pilant
I’ve been arguing the same thing, – that there was much more to the mortgage crisis than robosigning. So, give this a read. I like skepticism and intelligence. This article has both.
James Pilant
You are quite right. The lives of women seem of little interest to the historian. Let me tell you a story –
During the first World War the British lost a total of 2,090,212 casualties out of a population of 45.4 million. Do you know what this means? – a generation without men. The chance of a woman getting married after those event in England were tragically low. I figure at least a million women did not marry after that generational tragedy. Have you ever seen so much as a word about this? Anywhere?
I promise you if two million women died in the United States, there would be government immigration policies in effect in a matter of weeks to allow quick citizenship for imported women. It would be considered a national crisis.
For the United States to have a proportional loss as the British did we would have to lose about 13 million men.
Women’s lives have not been considered important. Maybe that is changing.
James Pilant
via rebelld
via Eideard
I couldn’t agree more. An honest broker is the last thing the large banks can stand. They want the status quo of unaccountability to continue forever. We’re just sheep to be sheared under current law. Even knowing what shenanigans the industry is up to is very difficult.
Let’s get Elizabeth Warren confirmed.
James Pilant
I present a new post from the ever crusading web site, The Crisis Jones Report. I want to remind my readers that the crisis continues. Fukushima is going to be with us for years and the crisis continues with bad things happening almost daily generating more solid evidence of government and industry incompetence. That the Japanese Prime Minister survived a confidence vote was astonishing.
James Pilant
![5 reasons why banks hate [and fear] Elizabeth Warren](https://i0.wp.com/cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0f5m3RNgc27cx/610x.jpg)
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