[Dryerase] AGR Green Wash

[Shawn G]

Asheville Global Report
www.agrnews.org

Times Magazine's green wa$h century

By Sean Marquis

Sept. 4 (AGR)—  In what amounts to 62 pages of pro-corporate green wash, 
Time Magazine turned the world on its head by claiming that 
environmentalists are to blame for the sorry ecological state of the planet 
and that capitalists, industry, and free marketeers have the solutions to 
global environmental woes.
Introducing the “Green Century” issue (Aug. 26), Time’s Executive Editor, 
Adi Ignatius wrote that the answers for the world’s environmental problems 
include: “New technologies …market-based incentives…a new Industrial 
Revolution…high tech buildings…incentives to speed the switch to clean 
energy sources [and] fast and safe cars that don’t pollute.”
Ignatius also encouraged readers to “take a look at Andrew Goldstein’s 
provocative indictment of the green movement …[environmentalists] Goldstein 
argues, are probably causing more harm than good.”
The corporate sponsorship for such ideas is apparent in the advertising: six 
full-page ads for cars (Toyota four, Honda 2), two full pages for Beyond 
Petroleum (formerly known as British Petroleum, but still goes by “BP”) and 
two full pages for the Council for Biotechnology Information -- all touting 
their own role in helping to save the planet.
It is no wonder then that in the article “Mean clean machines” Time has the 
gall to print: “Of course, the best way to conserve energy and reduce 
pollution would be to phase out cars in favor of mass transportation. But 
let’s face it: that’s not going to happen.” Five little words simply and 
quickly dismissed “the best way to conserve energy and reduce pollution.”
The article then essentially turned into an ad for the auto industry, 
highlighting different makes and models of “green” cars and other 
techno-solutions for individual transportation. Auto industry ads translate 
into auto industry solutions.
The biotech industry also received a reciprocal boost from Time in the 
section on food in the “Challenges we face” article.
Time states that “agricultural policies now in place define the very idea of 
unsustainable development.” A true statement, but without addressing the 
culpability for this problem the statement becomes misleading.
Time never says that these “agricultural policies now in place” were put 
into practice 50 years ago as part of the “Green Revolution” -- another 
industrialist/capitalist scheme that was going to feed the world, but which 
has become an abysmal failure for the poor and the hungry whom it was 
supposed to help.
But this isn’t mentioned because there is a new industrial solution to 
remedy the ills of the last industrial solution: genetic engineering.
According to Time, “better crop rotation and irrigation can help protect 
fields from exhaustion and erosion…But in a world that needs action fast, 
genetic engineering must still have a role.” There you have it. The beauty 
of advertising.
It isn’t until 24 pages later that Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva 
received a one-page highlight where organic farming is discussed. But the 
article here was more cautious, with no statements such as: “but organic 
farming must have a role.” Organic farming is presented as a limitedly 
successful cautionary tale, that tellingly, “agribusiness must show it can 
outperform.”
While “highlighting” organic farming, Time’s article on Shiva still mangages 
to further the cause of  big industry by stating, “the challenge for genetic 
engineers is to create seeds adapted to particular locales that enable 
farmers to reduce, not increase, the use of chemicals.”
It would seem Time needs to check up on some of Shiva’s own writings 
(Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The 
Highjacking of the Global Food Supply) to see how for centuries farmers in 
India cultivated and saved seeds -- kinds which were particular to locales 
and water conditions and used no chemicals.
The Green Revolution came and destroyed that practice for many farmers (who 
were put under pressure to grow crops for export and commodity value rather 
than for subsistence). But that side of the story is absent in Time.
Indian peasant farmers don’t have the advertising clout of the biotech 
industry.

Blame the environmentalists
The bluntest piece in Time’s “Special Report” is Goldstein’s “Too green for 
their own good?”, in which he began with the question: “How come, at a time 
when the environmental movement is stronger and richer than ever, our most 
pressing ecological problems just get worse?”
The premise Goldstein assumed is that money solves problems, which he then 
went on to re-emphasize, saying that US environmental groups have received 
donations of “$6.4 billion in 2001,” but the environment has not gotten any 
better, which lead him to the notion that “environmentalists [are] 
vulnerable to charges that green groups have prospered while the earth has 
not.”
Goldstein’s advice to environmentalists: “Business is not the enemy” and 
“embrace the market.”
Goldstein never explained his logic of just how money translates into a 
cleaner environment. Goldstein never said -- which would have been an 
interesting use of his own logic -- how much money polluting industries have 
at their disposal (hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars), if its a 
money war environmentalists haven’t a chance. At least not in Time Magazine 
anyway.
Goldstein continued the corporate-sponsorship line saying “the planet needs 
profitable, innovative businesses even more than it needs 
environmentalists.” Again technology is the answer. The world needs Monsanto 
and Ford now; Greenpeace and Earthfirst!, thanks for coming, but you’re just 
not needed.
Goldstein employed a twisted little logic to say that environmental groups 
should not have attacked Ford Motor Co., “Detroit’s most environmentally 
friendly carmaker” -- according to Goldstein, when Ford lobbied Congress to 
not increase fuel efficiency standards. Attacking Ford, he argues, was an 
act of “conservation purity” and such acts only push away environmental 
“supporters” and keep polluting industries willing to keep polluting. So the 
pollution and global warming problems are the fault of the 
environmentalists, not the fault of the industries and corporations actually 
doing the polluting.
The article also gives a leg up to its biotech advertisers by taking a few 
sentences to dismiss the inherent, and also the unknown, risks of 
genetically engineered crops and then presents these crops as the solution 
to the food shortage (more honestly, food distribution) and chemical 
intensive agriculture problems.
As for those who don’t think that’s the proper solution, Goldstein writes: 
“But what’s needed now are not crop tramplers and lab burners,” and that 
environmentalists “should lobby hard for the resources of Big Agriculture to 
be plowed into discovering crop varieties that can handle drought and thrive 
on small-scale farms.” Big Agriculture, Big Industry, Big Money. Time 
Magazine has given the solution to the environmental question.
Don’t ride the bus, buy a new “green” car instead. Don’t stop using 
chemicals in favor of organic farming, use copyright-protected genetically 
engineered seeds instead. And when all else fails, blame the 
environmentalists.
The only “green” evident about Time’s “Green Century” issue is the amount of 
money Time’s advertisers paid for it.



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