Environment

A longtime Greenpeace activist sent the following comments to PR Watch: "The Lord Melchetts of the activist (and now corporate) world are only one symptom of a broader contagion. Is there even a real environmental movement anymore? How accountable are NGOs to their own base? ... Look how little is being accomplished in addressing Global Warming in the U.S. at a time when it's obviously a national security issue and a global security issue. I think this is in part because the environmental groups don't believe in mass movement building like they used to.

ABC News correspondent John Stossel comes under harsh scrutiny in a January 7, 2002 Nation article. Journalist Mark Dowie looks into Stossel's rise from humble consumer-interest reporter to million-dollar network star. As network news divisions were forced to become profit centers in early 90s, network executives wanted "talent" to sell the new news product. "Professional attention-grabbers ... became free-market winners. By cleverly blending blue-collar social values with Wall Street economic values, they got rich," writes Dowie.

"Bjorn Lomborg's new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, brings us glorious news. The world's environment is getting better, not worse. ... If this sounds too good to be true, that's because it is. The Skeptical Environmentalist presents itself as a work of impartial scholarship, an attempt to test the validity of various environmental concerns through a careful analysis of the evidence. In fact, it's a polemic, an intellectually dishonest tract filled with glaring omissions, appalling errors of fact and analysis, and inaccurate characterizations of contrary arguments. ...

In October 2001, captains of industry from around the world marked the tenth anniversay of the United Nation's environmental summit in Rio de Janiero by gathered in Paris for a major strategy meeting, hosted by Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD).