Hoaxers target Big Oil
Monday December 3 2007
Environmental campaigners today appeared to have opened up a new front in the battle against Big Oil over climate change when they established a bogus website and sent out a press release committing BP, Shell and others to a 90% cut in carbon outputs by 2050 with no strings attached.
The internet portal looked identical to the one run by the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a consortium of 33 prominent corporations and organisations, except that the news section of the mocked-up copy included a news release proclaiming "major businesses announce commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions by 90%".
The statement, supposedly coming out of Washington but with the phone number of a London-based public relations firm associated with it, went on: "In an effort to encourage decisive action (at climate change talks) in Bali this week, USCAP's members have committed to a 90% reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050," said Matt Leopard, a spokesperson for the consortium. "This commitment should send a strong message to the assembled countries and businesses about the type of reductions needed to stop global warming," it added.
The release listed USCAP's members as US market leaders such as Alcoa, BP, Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, Dow, DuPont, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, and Shell, adding "USCAP's goal is to further public policy that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the climate".
The BP press office in London said it was a member of the USCAP consortium which had suggested the US government should introduce mandatory legislation that CO2 emissions be cut by 60% to 80% by 2050 but denied it would commit itself to a 90% reduction without conditions attached.
A BP spokesman said later that he believed the press release and website were a "hoax" and the web site was not the real portal of the organisation it supported. Similarly a Shell spokeswoman checked out the claims and came back saying: "From what we understand this is a bogus press release."
Greenpeace also believed the web site and press release were a hoax and said this kind of protest was not dissimilar to its own direct actions and could be an effective way of drawing attention to corporations which act in an "unacceptable" way. The environmental group questioned whether the web site had been created by the Yes Men, activists who specialise in dressing up and pretending to be oil executives and making outrageous statements.
In a recent event in Canada, the Yes Men posed as executives from ExxonMobil and the National Petroleum Council (NPC) and delivered a satirical speech to 300 delegates at Canada's largest oil conference, GO-EXPO.
The NPC imposter said US and Canadian oil policies - especially the tar sands schemes in Alberta - would increase the chances of global calamities but reassured the audience that the oil industry could keep "fuel flowing" by transforming people who die into oil. "We need something like whales but infinitely more abundant," said "NPC rep" Shepard Wolff, actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men before being bundled away by security officers and handed over to Calgary police officers.
Tom Simmons, named as a spokesman for the USCAP press release and attached to a public relations firm called Parsons & Fischer, insisted he was unaware of being involved in any hoax. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention," he said. "I will have to make some inquiries of my own."
