We promised ourselves that we wouldn?t cover the current European fuel debacle, as everyone else seems to doing a fine job milking every column inch possible on this ridiculous state of affairs. However, a recent article from those reliably direct rascals at SchNEWS, takes a refreshing opinion on the matter.An interesting by-product of the recent fuel blockage was that people got to see what towns and cities were like from the year dot up until recently-pleasantly car free. Companies like BP are taking these new challenges head on, or at least their PR department is. The company is leading the pack in the realisation that the dirty work can go on, but from behind a thick cloud of “we?re-green” bullshit (also known as ?greenwash?). So to appease the public, and relieve the management of guilt, the trick is not to argue that black is white - it?s to argue that both black and white are in fact different shades of green - the interests of business and conserving the environment are one and the same!Oil and gas companies are trying to find any possible opportunity to differentiate their product and build up a ?brand?. And climate change provides just one such opportunity. Even as early as the late 1980s, BP pushed itself as THE environmental oil and gas company. At the same time as they were destroying large areas of rainforest in Brazil, BP responded to the rise in eco-consciousness with a √Ǭ£20 million re-imaging

campaign, painting all its property green while advertising its annual report under the slogan ?Now We?re Greener Than Ever?. As Corporate Watch magazine point out, “The image change is towards retailing, and renewables, but their production of oil is increasingly in areas of fragile eco-systems and indigenous peoples”.BP?s latest move is to distance itself from the oil industry by withdrawing from this year?s Global Climate Coalition, the US based pro-oil group rejecting cuts in emissions. The new image suggests they are moving into renewable energy and ?beyond petroleum? - into solar maybe? Well actually born-again BP merged with Amoco - who have huge gas deposits - to become BP-Amoco, moving together into natural gas, whereupon the name changed back to BP. We hate to break more bad news, but the truth is that the money they?re putting into petroleum far outstrips expenditure into green alternatives. BP plan to spend √Ǭ£200 million on renewable energy over the next 5 years, which is just a bit less than the √Ǭ£67 billion Amoco cost ?em two years ago or √Ǭ£6 billion that will go towards fossil fuel exploration worldwide. BP?s main interests are in the North Sea, the Caspian Sea (an area of ongoing instability, and Alaska, while Columbia is just one place where they rub shoulders with military conflict.In April of this year, BP chairman Sir John Browne showed how he?d arrived at enlightenment by joining with environmentalists to give one of the Reith lectures on how, er, green BP are going - the lecture must have lasted a cosy five minutes. And the virtual reality PR world has thrown up a whole new ?industry? - risk management. But the risks are not necessarily your company?s toxic waste, but rather the public outcry it generates. There are media techniques used to minimise the fuss - like sympathising with the

villagers next to your oil spill and treating them as victims of something, which couldn?t be prevented. A whole language of double-speak PR rhetoric has emerged, it?s sometimes so sophisticated that it would appear that management in some corporations are now completely lost in their own lies. Next they?ll be holding group tree-hugging sessions ?SchNEWS [http://www.schnews.org.uk] is a non-profit eco-friendly and Feed-friendly organisation based in Brighton, UK.