Going Green

Greenwashing? How ‘bout RedWhiteAndBlueWashing? | IMHO

By Peter Nowack on August 27th, 2010

InMyHumbleOpinion is a Commentary.
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Start waving the flag, strike up the band. And let’s be sure our Stars and Stripes sheet music is printed on low-cost, imported paper from China and Indonesia.

Because that, my friend, is what will “ensure that individual liberties are reasserted and defended,” and will “re-link consumers, working families, and global prosperity in the minds of Americans.”

Or so says Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity (CAGP), a brand-spanking new “Coalition to Defend the Global Rights and Liberties of Consumers” that was launched August 26. According to its press release, CAGP was established by “leading advocacy groups,” though none was mentioned in the release. (That’s because, it turns out, CAGP is only now starting to build alliances with other groups.)

Fact-check time. CAGP, is not a coalition (as stated in its press release) but a program of the Institute for Liberty (IFL), a D.C.- based 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization that opines to federal regulatory bodies and does “grass roots organizing,” according to its president, Andrew Langer. As one can tell from its website, IFL is a conservative ‘think tank’ that, evidently, doesn’t care all that much for “environmental leftists” and their “anti-liberty” agenda. They’re not fond of “elitist policies,” either.

Among ILF’s list of issues are: The Trillion Dollar Regulatory State, The War on Small Business, Property Rights, Endangered Species and Wetlands, and  Global Warming, which ILF refers to as “Man-Made Weather Control, otherwise known as “Anthropogenic Climate Change.”  Langer told me that ILF has a staff of 7 full and part-time fellows – scholarly types who work on these advocacy issues.

But back to paper, Indonesia and China.

In his press announcement, Langer states, “American paper companies, big labor unions like the Steelworkers and radical environmentalist groups like the Sierra Club and the Rainforest Action Network are colluding to erect trade barriers to block low-cost import products from Indonesia and China. Consumers are the ones who will be harmed, as the price of paper will rise, affecting the cost of almost every good and service imaginable.” Since these two sentences are specifically about paper, and the alleged collusion of groups to stop importation of paper from Indonesia and China, it surprised the heck out of me when Mr. Langer told me that he had “never heard of” a company called APP, which has mounted an advocacy campaign targeting the printing  sector while awaiting a final decision in an anti-dumping and countervailing duties action – an action in which United Steelworkers and Sierra Club are plaintiffs (as are a number of American paper companies). 

Nor has Mr. Langer heard of Sinar Mas, which has been all over the paper, printing, and environmental press recently, having been singled out by Greenpeace for allegedly destroying Indonesia’s rainforests. Langer also said that the selection of paper as CAGP’s initial issue could be attributed to it now being, “back to school season.”

Part of CAGP’s advocacy mission is to defend “economic freedom and progress in the developing world.” As I understand CAGP’s arguments, unless niche-interest, protectionist trade policies are eliminated, those in developing countries are condemned to continued poverty. This language and line-of-thinking are eerily similar to those of World Growth, another D.C. organization that has made a point of bashing WWF, Greenpeace and other NGOs in support of development – pulp, paper and palm oil development, to be specific – in Indonesia. Mr. Langer claims no knowledge of World Growth or its leader/spokesperson, Alan Oxley.

The CAGP website makes a number of allegations about the actions and alliances of environmental NGOs, trade unions, America’s big paper companies and “Western-based retailers” including Staples and OfficeMax who “team up with labor unions and Green NGOs and boycott products from developing countries.” (This statement has a familiar ring as well.)

The hits just keep on coming. And, unless I missed something (hey, it’s possible), none of these allegations are supported by a single footnote or an attribution to an expert.

CAGP claims that FSC’s aim is to be “the monopoly provider of a kind of good-housekeeping seal of approval for trade forest products” which is “nothing short of global governance.” CAGP lumps the AF&PA, United Steelworkers, the Teamsters, WWF and Greenpeace into what it calls the “Empires of Collusion” for their support of the Lacey Act. (CAGP probably means the recent amendment to the Lacey Act, which now demands declaration of origin for imported wood and paper products, but who am I to put words in their mouth?) “Industry, unions, green NGOs – the Empires of Collusion joining together to raise prices and eliminate choices for consumers.” That’s right off the web. I am not making this up.

Maybe it’s just me, but other than the use of the word “consumers” in the project’s name, I can’t find anything that is really “consumer” about CAGP. It smacks of big business – really big business – and the very narrow interests of a few offshore companies. The hyperbolic rhetoric and sloppiness of the “scholarly” web content make me wonder if CAGP’s rallying cry– “Together we can protect the planet and its people by increasing prosperity” – is what CAGP is really all about. Perhaps CAGP is, as Langer described its website, “a work in progress.” But maybe what you see – or don’t see – is what you get.

Of course, that’s in my humble opinion.