Watch What You Eat; Can Consumer Power Save the Planet?
12/31/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Watch What You Eat; Can consumer power save the planet?
Source: TIME MAGAZINE
ENVIRONMENT VOL. 154 NO. 27 PERSON OF THE
CENTURY ISSUE
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 31, 1999
Byline: EUGENE LINDEN
The scene: a couple is ordering dinner in a restaurant. The husband
goes first. "Hmm, nice menu. I think I'll have the Chilean sea
bass."
"Harry! Remember the ad in the New York Times saying that when those
ships net sea bass, they kill millions of birds."
"Oh, right, maybe the swordfish then."
"No! They're being fished to extinction. Didn't you hear about the
boycott?"
"O.K. I'll go with the vegetable platter. What can be wrong with
corn?"
"Are you kidding? Genetically modified corn may kill monarch
butterflies."
"May I at least have a salad? I have to eat before we go to Home
Depot."
"You know we can't shop there, Harry. That ad last year said they
purchase wood from an endangered rain forest in Canada."
"Ha! Not so fast. I just saw a Rainforest Action Network ad thanking
Home Depot for changing its purchasing policies."
With newspaper ads urging us to save the oceans and forests, and TV
spots about global warming, conservation groups are making more noise
than ever.
The violence of fringe anarchists stole headlines at Seattle's World
Trade Organization meeting, but more noteworthy was the huge peaceful
demonstration by greens seeking to make sure trade pacts do not
sacrifice the environment.
Politicians are paying attention. President Clinton just toughened
restrictions on auto emissions, and with the environment expected to
be big in the 2000 campaign, Al Gore and Bill Bradley are fighting for
backing from eco-groups. As environmental concern becomes a core
value in the U.S.--and in all other industrial nations--
conservationists realize they can call on voters and consumers to hold
slippery politicians and corporations to account.
If the Home Depot campaign is an indication, the greens have a good
strategy. Reluctant to be called anti-business, they refer to "market
campaigns" rather than consumer boycotts. To deter corporations from
taking timber from untouched parts of British Columbia's Great Bear
Forest, the world's largest vestige of coastal temperate rain forest,
the Rainforest Action Network, along with the Sierra Club and other
groups, used a stick and carrot on the big customers of lumber
companies. The activists blasted Home Depot for buying Great Bear
wood, but when the chain stopped, they ran ads praising the decision.
Other initiatives come from the deep pockets of eco-conscious
foundations, such as the Pew Charitable Trust (assets: $4.7 billion)
and the Packard Foundation ($17 billion). Next year, for example, the
Monterey Bay Aquarium, with money from Packard, will lead a movement
to persuade consumers to stop eating the endangered Chilean sea bass--
similar to last year's campaign that urged diners to "give the
swordfish a break." Says Julie Packard, vice chairman of the
foundation and executive director of the aquarium: "Government
regulations change with each new Administration. Consumer choices can
have more lasting effects."
To many environmentalists, the most important issue of all is the
apparent onset of global warming. To alert the public--and urge
reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions--the National Environmental
Trust and the Union of Concerned Scientists have raised $11 million to
launch history's largest eco-ad campaign.
There's a danger that conservation groups will put out too many
messages or that the anarchists who rioted in Seattle will discredit
the whole movement. But for now, the greens are betting they can get
more of us to think about what we buy and how our pocketbooks can help
protect the planet.