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Shell’s Lawsuit Against Environmental Organizations Courts Disaster

…Shell also settled a case charging them with collaborating with the Niger military to kill environmental activists who led the protests.

Shell is suing 12 environmental organizations to preempt legal challenges to exploration in the Arctic Ocean. The environmental groups include, among others, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Audubon Society, Oceana (full disclosure: Oceana is a source for CSRHub ratings) and the Sierra Club. Crazy isn’t it, Shell, a $378 billion company, attacking the National Audubon Society? It’s a bully image that can only hurt, and Shell should know better because it’s happened to them over and over again.

Twenty years after the fact, people are still talking about Brent Spar, the 14,500-ton North Sea oil platform Shell was all set to dump into the Atlantic Ocean until protests inspired by Greenpeace ignited a citizen fury so intense that according to one poll, the oil industry’s public acceptance declined from 70 percent in the 1970s to 32 percent in 1996 post-Brent Spar. The protests hurt sales too: Shell gas stations lost sales, as high as 50 percent in Germany.

Another example: in 2004, Shell took a serious hit to its reputation when it overstated its oil reserves, screwing its shareholders and government allies, and was forced to restructure. New management began addressing its environmental mistakes with gusto. CEO James Smith led the company to invest in renewable energy sources such as plant-based biofuels and offshore wind energy, embodying a caring, environmentally friendly image. (Shell has since pulled out of all alternative energy projects except biofuels.)

Under Smith’s watch, Shell also cleaned up its legal messes. In 2009, the company settled legal cases in Niger stemming from the 7,000 oil leaks from pipes installed starting in the 1960s. The pipes had life-spans of only 20 to 25 years. Shell also settled a case charging them with collaborating with the Niger military to kill environmental activists who led the protests.

That same year, Shell settled a case in California over leaks in gas storage tanks at its stations. Shell had “disregarded the state’s underground fuel storage and hazardous waste laws,” as California Attorney General Jerry Brown stated.

So confident was Shell that it had cleaned up its image that when the BP oil spill happened in April 2010, Shell launched an aggressive campaign to claim the alternative energy positioning once owned by BP/Beyond Petroleum.

As reported in Ad Age:

“The effort touts the dawn of a future that will be powered by new and multiple energy sources and cleaner fossil fuels that Shell is ‘unlocking.’ It also expresses the notion the world will soon be on the road to sustainable mobility and that Shell is ‘ready to help tackle the challenges of the new energy future.'”

With this new lawsuit against environmental organizations, Shell believes that it has found a way at last to forestall consumer activism. Really? The Arctic has become a symbol of unspoiled nature. Penguins are stars of live and animated movies. Nature series run specials on the Arctic. Polar bears are beloved.

Greenpeace has already geared up to repeat its success with Brent Spar.

What led Shell on this foolhardy course? Perhaps it is well aware of its vulnerabilities. As noted by Oceana’s advisor Whit Sheard, who last month filed a challenge to Shell’s exploration plan, “This cleanup plan, just like their previous cleanup plans, is woefully inadequate, based on technology that has never been proven.”

The weirdest thing is that Shell is known for its ability to forecast correctly. It was the “ only oil company to anticipate both 1973’s oil-price boom and 1986’s bust.” Its scenario-planning group famously predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of its oil fields. How can the company continue to be so myopic when it comes to assessing consumer power?

One guess is that its legal department doesn’t talk to its brand reputation group. Too bad for Shell. Even the legal profession has its environmental activists and climate justice organizations are on the case.

As Jennifer Marlow, co-founder of the Three Degrees Project says,

Shell insulated itself from the oil price shocks in the 70s by planning ahead and outsmarting its competitors. Now, it’s applying the same anticipatory tactics to prevent public interest environmental groups from obstructing ‘justice’ at some point in the future. While future thinking helped Shell gain the market during the oil crisis, the same tactics won’t work here.

And even if the Alaskan courts do rule in Shell’s favor, it is the court of public opinion that wields the most power, as Shell will have to learn all over again.

SOURCE

RELATED COMMENT POSTED ON SHELL BLOG ON 22 MARCH, 2012 BY “Someone tired from lies”

This latest article from Carol Pierson again clearly exposes how the treehugging community does not base its actions on facts nor does the effort to get a good understanding of them first… Some examples: 1) there are no penguins in the Artic, they only live on/close to Antarctica. 2) there was no Shell CEO named James Smith – if I recall correct there was someone with that name in Shell holding the position of UK Countrychair. 3). Shell is not suing anyone, as far as I understand they are asking the court for confirmation that due process was followed and that people/organisations that dispute have to come forward now and not at the last minute – of course the treehuggers are upset that they apparently are outsmarted and the legal system is used so they can’t abuse it… 4) reference is made to the Brent Spar case but nowhere is mentioned that Greenpeace in the end had to admit that the initial Shell-proposed solution was the best – technically and environmentally. but as was proven not from public opinion point of view.

I am not here to blindly defend Shell, although I work for the company in a technical position outside the USA. My post has nothing to do to defend whether or not Shell should be allowed to drill (I have my opinion on that one though), but to expose the sneaky way the treehugging community is waging their war (they call it relentless activism..). Even during my student days several years ago I got upset with this way of influencing the public opinion with lies/cheats/half-truths by the treehugging community. I was active in one for some years in my highschool time and I can tell that they are just a business as Shell is. They don’t do it for the betterment of all, as they claim constantly, but just to proof their existence and ability to keep themselves employed with salaries paid from the donations they get… Michael Crichton wrote a book about this “business” – he is not far from the truth how he portrays.

RELATED COMMENT POSTED ON SHELL BLOG BY “Outsider” on Mar 22nd, 2012 at 11:17 pm

I agree that Carol Pierson needs to check her facts – for an environmentalist she seems remarkably ill informed. However, even if the environmental activists may not have all of their facts 100% correct, they are no less guilty of spinning the news and holding politicians to ransom than Shell. Shell may have been right about Brent Spar from a purely technical/economic perspective, but they were horribly wrong in their assessment of the public’s reaction to the idea of simply dumping the platform in mid Atlantic. The environmentalists knew exactly what they were doing, and in contrast to Shell were completely in tune with public sentiment.

REPLY BY “Someone tired from lies” on Mar 23rd, 2012 at 8:20 am

To Outsider: these eco-activists are not the public opinion, they try to influence the public opinion to their side. That is exactly what happened with Brent Spar – if Greenpeace would have gotten their facts right and understood upfront that the proposed solution was the best one for the environment overall, they would not have created a fuss and Shell would not have been in the horrible situation they were in… The eco-activists, but also all other types of such movements (anti-globalists etc.) sell 1 product – fear & distrust. And if a couple of truths have to be killed to achieve this, then that is “just” collateral damage. I do not say that Shell or any other large corporation is better than this, but what insults my brain is that these eco-warriors claim the moral high ground while in reality they are at best just the same as the corporations…

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

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