> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 8:49 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Jared Diamond always was no little bit off...
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06diamond.html
>
> What do you think is off about this?
>
>
It's utterly pre-political economic technophilia intentionally silent w/r/t
the relation between ecological conditions, traditional cultural ecologies,
neoliberal greening, labor relations, participatory democracy, anti-tax and
anti-regulatory activities, and a myriad other contradictory elements of the
kinds of now-third party certified grades and standards tied to the market
differentiating practices of globally sourced and marketed corporations.
He's had all of this pointed out repeatedly... That's way too dense and
long a sentence but it distills my feelings about (and readings of) Diamond,
WWF, Wal-Mart, Chevron and Coke.
And then there's this, from a different list:
One of a series of articles by anthropologists relating to accusations of fraud and ethical misconduct in an article by Diamond last year in *The New Yorker *(the subject of an ongoing libel lawsuit) seems to offer some background on Diamonds experiences working together with Chevron-
"**In conclusion, I would say that anthropologists are not the only elephants who remember past injuries. Conservationists and development workers in PNG have similar memories. In 1992, for example, World Wildlife Fund US, on whose board Diamond sits, sponsored an eco-forestry project in the Kikori Delta region of PNG. Chevron was then drilling for oil in the region and had become concerned about publicity surrounding its environmental effects, so they enlisted the help of the WWF to green up their image.
Internal Chevron documents at the time suggested that “WWF will act as a buffer for the joint venture against environmentally damaging activities in the region, and against international environmental criticism.” The eco-forestry project would be an alternative to the industrial logging made possible by laying Chevron’s oil pipeline, and would be additionally supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. State Department and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.
The problem was, however, they did not source their timber from the logs felled by Chevron, but instead from a local company that was known to be harvesting mangrove forests. Unfortunately, harvesting mangroves is illegal in PNG, for conservation reasons. When the sawdust hit the fan, though, WWF US proved unrepentant. Apparently (in a remarkable foreshadowing of this debate) the state of Papua New Guinea did not mean much to the project sponsors.
As the *Sydney Morning Herald* reported, “Jared Diamond, a WWFUS board member and Pulitzer Prize winner … says that what is happening at Kikori is ‘sustainable logging of mangroves.’ Diamond adds that, regardless of whether it is illegal ‘if it can be done on a sustainable basis then by all means do it’” (Rowell 2001).
As for his evaluation of the Coca Cola Company, the current issue of *Monthly Review *contains a book review "Got Gas: Mark Thomas Belches Out the Coca-Cola Company" following a journalist's investigation the company's past and current practices and is reviewed, with great humor, by the heir to a large family stake in the company who describes his own frustrating experience as a shareholder activist in trying in vain to get the company to adopt socially and environmentally sound practices- in very stark contrast to the image painted by Diamond. It should be available for online reading soon through www.monthlyreview.org
Alan