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BP: bye bye planet

greenwash patrol | 19.04.2001 22:37

oil giant provokes expose of 'beyond petroleum' greenwash

Security guards rushed to the defence of BP officials as they were harangued by Reclaim the Streets de-branding activists at the Natural History Museum today.

This act of political theatre (despite the name badges, the suits weren't really from BP) was staged to coincide with the company's annual general meeting in London, which it had the audacity to hold on World Car Free Day.

To compound the irony, BP currently sponsors the Ecology exhibition at the Natural History Museum, an attempt to re-brand oil production as an environmentally friendly activity.

Today activists posed as BP 'greenwash officials' and argued with 'eco protesters' at the entrance to the Ecology exhibition. The protesters unfurled a banner proclaiming "BP: bye bye planet", using a parody of the company's logo as a fiery red spark set to detonate a planetary time bomb. Meanwhile, 2000 spoof BP leaflets were handed out to enthusiastic visitors, who had no problem joining the dots to a corporate infiltration of the museum.

Elsewhere in London, activists stickered the subverted BP logo at BP stations and BP sponsored exhibitions at the Tate Modern and British museums. Leaflets were also handed to shareholders at the BP AGM in London's Royal Festival Hall, describing how the company moving 'beyond petroleum' is in fact increasing oil production.

greenwash patrol
- Homepage: www.bpamoco.org.uk

Comments

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peyond pelief

20.04.2001 00:02

well, the press/police believed it, rararara, the AGM has a crippling security and police bill to pay for - while the company makes the planet cough up the pennies - both the tabled motions from Greenpeace UK and the Free Tibet Campaign had a significant amount of non activist, shareholder support (7ish% and 5ish% respectively)

the action at the natural histoy (lets make bp history,) sounded great, talking to you and me and other random folk - this was a lovely action, where as usual, somebody else got the media focus (@Royal Festival Hall)+glory, but then again, they had the police to deal with

and lets face it, at least, there's somebody to answer the phone in their offices

- BP is still the most profitable company in europe to invest in, when we (all) change that,we'll be changing something

www.backingpersecution.com

is fun, and yet another twist to the twine that makes our bow

pedesrian