Who's the Least Sustainable "Sustainability Partner" of the 2012 Summer Olympics?
In response to BP and other petrochemical corporations signing on as "sustainability partners" to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, a UK-based campaign called "Greenwash Gold 2012" is calling on people to vote for the worst offender of the Olympic sponsors.
It may seem like BP is the shoo-in to survivors of its Gulf Coast disaster, but it's facing steep competition from the likes of Dow Chemical Company and the British mining company Rio Tinto.
Still, Bryan Parras, a Houston-based community leader with t.e.j.a.s. and the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health, makes a case for BP winning the Gold:
“The irony of BP sponsoring the 'Greenest Olympics ever' is actually palpable in the Gulf of Mexico. Although the BP media machine professes all is well in the gulf, oil and tar balls still wash ashore with dead dolphins, turtles and other animals; people are sick from toxic exposure, and fisher communities have lost their livelihood."
The campaign, which is a joint effort of the London Mining Network, Bhopal Medical Appeal and UK Tar Sands Network, notes that in addition to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, BP is ramping up its risky development of Tar Sands in Canada (which will endanger the Beaver Lake Cree Nation), is exploring drilling in the Arctic, and has given up its solar energy program.