In the United States, you had the Clean Water Act. The year 1972, in particular, was an inflection point for businesses with respect to environmental issues. But there’s a longer answer here too, and it has everything to do with the subject of the talk I was giving: information pollution. But also, these nonhuman entities have had a seat at the table on environmental and climate policy for a century or more, and what they’ve done with that seat is flip the table over and throw their chair at us (see, anthropomorphizing can work both ways). Quick answer: Companies are not people they do not have moral compasses. It was not the first or even the 100th time I’ve been asked that question. “Shouldn’t we think about bringing these companies into these discussions more?” she wondered. A video of the standoff had gone viral, and one of the activists I was speaking to wondered if, MacDonald’s bravery aside, this was really the best tactic.
The day before, at the TED Climate Countdown event in Glasgow, Scottish climate activist Lauren MacDonald had accused Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden of being personally responsible for the deaths of thousands. Earlier this month I spoke to a group of climate activists about what I call “information pollution”-the use of various PR tactics to shape the public’s understanding of everything from how the economy works to what can be done to fight climate change.
