PG&E in need of copy editorsby Amanda Witherell
Ahh, this is so good. I almost don't want to point it out, but hey, we hardly get any laughs when it comes to PG&E.
The corporation recently revived its dormant "Close it Coalition," a fake grassroots community group they cooked up to show the $12 billion company really cares about the pollution their power plant was spewing into the southeast neighborhoods. Now they're opposed to the city's plan to build its own peaker power plant there because of, they claim, the pollution in "our" neighborhood. Most likely they're really against it because it would be owned by the city and not them, but read this Wednesday's issue for more on that.
Anyway they printed up a bunch of mailers that were sent to the Potrero neighborhood, inviting folks to join the Close It Coalition and oppose the new peakers. They also invite you to their website: www.closeitcoalition.org.
Oops, looks like they forgot they aren't a nonprofit. It's actually www.closeitcoalition.com
It also looks like they bought up the alternate domain names of their enemies at www.letsgreenwashthiscity.org and routed them to PG&E's bogus green web site.
Which means they're calling themselves greenwashers. Ha ha. Dorks. My work here is done.
In other greenwashing news: we also heard they nominated themselves for an environmental justice award from the EPA. In the words of our source on that tidbit, "Who nominates themselves for an award?"
Double dorks.
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Comments (4)
You can hardly blame Pacific Gas and Electric for wanting to stay in business. They tried the same stunt in regard to Sacramento Municipal Utility District and it worked.
The largest electric utilities in Canada are government - owned at present although there is some indication that BC Hydro may be sold to investors....The idea does not seem to be gaining "traction".
It would be interesting to determine exactly why ALCOA was so anxious to acquire ALCAN...I suspect that the cost of electric energy at Vancouver, Washington had a lot to do with it...
Posted by K. Allan Dane | August 14, 2007 09:11 PM
Dear Amanda: Beautiful use of links and thanks for outing the greenwashing. My question is who are the major stockholders of PG&E? That's the list you should be publishing: these are the local swells gouging you and everyone you know so they can be a little bit (actually, a lot) richer with public resources.
Posted by sfmike | August 14, 2007 09:56 PM
SFMike,
Actually, I'm one of their stockholders! Hilarious. My prescient grandmother bought some shares in my name about a month after I was born. I can't say what I own puts me anywhere near the Swells, and it certainly doesn't affect my coverage of the PG&E beat, but it does get me into their annual meeting. Lotsa grey hair and suits, and way too many PG&E badges, though some employees were there who bitched during the comment period about how the company is run. I happened to sit next to a PG&E PR flack, who noticed my notebook, so I had to tell her I was from the Guardian. When I got up to ask a question about whether or not the corporation was worried about losing customer base to Community Choice Aggregation, and how much they anticipated losing...they cut the mike and said Q&A time was over. Hmmm....
I'll get on that list of my fellow investors and post it.
Amanda
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August 16, 2007 06:06 PM
Check out this long story in Sunday's New York Times magazine on activist Exxon shareholders
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12exxon-t.html
Posted by Kimo Crossman | August 16, 2007 09:48 PM