The New Ford Focus

By ZP Heller, AlterNet. Posted July 19, 2005.

With so many environmental groups actively campaigning for causes that are at the forefront of the political scene (global warming, arctic drilling, oil consumption, deforestation and mercury poisoning all come to mind), the question becomes, which approaches are most effective?

Case in point: last week the Sierra Club, long an enemy of the Ford Motor Company (due to its outright refusal to manufacture more fuel-efficient vehicles even though it has the technology) shifted gears and applauded Ford for its new Mercury Mariner Hybrid SUV.

Meanwhile, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), relying upon more disruptive tactics, placed a controversial full-page ad in the New York Times on Thursday that featured Dick Cheney, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and William Ford, Jr., CEO of Ford. As part of its Freedom From Oil campaign, RAN's ad posed the bold rhetorical question, "What do these three men have in common?" The answer: "They all love gas guzzlers."

In a recent interview with the Buddhist magazine Tricycle, RAN chairman Jim Gollin (himself a Buddhist) told a tale that best sums up his group's approach to environmental activism:

There's a story about a guy with a mule. He couldn't get the mule to move. His friend says, "You've just got to whisper 'Move' in his ear and he'll move." So the first guy whispers into the mule's ear. Nothing. He says louder, "Move!" Nothing. Eventually the friend says, "Here, I'll show you." He takes a two-by-four and whacks the mule on the head. Then he whispers, "Move" into the mule's ear, and the mule moves. The first guy is shocked by the violence. "What was that about?" "Well," says the friend, "first you have to get his attention."

For years, RAN has relied upon the two-by-four approach. During its campaign to get Home Depot to stop selling old-growth forest products, it managed to misappropriate the code for all of Home Depot's intercom systems. At 162 stores on the same day, customers were treated to this message: "Attention, Home Depot shoppers! There's a sale on wood in Aisle 13. This wood has been ripped from the heart of the Amazon basin. There may be some blood spilled on the floor, so please be careful. This wood is leading to the dislocation of indigenous communities, soil degradation, and the destruction of Mother Earth."

The Home Depot and its shoppers got the message loud and clear.

On the other side of activist scale is the Nature Conservancy, a non-confrontational non-profit that collaborates with big businesses (including Home Depot) to achieve conservation goals. According to Conservancy spokesperson Emily Whitted, "Before our first major project with the Home Depot, we met with them several times to talk about the issue of illegal logging and how they could become a part of the solution."

While RAN got Home Depot's attention with antagonistic maneuvers, the Conservancy delivered its message softly.

In 2002, Home Depot gave the Conservancy $1 million to combat illegal logging in the Southwest-Asian island of Borneo (in the region of the country that is part of Indonesia), after the Conservancy discovered a large population of wild orangutans, a highly endangered species of primate. Then, roughly a year ago, the Conservancy took its alliance with Home Depot a step further, introducing the use of bar codes placed on timber in Indonesia so that consumers can ensure that their wood has not been logged illegally.

In comparing the results of both RAN and the Conservancy's tactics, RAN won hands down in shock value. While both organizations got Home Depot to cooperate, the fact remains that

Home Depot is the world's largest purchaser of wood products, and yet less than one percent of that wood comes from Indonesia.

How was the Conservancy so persuasive in getting Home Depot to promote sustainable timber harvesting in a country where it has few business interests? Jennifer Krill, director of RAN's Zero Emissions campaign, believes that it took three years of non-violent and peaceful stunts from RAN, the World Wildlife Federation and a broad coalition of grassroots organizations like Rainforest Relief and the Canadian-based Forest Action Network to bring Home Depot to the table in 1999. Once there, the Conservancy was able to step in. Basically, the non-confrontational approach was as effective as the more aggressive track, but as in Gollin's story, it took the two-by-four to get the mule to obey a whisper.

Dan Becker, Washington director of Sierra Club's Global Warming Program, offered another perspective. "It's really easy to run a campaign against a target that's ignoring you. It's much harder when they're listening."

Zack Pelta-Heller is a freelance writer living in Astoria, NY. He is currently an assistant editor for Dell Magazines.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Environment! Sign up now »