[sustran] Re: "In my view you have no place asking a question like this since Shell "

Lee Schipper schipper at wri.org
Thu Nov 22 07:32:38 JST 2007


I was in Shanghai for Challenge Bibendum, Michelin's almost annual event
testing  low emission cars and this time two wheelers running on fuel
and on

electricity as well. A number of buses were also displayed. Shell has
been testing buses in Shanghai running on gas-to-liquids diesel. They
also have a healthy

natural gas business, some of which finds its way into buses around the
world.

 

At the main event, Niel Golightly, VP of Shell for Sustainability, stood
up before the group, and said "buy less of our product".

 

 

Lee Schipper

Director of Research,

EMBARQ the WRI Center for  Sustainable Transport

www.embarq.wri.org

and

Visiting Scholar,

Univ of Calif Transport Center

Berkeley CA

www.uctc.net

skype: mrmeter

510 642 6889

202 262 7476

 

From: eric.britton [mailto:eric.britton at ecoplan.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 2:25 PM
To: edelman at greenidea.eu; Lee Schipper
Cc: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org; paulbarter at nus.edu.sg
Subject: "In my view you have no place asking a question like this since
Shell "

 

Oops Todd. Okay, I have to wade in here.  Up until now I have handled
this in private with Todd, but since all this is now out in the open,
off we go. 

 

Look Todd, you have wandered with your righteous insistence on this and
a few other like matters from the professorial, knowledgeable and useful
to the personal, doctrinaire, and - I chose my word -- paranoid. This is
not, let me say, an Adbusters of CarBuster forum: it is, may I quote
from our charter, 

 

Sustran: The Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific
-- an email discussion list devoted to people-centered, equitable and
sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global
South'). Sustran: a major discussion forum on urban transport in
developing countries." Discussions are well focused, expert-based and of
very high quality.

 

We have been doing this I would say rather successfully since 1999, and
while there have been a few glitches - one or two concerning you in fact
- on the whole this has been a creative and for many of us who are
deeply involved in these real world, often burning issues a useful
exercise.

 

Now Todd, you are a fine man and your heart is definitely in the right
place.  Your actual knowledge of both the politics and practice of
transport and its associated sectors (environment, finance, social
justice, land use, etc.) has shown itself to be more than a little
uneven on more than one occasion (one example among many: 11 Oct. "I AM
sorry, what's ICE?"), but your enthusiasm and occasional useful
heads-ups has made up for these shortcomings of which we all are quite
aware. 

 

But now you are, as far as I am concerned, stepping over the line. Not
in terms of what you chose to say - that's your business - but what you
chose to say here. This is not a place for the Lone Ranger and the One
Pure Truth Seeker.  You have no monopoly on knowledge, long term
commitment or ability. Far from it.  I would say that your technical
competence in our field and your ability to make a difference is no more
than a couple of small notches compared with the contributions and
commitment of Lee (with whom I have long reserved the right to differ,
but not to instruct).

 

Let's take a few steps back on this for a bit of perceptive.

 

1.     Is the Shell Oil company, all the other fossil fuels guys, the
world automotive players, the road and bridge builders of the world, and
all those nicely dressed financial guys, lobbyists and round-heeled
politicians and suited international schmendricks and non-boat rockers
on the first line of guilt as far as the rapid decline of our planet is
concerned?  Yes. No doubt.

2.     Are you the only one in the world who recognizes that? Give me a
break. 

3.     But are the Shell Foundation, the Ford Foundation  and take your
choice for the others without value or validity in our struggle to free
ourselves of these historic, inertial and financial bonds?  Of that I am
less sure.

4.     The Shell Foundation folks, just to take that once example, have
never given our program a nickel, but they have on two occasions and on
very short notice stepped forward  and helped out with most useful last
minute support at a time of need for the Stockholm Partnerships for
Sustainable Cities and later to support the World Technology
Environmental Award (that went to voracious car-lovers Hands Monderman
and Jan Gehl).

5.     Are they perfect? I would tend to doubt it?   Is the group that
is trying to do something with the limited dollars that the Shell oil
company have given them a bunch of kneejerk louts - as you more than
imply with your greenwashing charges?  Let me say, not quite.

 

To conclude - and to leave myself wide open to discussion and
qualification from any of you (but not for now Todd, who has already had
more than his say) - those of us who care about the bottom line,
sustainable development and social justice, and doing something about it
rather than having tantrums in public, are working hard and doing our
best. People like the Shell Foundation crew are surely not perfect but
when they get behind the EMBARQ program and guys like Lee Schipper and
his hard working - and knowledgeable - colleagues, I am not sure that
your level of discourse represents an advance for the sustainability
agenda. It may make you feel better, it may make you feel righteous, but
believe me that is now what all of this is about. 

 

So here is what I propose, subject to the approval of my other senior
colleagues here. You will be asked not to post to this forum for the
rest of this year, but I hope that you will read and profit from our
communications. Think of this as a short sabbatical giving you time to
catch up on a few important things that you will be able to make good
use of in the future. We want your  energy and enthusiasm, and would
just like to temper it with a bit more knowledge about how this most
imperfect world works.  And the maturity which hopefully goes with it. 

 

Kind regards to all, and the discussions are, if necessary,  now open
(to all but Todd, I would say again),

 

Eric Britton

 

 

 

----

 

Lee,

 

In my view you have no place asking a question like this since Shell -
one of the main benefactors of EMBARQ - LOVES it - if semi-secretly -
that automobilisation is on the increase in China.

 

I am not trying to do make a personal attack... but please, let's be
real.

 

All of this

<http://www.shell.com/home/content/china-en/society_environment/dir_soci
alinvestment_1030.html>

should not be balanced against the other activities of the company nor
their competition. It is totally insignificant.

 

I could make suggestions... e.g. Shell would be okay if on a worldwide
basis they only sold energy to public transport and carshare, etc. but
then of course I would be called naive because the competition would
take advantage and so on. As I tried to say here
<http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/2007/10/shell-nominated-for-worst-
greenwash.html>

Shell simply does not care about sustainability in its full form.

 

And EMBARQ is a greenwashing exercise.

 

If I am kicked off the list for this comment, it is worth it. I don't
enjoy writing a letter like this. But I enjoy even less being polite and
thus silent.

 

- T

 

 

 

Lee Schipper wrote:

> I just came back from Shanghai. They are not building a BRT network.
They have 5 (soon 6) Metro lines.

> Traffic is awful...

> 

> There seems no sentiment to do anything to slow cars down, to enforce
speeding laws, to apply congestion pricing. Sure there is an increasing
supply of public transit, but it is not taking modal share from cars
apparently, rather from bikes and walkers. And the E-bikes are
everywhere.

> 

> So where do we go from here, or rather, where does China go from here?
Will the Beijing Olympics or Shanghai Expo 2010 be socked in by bad
traffic and foul air?

> 

> Lee

 



More information about the Sustran-discuss mailing list