Fooling the Present, F***ing the Future

Climate justice direct action group London Rising Tide visits the Science Museum's new exhibition, Energy - Fuelling the Future, nearly drowns in corporate doublespeak, but recovers enough to chat with a passing teacher and locate the main sponsor's Achilles heel

> California oil fields

This whole thing is so wholly, totally, sophisticatedly, elusively, plainly, horribly wrong from so many angles that it's almost impossible to know where and how to start. Since being asked to respond to this exhibition, we've uncovered layer after putrid layer of deep cynicism dressed up as 'education', 'dialogue', 'concern for the future' and the illusion of empowered participatory democracy embedded in the phrase 'have your say'.

The Science Museum says that climate change 'has become the most important challenge that human ingenuity has to solve'. Yet this exhibition clearly demonstrates how little the sponsors would like visitors to the Museum to engage critically in issues around the impacts of energy consumption. It seems they would prefer them to be bamboozled with greenwashed, evasive and distracting interactive exhibits. (Have a look for yourself at sciencemuseum.org.uk)

Our explorations have whipped up a blizzard of questions:

The exhibition keeps reminding us that we have to find new ways to supply our 'energy needs', but how big a distance is there between our needs and wants? Are big museums a good thing? Should we hassle the government to stop throwing money at costly foreign policy misadventures designed to secure future oil supplies and spend it on museums instead? How have we got into a situation where it's assumed that children can only learn or be entertained by staring at a screen? How can we best reach the 320,000 schoolchildren and their teachers who visit the Science Museum every year and let them know that its 'patrons' and 'benefactors' BP, GlaxoSmithKline, BNFL, American Express, ExxonMobil et al are part of the problem not cuddly corporate benefactors with our best educational, social and environmental interests at heart? What happens to (the soul of) an event or institution when it accepts 'sponsorship'? And what happens to us, when we try to 'save' the planet from climate chaos but forget to get rid of capitalism at the same time?

Better not get overheated. Yet. First off, we ought to remind ourselves why BP is anything but a 'good corporate citizen', and why it would be in big trouble without the Science Museum, Barbican, British Museum, Natural History Museum, Royal Opera House, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain and National Gallery bending over backwards to take its money and sandblast its public image:

9 things BP don't want you to know or think about:

* 'BP and Shell have discussed with the government the prospect of claiming a stake in Iraq's oil reserves in the aftermath of war.' (Financial Times, 11 March 2003)

* BP has an ongoing commitment to expand its fossil fuel production by at least 3.5% per year, (though it would dearly love to be able to crank that figure up to 5%)

* fossil fuel-induced climate chaos hit Europe in August 2003, killing tens of thousands of mostly older people in record-breaking temperatures

* BP has bankrolled Colombian paramilitary death squads in exchange for the 'protection' of its oilfields

* 'Exposed: BP, its pipeline, and an environmental time-bomb' (Independent, 26 June 2004) on BP's US-inspired and protected Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and gas pipelines, which will be a human rights disaster and produce over 150M tonnes of CO2 each year for 40 years, causing untold damage to the world's climate [baku.org.uk]

* BP invests less than 1% of its annual budget on solar and other renewable energy sources, much less than it invests in advertising and PR

* BP has been investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for serious and widespread safety breaches at its UK refineries. In 2002, the HSE fined it £1m for these breaches

* 'Alaska cites and fines BP over death of worker' (Financial Times, 28 May 2003)

* In 2003, as BP oil-workers saw their personal safety, union rights and wages in tatters [oilc.org], BP boss Lord Browne's own salary soared to £4.8m...

Worth the energy? A quick visit...

The £2m, 5-year exhibition is aimed at 7-14 year olds, and has Vodafone and BASF as secondary sponsors. It is surprisingly small, with various mostly screen-based interactive games. There is no real centre or journey in the space, instead it seems that separate design companies have produced exhibits that have little inter-connection. There is absolutely no reference to 'the curse of oil', i.e. the social and ecological destruction that takes place wherever the oil industry operates. It may be worth noting that 'BP energy experts acted as consultants to the exhibition to help create content that is accurate and relevant...The expert knowledge which came from BP has been combined with other research and then taken through a process of creating stories and top level messages for the audience.' [1]

Exhibits include a space invaders-meets-floor-dance-pads game where you collect different types of renewable energy sources, with a not-so-subliminal BP logo hovering in the background.

Or you can take over the management of a fictitious state's energy supply. Here you have your photograph taken and stored in the computer as you key in your suggestions. Build a nuclear power station in the wrong place and you could end up with a 'riot' on your hands.

One screen into which you can 'have your say' is the 'Energy Ring', which asks some good questions, with some (no doubt carefully) selected answers making it onto a huge semi-circular ring reaching from ground floor to roof. Selected question: 'How would you change the world's energy inequalities?' Suggested response: 'Burn the yachts of the rich'; (not expected to be appearing on said Ring). Other answers possibly inputted by one of us lot in response to another random question: 'BP R U there?'

There are a few somewhat baffling attempts to incorporate the work of artists into the space, including a video installation and poem dealing with man's love of speed and noisy motors. Then there are some displays of alternative energy sources that look like they've escaped from the Saatchi gallery: for example, human excrement packaged in a pink-ribboned plastic wrapper proposes shit as a possible future alternative energy source.

A passing teacher stopped to give us her response: '"Explainers" in the museum can tell you about how to play the games but actually know very little about energy issues when asked. As a teacher who would be taking students to this exhibit, I am concerned about the focus of the exhibition. There are few resources that can be adapted and used by teachers created directly for the science museum display.'

Blink and you may miss them, but sprinkled throughout the exhibition and its website are short phrases - sometimes just a word or two - that reveal a deep seam of business-as-usual ideology. Here are a few of them:

'Some notes on teaching energy - Energy is also a tricky topic because there are plenty of myths and muddles out there. Here are a few we've cleared up for you.''Do we have all the energy supplies we need?' 'At the moment it's NOT as simple as "renewables are good, fossil fuels are bad". All energy sources have their pros and cons. You need to weigh up their convenience and availability as well as the full financial cost and environmental impact of getting energy from where it's produced to where it's needed.'

Surely the only ones who 'need' this level of energy (regardless of its source) are our rulers, as they need it to maintain maximum profit and maximum social control...

'Energy futures - here's the challenge: future energy supplies must deliver enough to power all our lives without unnecessary damage to the planet.'

And who sits in judgement as to what damage is necessary?

'Energy efficiency means making less energy do more useful work.' 'Crude oil is processed to make oil for burning in power stations, as well as useful oil products such as petrol, diesel and plastics.'

Do you mean useful stuff like the plastic my service station apple was packaged in, or maybe the diesel that powers the Hummers that are currently patrolling Iraqi oilfields?

'The world's favourite energy stores are fossil fuels.'

We often have no choice but to live or work in a carbon-infested economy, but that doesn't make it a love affair...

'Our use of fossil fuels to power the planet is damaging it too'

Someone has to tell the sun, the rain and the other elements that they're out of a job...

This is one way the exhibitors and sponsors smuggle the status quo into an exhibition which on the surface has plenty of technological and scientific information about renewable energies to be happy with. It constructs a false ceiling for an apparently fair and balanced debate. This is science, remember, so there's no place for anything as debased as a social or economic context.

The Science Museum's Sustainable Development Review 2001-3 acknowledges the negative effect of fossil fuels on our future, carries a commitment to lowering the Museum's carbon footprint and even an aspiration to move completely beyond the use of fossil fuels (eventually)... But there is no mention whatsoever of oil company sponsorship. This reveals an unsettling and deeply embedded sense of dislocation at the Museum. Or maybe hidden deep within its hallowed portals there are brutal battles taking place between the pro and anti-oil sponsorship camps? Now's the time to come forward, you frustrated Museum moles...

Save the planet - beat up a hippy

On the exhibition website you can have hours of fun playing at being an 'Energy Ninja', where the first thing you can do is beat up a 'hippy' and smash his guitar over his head for having a camp fire. This shocking crime is placed at the same level of eco-horror as a businesswoman flying to Paris for a single meeting. We would like some reassurance that BP staff are following the Ninjas advice, and not holding business meetings in forests with guitar-playing hippies.

Meanwhile, over at the links section, we find British Gas, BP, British Nuclear Fuels Limited, Energy Information Administration (a US government site with a kid's section where Energy Ant visits BP's Carson Refinery, and a section on coal claiming 'it's useful, there's plenty of it and it's available', and nothing about its climatic impact [eia.doe.gov/kids/energy_fungames/index.html])

You can also find NASA Kids and the Nuclear Energy Institute Science Club ('Nuclear power plants are good for the environment - and good to the environment...Most nuclear plants have a nature park or wildlife sanctuary, too.' - [nei.org/scienceclub/nuclearworld.html]) There are a few sites looking at the science of renewables, but very little about climate change, nothing about the day-to-day impacts of oil and gas extraction and transportation, no campaigns against Big Oil and nothing on the socio-economic reasons for this ongoing state of business-as-usual.

We put this issue to Celeste Bright, Head of Development at the Science Museum and top person when it comes to corporate sponsorship.

LRT: 'The resources for Teachers on the website contain a list of (predominantly US-based) links that are dominated by industry and government. Why is there no mention of, say, Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, who are both active on this issue?' (We thought asking for a link to Rising Tide was beyond the realms of possibility, and would we want to be associated with the exhibition anyway...)Celeste Bright: 'The list is not intended to be exhaustive - overwhelming teachers would defeat the object of the resource.'

A series of follow-up questions solicited this response:

'Thank you for your additional thoughts. I'm afraid, however, that I am unable to provide you with any additional comment... As I am sure you will appreciate our relationship with BP is protected by contract and as such I am not in a position to answer any further questions on it.'

Our teacher said: 'So what they're really saying is "We are going to give you sites that our sponsors want you lazy, unskilled, overworked, underpaid teachers to just look at and avoid engaging actively with the issues. All you have to do is get the right grades, improve the percentages on the league tables. After all, teachers don't get extra marks for actually making students think."'

Privatised, greenwashed and hung out to dry - the influence of petrochemical industry on, and the corporatisation of, UK state education

This appears to be a high-growth industry, with big (oil) business, government and a whole gang of middle-manic facilitators producing warehouses full of green-hued case studies, teacher packs and websites to accompany the high-speed privatisation of UK state education.

For example:

* ExxonMobil supports several schools (e.g. Glyn Technical College in Surrey), runs the ExxonMobil Growing School Links programme, and helped set up the climate-sceptical kids' website Energychest.net, which claims that 'More research is needed to assess what is causing these apparent changes' and boasts 'Discover how Esso strives to protect the environment within its operations and works to sustain a carefully balanced approach to environmental and economic needs.' (Notice that word 'needs' creeping in again.)

* Shell sponsors a neo-Labour Education Action Zone in Lambeth

* BP runs a Schools Link programme and an Education Service, pumping out propaganda to primary and secondary children as well as to older students throughout the UK. 'Our educational initiatives help to extend opportunities; at the same time providing BP and other organizations with a supply of well qualified employees. Education also helps people understand the issues we face; equipping them to play a more active part in our dialogue with stakeholders.' [2] Read between those lines, if you dare

* Schoolscience.co.uk is a government educational site 'supported' by British Energy, Corus, ExxonMobil, GSK, ICI, Nirex, Sony and Unilever

In these web and other resources it is in the interests of the fossil fuel industry and its supporters to ignore the fact that the basic principle of economic growth is at the core of the climate crisis we are facing. Instead, personal consumption is emphasised above all else, and nowhere do we hear of the injustice and destruction wrought by fossil fuel projects wherever they take place.

Aside from this, any company that derives its shareholder return from fossil fuels is committed to pulling ever-greater amounts of them out of the ground. There is a cynical hypocrisy at work in the way they want to be seen as progressive and caring to the general public (especially to young consumers-to-be), yet hard-nosed and committed to fossil fuel extraction to their shareholders and the business community. Unfortunately, the latter image is much closer to the truth than the former greenwashed perspective which they rely on compliant NGOs and educators to propagate. Everything is designed to maximise 'brand actualisation in later life', when the nippers can finally get their hands on a vehicle of their own and choose their brand of choice.

'Schools are institutions for indoctrination; for imposing obedience, for blocking the possibility of independent thought and they play an institutional role in a system of control and coercion ... As paid functionaries of the State, teachers are expected to engage in a form or moral, social, political, and economic reproduction designed to shape students in the image of the dominant society ... mindless skills-based education is gaining more currency as tests guide teaching while learning that addresses the relationship of the self to public life, social responsibility to the broader demands of citizenship is sidelined ... Seldom do teachers require students to analyse the social and political structures that inform their realities...' - Noam Chomsky [3]

Up and down the Exhibition Road: from 19th century trade fair to 21st century ABC1-attracting sponsorship opportunity

Exhibition Road... The museums that stand on this Kensington site are there today thanks to profits from the empire-promoting trade fair that was the Great Exhibition of 1851. Over 200 years later, has anything really changed?

Parents and teachers have quite a choice when it comes to taking their young charges out to Kensington for a learning experience: there's the Royal Geographical Society (sponsored by Shell and Land Rover), then there's the Natural History Museum (its old ecology exhibit, ironically, sponsored by BP, still a major NHM supporter), containing the Earth Galleries (sponsored by mining giant Rio Tinto). Nearby is the Victoria and Albert Museum (past exhibition sponsors including Motorola and TotalFinaElf), and then of course we have the Science Museum.

So what are these spaces meant for? Are they another part of living and/or dead empire(s), with the victors displaying their spoils and celebrating the triumph of their empty, brutal yet effective ideology? Judging by the Energy exhibition's rhetoric of 'energy needs', 'powering the planet' and its refusal to acknowledge the existence of a non-capitalist outlook, it appears that the answer is 'yes'.

With the relatively recent blanket corporate sponsorship of public events, we are now entering a supercharged neoliberal era where the public and the private are blurring into a grey murk. The pragmatists in the museums might say 'this situation was triggered by tough government cuts - it's bite the bullet time: you either take corporate cash, or you shut galleries.' And who are the keenest corporations camping out at the front of the queue? Well, the more you have to hide, the more cash you set aside for sponsorship, so that means the least loved of the FTSE blue chippers: Big Oil, Big Pharma and banks as well as little known financial services and other companies trying to inflate their public profiles. And they all love having somewhere posh to take their clients for drinks. Clearly, any real solution to this situation is going to be impossible without deep systemic change.

Sponsorship has now taken its place happily alongside many other aspects of British life that have been fundamentally altered with next to no debate or action. Take a bow CCTV, advertising everywhere, innumerable pieces of repressive legislation, privatisation, PFI and many more. So how shall we take action against something as pervasive, amorphous and poisonous to the human spirit as the commodification of art, of knowledge, of public space, of giving a damn about our collective future and the ecological crisis we're all facing...

References

[1] BP Energy Debate website[2] BP 'Investing in education'[3] Chomsky N, Chomsky on Miseducation, edited by Macedo D, Rowman and Littlefield: Oxford and New York, 2000

Links

No New Oil coalition: nonewoil.orgPlatform: carbonweb.orgPeoples' Global Action: agp.orgThe Centre for Alternative Technology: cat.org.ukRising Tide: risingtide.org.ukThe Curse of Oil; BBC4 series: bbcfour/storyville/oil1.shtmlBaku Ceyhan Campaign: baku.org.ukColombia: colombiasolidarity.org.ukBP in West Papua: jatam.org Solidarity South Pacific: eco-action.org/sspBP in Alaska: alaskaactioncenter.org Sustainable Energy and Economy Network: seen.orgDissent - a network of the resistance to the G8 UK 2005: dissent.org.ukLondon Action Resource Centre: londonarc.org

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What is London Rising Tide (LRT) and what does it get up to?London Rising Tide, part of the Rising Tide UK network, takes creative action to dismantle the oil industry and combat the other root causes of climate chaos, and to build movements for social and ecological justice.

For three years, often as actions to stop the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline [www.baku.org.uk], London Rising Tide (LRT) has been present at pretty much every event where BP has shown its face. It has disrupted presentations by its boss and chairman, brought a Baku-Ceyhan presentation at an oily Caspian carve-up conference to a standstill, targeted Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, British Museum and Royal Opera House (all BP-sponsored), and occupied the offices of murky financial institutions like the Export Credits Guarantee Department for their role in funnelling taxpayer's money into the pipeline. It has also highlighted the way charities like Save the Children, Flora and Fauna International and WWF collaborate with and sometimes take cash from the company on specific projects. And it was part of an anti-Iraq war occupation that shut down the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London in March 2003.

LRT 'celebrated' BP's Annual General Meeting (AGM) in 2003 by holding a Carnival Against Oil Wars and Climate Chaos and alternative AGM outside. Several concerned members of the public also entered the meeting in order to make absolutely sure their concerns hadn't been swamped by the mile high tide of greenwash that had engulfed the Oil Festival Hall (OFH) for the day.

In 2004, LRT and friends again targeted BP's AGM [www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289340.html], but the main event of 2004 was 'Greenwash or Us: the 1st Annual Exhibition of Resistance to Big Oil and the Corporate Hijacking of 'the Arts''. This was a squatted Camden (50 Chalk Farm Road, to be exact) shop, transformed into an 'art not oil' exhibition of paintings, photographs and sculptures to coincide with the BP-sponsored National Portrait Award, held at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in June. As well as collaborating with local people to run the thriving Camden space well into the autumn with an exhibition, infopoint, cinema, party and workshop events, there were a series of successful actions at the NPG during June, including a blockade of the front entrance on the night of the announcement of the winner. Media coverage was conspiratorially sporadic, apart from a very tasty piece in the FT which signed off with this paragraph: 'Pride of place goes to a portrait showing Lord Browne's "benign mask" slipping to reveal "a satanic look". Organisers claimed the artwork "paints a true portrait of an oil company".'

LRT also called for European days of action against the oil industry and for a fossil fuel-free future during the European Social Forum and related grassroots events, from October 14-17 2004. This is part of a longer-term plan to create a network committed to dismantling the oil industry not to mention capitalism itself.

On September 21st 2004, it was present with banner and critical leaflets at an evening reception for teachers at the Energy exhibition as part of its ongoing campaign to make sure teachers and pupils hear a strong critique of BPs sponsorship of the Science Museum.

Locating Big Oil's vulnerable underbelly, and other curious metaphors

LRT has stuck to BP like a leech, or rather, stuck leechlike to those companies and institutions satelliting around the mothership that is BP. The theory goes like this: BP is Britain's biggest company. It's well-resourced, well-respected and its employees are mostly ridiculously loyal (considering the amount of lay-offs they've had to put up with). Those that orbit around it, though, are often smaller, more vulnerable either economically or in terms of public relations, and its employees are more liable to be receptive to our worldview (especially if we present it accessibly and non-judgementally).

A group as small as LRT can't expect to have a direct economic impact with the occasional short-term blockade of a refinery or petrol station. But it can zone in on the Achilles heel that BP has exposed with its hyperactive programme of public relations and saturation sponsorship of London's museums, galleries, opera and theatre. Ever since BP invested millions of pounds in a complete rebrand, with a new 'helios' logo and 'beyond petroleum' slogan, and started pumping serious money into sponsorship, it has been dancing on highly profitable but dangerously thin ice. With every duplicitous claim to be a good corporate citizen and a hypocrite evangelist for renewable energies, it has laid itself open to brand damage. Whenever we visit a BP-sponsored institution without comment or action, we are giving BP our tacit approval. By targeting its corporate sponsorship, it's possible to blockade BP's extraction of our consent. It's powerful stuff.

LRT's targeted application of pressure is a combination of strategy and the fact that BPs arrogance and the blithe insouciance of the cultural establishment makes us angry. For example, the Tate has 'ethical guidelines' for its 'commercial relationships'. These are a rejection of arms, tobacco or alcohol companies, even though it's plain to see that the oil industry is responsible for more death and destitution than tobacco and alcohol combined. After all, neither sells a product which is threatening the long-term future of the human species! The good news is that less than 15 years ago, the National Portrait Award was sponsored by a tobacco company, until the National Portrait Gallery decided that its reputation was being damaged by such an association. Corporate sponsorship of any kind robs art of any integrity, but removing oil from the picture would mean the industry had one less place to hide, and would allow the public gaze to settle more conclusively and damagingly on its true activities. And removed it will be - it's just that the process needs a kick up the arse.

Like all oil and gas companies, BP isn't part of the solution, and as such doesn't deserve the oxygen of public relations that it currently purchases at a knockdown price from the Science Museum and other cultural institutions across London. What is at stake as well as the long-term future of the planet is the ability of future generations to question and think for themselves.

It's clear that we can't rely on Energy or the rest of the Science Museum to set the parameters for a debate on the way we live and ways to minimise our impact on each other and the planet. We'll have to do that ourselves. We'd certainly be deluded if we thought our kids could get a grounding there on anything beyond the science of climatic change. As a result of being asked to write this article, LRT and various friends hope to produce some web and paper-based resources, as well as to plan school visits of some kind. We have to allow teachers and children to hear dissenting viewpoints and the voices of the dispossessed before it's too late. Please let us know if you think you could help out with that, in any way possible.

Tel: 07708 794665E: london AT risingtide.org.ukLand: c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES.www.londonrisingtide.org.ukSee also www.burningplanet.net and www.risingtide.org.uk