Message From the Editor

March 8 marked International Women’s Day (IWD), a day of global recognition of women’s many achievements and their long and ongoing fight for equal rights and fair treatment around the world. The day also marks an annual trotting out of glib #Girlboss-style ads from corporations trying to burnish their social capital. Shocker, the oil and gas industry is no exception.

As an excellent DeSmog team of female journalists wrote this week, “Even in a sea of tokenistic stunts by brands on the sole day devoted to the women’s movement, the PR and advertising tactics of oil and gas companies stand out, not only for their hollow gestures but the absurdist slogans they employ.”

Such social media #hashtivism rings particularly hollow when you realize the many ways that the climate crisis disproportionately affects women and girls, especially when climate change collides with endemic sex discrimination.

Ad and PR giants like WPP and their subsidiaries enable companies like Shell, ExxonMobil, and other fossil fuel firms to create slick girl-power narratives for a sector renowned for its low female employment. 

After a decade with Shell, Caroline Dennett was fed up with it all. In 2022, the Shell safety consultant loudly quit her job over the company’s inaction on climate change. 

“They do not value human life, or any other form of life on the planet,” Dennett told DeSmog. “They only care about drilling and making money.”

Keep that in mind as you hear other fossil fuel industry slogans about “responsible gas” or “certified gas” that promises low pollution, but as one former Texas regulator told DeSmog, “That’s literally greenwashing and marketing.” Dive into the growing trend of so-called “certified gas” and the U.S. utilities passing on the extra cost to ratepayers. 

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Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

(Job One has additional information on the global fossil fuel cartel's massive disinformation campaigns and other dirty tricks here.)