"Greenwash won't wash" say two Friends in Aberdeen

On 10 June two Friends from North-East Scotland, Carolyn Burch and Richard Raggett, took part in an XR Scotland demonstration outside the Shell building in Aberdeen, the 'still-pumping' heart of the British oil and gas industry. Carolyn offers two ways of explaining why.

Two Quakers hold a "Greenwash won't wash" banner outside Shell's offices in the Silver Fin Building in Aberdeen
As Friends I hope our small role can be to build more truthfulness and integrity

Climate activist reasons, in the mind:

  • Shell is reneging on its – far from adequate – stated targets for reducing fossil fuel extraction and transitioning to renewable energy production.
  • Shell is being dishonest about carbon offsetting to justify continued exploration and extraction.
  • Workers in the oil industry are themselves asking for an urgent just transition away from fossil fuel jobs, as documented by Friends of the Earth Scotland's report Our Power: Offshore workers' demands for a just energy transition

'Testimony' reasons, in the heart:

I was glad to be at this XR action and I have a great admiration for the faithful and courageous activists who organise them and take greater risks than I feel able to take, trying to take care of a future that we and they may not see. But to really feel that I was in the right place as a Friend, I was very grateful to have the opportunity to hold this particular banner.

There are such messy questions around fossil fuels. Do we need the oil companies' expertise to develop carbon capture? How quickly can we end our oil and gas dependency without social breakdown? How 'green' (and 'simple') are some of the alternatives? People have fears of poverty and joblessness. There's much confusion and obfuscation, with money and influence moving between 'friends in high places', a (sometimes well-meaning) obsession with perpetual 'growth', and real social justice concerns, swirling around the just transition/just stop oil arguments.

But I have no doubt that we desperately need to defy the greenwash. We need to call out vested interests' false solutions. We need to replace wishful thinking with active change towards another of our testimonies – simpler lives. As Friends I hope our small role can be to show joy in simplicity, and to build more truthfulness and integrity around how, or even whether, we can alter our way of being to respect and protect each other and to sustain our wonderful, green and blue, one-and-only Earth.