Eye for (an) Eyeforenergy

Eyeforenergy wants A SEED to remove a parody of their logo from our website. But who the fuck do they think they are? Why do we have this logo on our site? And why aren't they as 'unbiased' as the say? The full story:

On the Tuesday the 23rd April, A SEED received a phone call from Eyeforenergy asking us to remove their logo from our website, citing the reason that we were using their logo illegally and hence contravening trademark laws in the EU and Europe.

Next day, wednesday the 24th of April, they contacted our webserver Antenna, by phone and a lot of emails. If the logo isn't removed within one day they will start a legal action which may result in both our and other Antenna sites being shut down, 'until the problem is sorted out.' And at the end of this email shamelessly try to show their good intentions towards the world: "This would end up not only taking down A SEED's presence on the web, but no doubt other non-profits as well. It would seem that would be counterproductive to the aims of the organizations you support."
Moreover they changed the charge at bit; it is not their logo that is the problem but the version where we changed the text. According to them the A SEED website "contains defamatory and illegal content, the main offender being an altered version of our logo, which contravenes trademark laws throughout the EU and Europe."

At this moment we are searching for information about this issue and what rights and choices we have. Quite a few people have been helpful, and for our 'problem' we have received different kinds of advice. Another problem is that we don't have money (and don't have people and time) for a court case. For now we removed the pictures from our host, Antenna. They support us but don't have money for a court case either. Instead of hosting the pictures at Antenna we just have links to other places, so the site still looks the same. This will change the legal situation, but we aren't safe yet (see case Deutsche Bahn against Xs4all and Indymedia.nl). Our argument against Eyeforenergy is this is satire and not their logo. As long as you don't use this for making profits, this has never been a problem. But whatever happens afterwards, we will make sure Eyeforenergy will get some bad publicity because of this. (Ha, Ha)

About Eyeforenergy
Eyeforenergy had on the 19th of February of this year, organised a carbon trading conference in Amsterdam where participants from energy and petroleum companies, consultencies and carbon trading companies had gathered to see how they could make more money out thin air with the excuse that they were preventing climate change. These technocrats and businessmen who probably flew to Amsterdam (creating more climate change), have managed to make climate change a corporate win-win situation where 'business as usual' has effectively undermined any real solutions. The event was disturbed by activists concerned that such congregations are a direct threat to countering climate change and are used as an excuse by companies to greenwash their images and in the process make as much profit from it. (A report can be found on www.aseed.net)

Eyeforenergy maintains that it is unbiased and neutral regarding the issue of carbon trading as a solution to climate change and organises such conferences due to it being a topical issue within the energy sector. They expressed their concern about our use of their logo saying that it is not they that should be targeted but rather the participants of their conferences. Moreover they fear that our negative use of their logo will have implications for their image and hence the profits which 'they work so hard for'. They are after all a business.

Yet their business is effectively facilitating the promotion of carbon trading regardless of how neutral they claim to be. Moreover, by bringing together people in meetings such as this, they may well be doing more than the participants themselves in institutionalising this pseudo solution. In this sense they are part of the core problem just as much as the corporations that are the main contributors to climate change. Therefore in our view claiming to be unbiased is just an excuse and a failure by Eyeforenergy to look at the larger implications of carbon trading for social and environmental justice and a safe future for our planet.

Eyeforenergy is part of a larger conference organising company, which also has an EYE for other lucrative opportunities such as EyeforTRANSPORT and EyeforCHEMICALs. Their assertions that our use of the logo and the content of the A SEED website as defamatory and illegal are from our point of view quite a contradiction. By helping to fudge the issue of climate change into something that can only be solved by market forces (i.e. carbon trading) and voluntary initiatives, they themselves can seen as acting illegally towards our planet and people who will be affected by climate change. We may have used their logo, but our content is far from untrue and illegal. Our analysis stems from a belief that these corporate pseudo solutions only benefits corporations and is part of the ongoing corporate driven globalisation of our planet, thus furthering global inequality and disempowering citizens.

EYE seemed overwhelmingly concerned about how our use of their logo could tarnish their image and even though the chance of one their customers coming across the A SEED website is relatively small they are willing to take us to court for criticising their business. In a fair and democratic world we have the right to express our opinions and criticise what we see necessary. Our 'misuse' of their logo may cause them some stress (as they themselves say) as they are in the business of making money. Yet they cause us stress by helping to sustain the destructive practices which threaten the long term well being of our planet. Simple excuses about supposedly being neutral will not suffice. Face up to the facts EYE. You are as deeply implicated as anyone else in the business of climate change is.

What EYE doesn't realise, is that they have now managed to catch the EYE of activists and other SERIOUSLY concerned people worldwide and could be in for a few more surprises in the future. They may be able to force us to remove their logo from our website but they can't stop us from protesting their business. Eye for an Eyeforenergy.

We are really scared and intimidated now! We will NOT ask activists in North America to do an action during 'CO2 Trading 2002: The North American Market', the next conference organised by Eyeforenergy. This one takes place in Chicago from the 18th to the 20th of June. The programme and more details you can find on <www.eyeforenergy.com>. And we will NOT tell them that they can meet their networking corporate friends during the 'generously sponsored' Cocktail Party at June 19.

Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 16:05:36 +0100
From: Bruno Russell <Bruno@firstconf.com>
To: "'support@antenna.nl'" <support@antenna.nl>,
"'beheer@antenna.nl'" <beheer@antenna.nl>
Subject: Defamatory website hosted by Antenna

We are the proprietors of eyeforenergy.com, including the Eyeforenergy brand and the Eyeforenergy.com logo, an example of which can be found here:
http://www.eyeforenergy.com/pics/bnr_toplt.gif

This email is notice that you are hosting a website (www.aseed.net) which contains defamatory and illegal content, the main offender being an altered version of our logo, which contravenes
trademark laws throughout the EU and Europe.

The pages containing this altered logo (of which we are aware) are:

http://www.aseed.net/eye/index.htm
http://www.aseed.net/eye/reports

Please contact me immediately on +44 20 7375 7546 to let me know how you intend to take action to remove this logo from general access via the Internet, bearing in mind that past legal precedents show that the ISP/hosting company can be liable for illegal content published by their users (regardless of whether or not it contravenes your Terms & Conditions).

Best Regards,
Bruno Russell
First Conferences Ltd.
Email: bruno@firstconf.com <mailto:bruno@firstconf.com>
Tel: +44 20 7375 7546

Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 11:00:03 +0100
From: Allison Robertshaw <arobertshaw@eyeforenergy.com>
To: "'support@antenna.nl'" <support@antenna.nl>

Dear Antenna-- As my colleague mentioned, as ASEED's ISP you are legally culpable with them for trademark infringement upon receiving notification from us of their actions if you fail to rectify them. We have spoken with ASEED and believe that the logo will be taken down today. However if it is not, we will pursue legal action tomorrow which may result in both ASEED's site and your ISP being shut down until the problem is sorted out (as Bruno pointed out there is presidence for this in the european courts under who's jurisdiction you fall). This would end up not only taking down ASEED's presence on the web, but no doubt other non-profits as well. It would seem that would be counterproductive to the aims of the organizations you support.

As reaction on their emails to Antenna we wrote a short email to Sarah from Eyeforenergy about the trademark issue and how we feel Eyeforenergy is facilitating carbon trading. This text and the text she wrote back are included below. A mate of hers also wrote back and this included too.
Afterwards you can find our longer responce on their emails.

From: Jens Christiansen [mailto:jensbeck@aseed.antenna.nl]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 5:37 PM
To: Sarah Robinson
Subject: EYE for the world

Hi Sarah, I thought I would follow up our phone call after having looked at your website(s) and realising that the EYE is not only for energy for but also for Eyeing up other business opportunites. So something I would like to ask you is if you have you got copyrights for all the different EYEs....or what is it you have a copyright for if you intend to possibly begin some form of legal procedure. Maybe you could even send us a form.

About EYE for Energy being neutral is easy for you to say, but for us, EYE is part of the problem as it is facilitating a process, which as ridiculous as it seems, is meant to be the main solution for saving our planet from climate change. EYEforE may have done some research to prove to yourselves that carbon trading may work and I would never discredit another persons analysis of a situation rather I am more interested in how their analysis was derived. If you follow the history of climate change negociations since its inception in 1992 you get to have a clearer picture of how fickle and deceptive the companies that you invite to your conferences actually are. From being staunch opponnents to any credible scientific proof of climate change they have now found the perfect way to look good while finding a way to make massive profits while at the same time managing to circumnavigate real commintements to challenging climate change. A quick look at 'green' petroleum companies such as BP and Shell show increases in oil production and exploration with small (less than 1%) in investment in renewable energies. These companies are both instigators of carbon trading schemes together with advice from Arthur Andersen (Shells consultant on climate issues) who have several scientists on their payroll within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 'Funnily' enough these scientists pushed for carbon trading to be a viable solution to climate change, and together with massive spin machines we have know come to the point where people and primarily politicians are talking this new language.

So i probably won't convince you why we oppose carbon trading or why we will oppose your company for being part of this problem. What i will say is that what you do may just be a job for you. what i do is what i believe in, it is my life, therefore i can call it my hobby. I have shaped my own analysis not only through looking at corporate solutions to climate change but looking at it from what it really means for people and planet. Not only do i believe that these solutions will fail, they will also aid the complete takeover of certain companies of the global energy sector and therefore being a process of neo-colonialism by giving northern companies and shareholders the benefits of energy trading and the outcome of any carbon trading regardless of the the supposed benefits for developing countries which they may derive from the kyoto protocol.

There are many forces at play here and it is not a black and white issue. To have to understand what the Kyoto protocol and carbon trading actually means in todays economic and political 'climate' one needs to look at how this issue overlaps with what the WTO and the World Bank is promoting. It should also not be seen in isolation from other UN conventions such the Convention on Biological diversity. I won't go into these issues but moreover speaking with and learning from several different people about climate change has made me reach the conclusion of why we must target companies complicit in this process in every way possible.

So maybe you understand our position or not. For me it does not really matter, after all it boils down to how we percieve the world and what influences have made us perceive it the way we do. This is something society unfortunately seems ignorant about in general, which is a shame,
because that is what i feel is hastening the demise of our climate as well as our natural environment.

Have a nice day, yours, jens christiansen

Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 18:58:22 +0100
From: "Sarah Robinson" <srobinson@eyeforenergy.com>
To: "'Jens Christiansen'" <jensbeck@aseed.antenna.nl>
Subject: RE: EYE for the world

The Eyeforenergy name and logo is trademarked, meaning that you cannot use either without our permission. This is really the nuts and bolts of our dispute, but I will provide further clarification tomorrow when I've had a chance to consult our lawyers.

I would prefer to resolve this situation with common sense rather than lawyers. Quite simply, as I stated yesterday [by phone], we are asking that you remove the Eyeforenergy logo from your website as we have not given permission for it to be there. You should be aware that replacing the logo with defamatory text would be an infringement of libel laws.

Please remember that this dispute is professional rather than personal and my personal view on emissions trading is irrelevant here. However I think it might help you to better understand the role of Eyeforenergy if I ask you this:

Jeremy Paxman, a well known presenter on British television (BBC) invites a British cabinet minister, a leading member of the opposition party, a director from an oil major and a representative from Greenpeace, to debate the emergence of the UK emissions trading scheme on his respected BBC program, Newsnight.

Would A SEED or your affiliated organisations hold Jeremy Paxman or the BBC responsible for the emergence of the UK emissions trading scheme? Further, should Jeremy Paxman's personal views on emissions trading prevent him from hosting the debate?

Why did you not request a press pass for the conference and actually listen to, and question, what the speakers had to say in a rational manner? We allocated press passes to Green Pepper in good faith - sadly I have reason to believe that this faith was abused - but I can assure that
the interviews the girls held with delegates and speakers were infinitely more beneficial to their cause than the uninvited presence of Rising Tide.

Had we been contacted by the action group in advance, we would even have been prepared to display their literature at the conference exhibition, ensuring that all delegates have the opportunity to read their concerns.

I genuinely, and this is actually a personal opinion, question the logic and effectiveness of your chosen style of campaigning. Having participated in various campaigns myself in the past I have the advantage of being able to view the situation from both sides, and both as an activist and
employee of a (mistakenly identified) target group I can assure you that there are more effective and responsible methods of making your point.

I have copied into this email a friend of mine who I know shares your concerns about climate change and who will agree with all of your points (in fact the two of you could be great friends), as I am interested to know if he also agrees with my point that as an independent conference organiser, Eyeforenergy is not part of the carbon trading market but merely a facilitator of debate. Maz - please feel free to comment!

That aside however (as it is really to satisfy my own curiosity) I trust you will arrange for the removal of the Eyeforenergy logo from your site ASAP.

From: Angelo Mazzeo <angelo.mazzeo@context.co.uk>
To: "'jensbeck@aseed.antenna.nl'" <jensbeck@aseed.antenna.nl>
Cc: 'Sarah Robinson' <srobinson@eyeforenergy.com>
Subject: GREENPEACE activist concerned
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 10:49:32 +0100

A good friend of mine Sarah Robinson who works for Eye for Energy is concerned about your impending direct action regarding sabotaging the ensuing environmental debate on climate change. I am a great believer in direct action but only in a proper thought out strategic way.

You should be concentrating your resources and targeting oil companies, logging firms, unethical governments and multinationals who have appalling environmental polices instead of a small independent events organiser that is doing its best to stimulate creative, intellectual conversation to bring about environmental awareness to the politicians we love to hate!

Think before you act, what are your values, will your actions be welcomed by the masses and media or will your perception by the public be one of distaste (this will lower the reputation of all GREEN organisations). This is vital if your organisation is to grow. Please don't get me wrong I
understand your struggle, but you must analyse whether your actions will be productive. Think of your wider audience not your own personal vendettas.

I know Sarah, she is concerned and passionate about climate change, so please think about your strategy, focus your strengths against the real perpetrators, it is why GREENPEACE is so successful.

PS Check out our web site, we must all compromise, intelligent debate is the only way forward, why do you think GREENPEACE now overlooks shells environmental policy, which btw is now the best oil company investing in renewable energy after the Brent spar direct action coup.

I will reply to both of you as you Maz, have now been included in our ongoing logo loop. Moreover from your email's there is a need to explain our side of how we view the logo issue, the climate issue and the action issue. We at ASEED Europe do so because we are concerned about how some content of your email's seemed quite patronising. In turn we may sound a bit patronising and apologise for this.

We agree with you Sarah that we don't need lawyers. Moreover this is not a personal vendetta Maz, I am not sure where you got this from. We did an action at the Eyeforenergy conference for what we see as a good reason, which will be explained below.

The Logo
First I want to ask you about the logo. EYE seems to be intent on portraying our use of the EYE logo as defamatory and illegal. What I would like to ask you is if a random person (including some of your business customers (which is highly unlikely)) saw your logo on our website, first
of all would they recognise it, second, would they see it as defamatory or illegal, and thirdly do you think they would care? (that includes your customers). We are inclined to think that the answers to all of these question Moreover we think that EYE for Money is highly appropriate. Your caption in the heading of the Amsterdam conference says 'Emissions trading is now a reality. How can you profit?' If that is not about making money then my interpretation of the English language is completely wrong.
Therefore we ask you what is defamatory about us putting the blatant truth about your conference on our website? You yourselves acknowledge this on your website and the content of the conference clearly indicates this. To add to this we feel that this is a rather fluffy subvert which we would be surprised if it damages your profits. Several organisations/individuals make fun of company logos including Greenpeace who we got some advice from today about this issue. In fact it is not illegal to use a logo if it is done in a satirical and non commercial manner, which is the case here. If you look at how other logos/brands have been subverted, our use of the EYE logo pales into significance (think Shell). Furthermore these big companies usually don't put up a fuss, as we hear from the experiences of other organisations on similar issues. (including Greenpeace)

Sarah, you've maintained that EYE is neutral and then you gave Newsnight (yes Paxman is good) as an example of the role EYE plays. A SEED would not hold Paxman or the BBC as responsible for the emergence of the UK emissions trading scheme. At the same time Paxman and the BBC is not facilitating or promoting something, they are creating a debate. EYE is not creating a debate, it is through organising such conferences promoting this 'solution' more than many of your participants may be doing. Another look a "Clearly emissions trading options are ripe for the picking - so how can you make sure you're ready to profit from GHG? Let's face it -you can't really afford not to be, especially as the World Bank has estimated demand in the international GHG trading system to be in the order of US$20 billion per annum by 2010. Eyeforenergy is delighted to bring you this event which will focus on how you can best seize this exciting new market opportunity. As ever the conference will be driven by the industry leaders in this arena backed up by expert advice from those helping the industry make the right moves in emissions. We're running the event in conjunction with our European online trading conference, Energy Trading in the New Economy, so you can learn about the latest developments in energy trading too. Amsterdam will be the place for traders, marketers, exchanges, brokers, and executives powering the emissions trading industry to network with each other."

From reading this excerpt, looking at the program and receiving feedback from the presentations, this was not a debate. There were no critical voices and no real discussion, only sessions on what is the best way to make profits from climate change. Please correct me if I am wrong. If we
had wanted to be present and have a debate we would not have wanted to talk about the intricate details of the trading schemes now present today. That would have been besides the point. If we wanted a debate on what A SEED believed in, the business people would have stayed at home. This conference was business as usual, not a debate. Being a facilitator to the selling out of our climate, EYE is for sure not neutral.

You say Maz, that we should target the corporations and governments who have bad environmental records etc "instead of a small independent events organiser that is doing its best to stimulate creative, intellectual conversation to bring about environmental awareness to the
politicians we love to hate!" This could be partly truthful depending on how one looks at this conference. How creative can we be to make most money out our climate? Very creative as we all know. I am not sure if this is intellectual con As for the debate on climate change, I am sorry Maz there is no real debate. It has been coopted by companies who had the most to lose (and now most to gain) and the governments which they are so effective at influencing. We are not sabotaging any environmental debate on climate change when there was no debate (especially in the EYE conferences). Maybe you should look at the conference program and the list of participants and you can see this is far from debating about whether carbon trading is or not is the way to go. It is about making it into a reality and how most money can be made from it. There were no Greenpeace people in the Amsterdam conference. If this was a debate, it was not a debate about saving our climate is was a debate how to make the most money out of it. We were trying to sabotage a conference of people representing companies who are some of our worst polluters and are now trying to make money out of there own pollution. Weird world isn't it?

Moreover, EYE as far as we can tell from the website is not a small events organiser. It is part of First Conferences (or at least on the www.firstconf.com) which hosts a number of other business events all called EYE for something.

As for the next EYE conference in Chicago this is the same story. It is all about how companies can make the most of these schemes. For example one of the companies that will be present, Transalta have come up with an ingeniuos solution to help them prevent paying penalties in the carbon business. The Alberta-based energy utility is financing a project in Uganda in which cows are fed in a way that reduces the volume of gas they fart. The project allows Transalta to buy time for its three coal-fueled generating stations.

On another note, is the frightening fact that these companies also support the other climate change mitigation strategy of carbon sinks. For example Shell and Dupont both promote this crazy solution. Shell is investing in eucalyptus plantations in places where these should not be.
(see the case of Vietnamese communities being displaced because of this).
Moreover if you know how ecologically destructive eucalyptus plantations are then you would be appalled. Shell and Dupont (big in the genetic engineering sector) are both looking into fast growing trees (GE trees) as a way to make money out of climate change. Luckily for us northerners these alien species will not be grown here but in the South, with the excuse that it will aid their development. Do you think this is a viable solution to climate change? Do you think this is sustainable development?

The action and A SEED
The action was not carried out by A SEED. It is on the A SEED website. Rather, it was a collection of seriously concerned climate activists who do not necessarily belong to one group. We as concerned citizens followed our values which led us to taking action, and this is one of many forms of action done to raise awareness about carbon trading. Actions on the street have shown that people are fairly badly informed about what companies and governments are doing to tackle climate change.

Sure we analyse actions and sure we think of our wider audience, and we don't think that the perception is one of distaste. On the contrary it has raised both the media and the publics awareness on this issue which have by and large been the domain of people involved in the climate debate. People decided to do this action because they see it as necessary and productive as a way to meet our values. It is not a personal vendetta, rather it's an action against all who take part in carbon trading.

Moreover we don't want to grow. A SEED has existed for nearly ten years and becoming bigger is not what our organisation is about. We are a network and a campaign group. The D in A SEED is for Diversity. Growing bigger (like the aim of most corporations and some organisations) ultimately smothers diversity. A good example is the loss of culture, tradition and livelihoods the world over due to corporate influence in every sector.

We are not pretending to be Greenpeace nor do we want to be Greenpeace. We find it a bit strange that there's is a need to compare us to them. There are other A SEEDs in the world but they are decentralised hubs specialising in what they see important, and we are not looking to create more. Greenpeace are big and they have been successful sometimes, but it doesn't
mean that they have to be copied. Their way of working is different from ours as we try to use more participatory ways of learning, decision making and taking action. Which is also how we came to do the action at EYE.

Maz, you say we all have to compromise. Well the Kyoto protocol is one big compromise to the whole planet. You could say that our governments compromised a safe future and the lives of people who already now are suffering from climate change, for continued corporate profits. The fight to lower emissions has over time been eroded by the selfish interest inherent within the corporate sector. We need to reduce emissions, not start a trading scheme in them. Trading is avoiding the real cuts that will be painf Ten years of discussion since Rio has brought nothing and has been full of compromises to industry. If we compromise more then there will be nothing left to fight for. I am not only talking about climate here but all the other arenas where we are seeing the continuous influence of corporations in every aspect of our lives.

Lastly Maz, you talked about values. Well our values lie in the belief of social and environmental justice for all. Carbon trading is a direct threat to this. If we did not do anything about this we would be compromising our values. Therefore you are contradicting yourself when you talk about values and the need to compromise.

OK, I hope this clarifies our stance on all the issues which you brought up in your emails. I am happy to clarify anything and continue the dialogue. As far as the logo, well it seems you've had your fun too which is appreciated.

I would also advice you to read this briefing on the following link. It's a bit old but gives you a good insight into the corporate cooptation of the climate debate. http://www.corporateeurope.org/greenhouse/index.html

PS. you say on our website "BUT YOU FAILED" well we think that we will all fail if we don't come to our senses and stop contributing to the selfish interests of the corporate machine.