Budging Bush - A Guide to Current Boycotts

This month's edition of Ethical Consumer (EC) magazine [issue 71], to follow up the US President's trip to Europe, contains a Bush Boycott Special. It reports on the various campaigns and boycotts which have sprung up to put pressure on the Bush administration to resume implementation of the Kyoto agreement on climate
change.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) organised the sending of over 50,000 e-mails to the White House within five days of Bush's announcement on March 20th. The EC report details other actions and campaigns, some of which are summarised below:

Boycott Bush

www.boycottbush.net

Initially a list of the 'Top twenty Republican donors with global consumer brands', this campaign, launched by Ethical Consumer, calls on environmental consumers to boycott them 'until such time as Bush undertakes to implement Kyoto in full.' Targets include Amway, Granose, Clairol, Coca Cola, Macleans toothpast, Microsoft, Kraft,
Dr Scoll and Disney. The web site also suggests ethically-screened alternative brands.

Esso Boycott
www.stopesso.com
Launched by Greenpeace, FoE and the student campaign group People & Planet. A May 2001MORI poll showed that 53% of petrol buyers were willing to join the boycott, prompting the Observer newspaper to comment that this could be the most profound British demonstration of consumer activism since Barclays was
forced to pull out of South Africa. Safeway and Sainsbury, according to the website, are supplying Esso petrol.

Its in your Interest
www.iiyi.org.uk
A UK-based campaign seeking to boycott selected US multinationals. It's site has a Kids Campaign area introducing the boycott idea.

Boycott Republicans
www.boycott-republicans.com
A US-based campaign, not focussed particularly on global warming, but which urges supporters to pledge not to purchase goods from a list of Republican donors including AT&T, Coca Cola, Pepsi, American Express and Wal-mart.

Families Against Bush
www.boycott-bush.org
Advocates 'a selective boycott of American products and services until George Bush signs the Kyoto Protocol'.

Campaign Exxon Mobil
www.campaignexxonmobil.org
Founded by religious shareholders in the USA, dedicated to compelling ExxonMobil to take responsibility for its role in the problem of global warming.

Ethical Consumer urges consumers who are concerned about global warming to support the Esso boycott and also to look for regular purchases in the longer boycott list given on www.boycottbush.net.

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