The Pentagon public relations and propaganda machine is at it again. Working overtime to convince pundits and citizens of the benevolence of its "democracy spreading" missions abroad,  some notables have drank the kool-aid. 

In a recent article titled, "The military’s historic embrace of smart energy," Grist's David Roberts wrote, 

The U.S. military's embrace of energy efficiency and renewable energy is going to be one of the great stories of the coming decade. It will be a story about technology, the changing face of warfare, geopolitics in the 21st century, and the struggle to change one of the world's largest bureaucracies…For decades, the lines of warfare on climate change and clean energy have been drearily familiar and amazingly resistant to change. If it follows through on its promises, the Department of Defense — the largest consumer of oil and electricity in America — has the potential to change all that.

Furthermore, in March 2010, the Center for American Progress penned a holistic report titled, "It’s Easy Being Green: The Pentagon Goes Green One Wedge at a Time."

While a nice and hopeful sentiment, this flies in the face of both history, as well as present day reality of the Pentagon's activities abroad. A review, then, is in order.

Conservation International is embroiled in a devastating scandal over the greenwashing services it offered to undercover British journalists posing as Lockheed Martin employees looking for help sanitizing the public image of the leading arms dealer’s deadly weapons systems. 

The journalists from London-based outlet Don’t Panic approached Conservation International (CI) with a truly outrageous request for its greenwashing services. In the video below, you’ll learn from their undercover footage of meetings with a senior CI representative that CI was more than ready to help “Lockheed” develop a program to greenwash its image, and the examples of what the CI rep dangled in front of the prospective clients must be seen to be believed.

Watch below:

A recent Guardian article by John Vidal examines the misleading spin attempting to paint Britain’s leadership as the “greenest government ever.” 

With 2010 drawing to a close, UK Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced triumphantly:
“Over 95 per cent of England’s finest wildlife and geological sites, covering more than one million hectares of countryside, are now in favourable or recovering condition.”

Spelman’s overly rosy interpretation of the current state of Britain’s environment is at odds with an independent report from Professor Sir John Lawton and a team of leading conservationists who are much less enthusiastic about Britain’s environmental record. Measured according to the scale SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest), Sir Lawton’s team found that just 30% of these sites were in favourable condition, with the rest in a mode of “unfavourable recovering.”

Indeed, most at-risk wildlife species have shown no improvement between 1999 and 2008, and 125 of 289 species are in decline. Birds, in particular, are struggling.

Are you sick and tired of the greenwashing efforts by the Alberta government and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) to paint Canada’s toxic tar sands as ‘clean’?

Greenpeace Canada is launching an ad-jamming contest to combat the greenwashing campaign launched by CAPP in a series of print and video ads. 

“It is time to show CAPP that any attempt to greenwash the tar sands will not go unchecked,” say Greenpeace organizers, who have set up a Facebook group to “Put a CAPP on Tar Sands Greenwashing.”

Why bother doing something when you can just say you did it? That seems to be the cynical sentiment driving a lucrative growth industry: corporate green washing.

Consumers are increasingly demanding that companies demonstrate their commitment to the environment through responsible practices. Many of these companies are instead providing PR spin and phony labeling in an effort to keep doing what they have been doing while improving their corporate image.

While this might buy them some time in the short term, the public is peeling back the green veil on eco-bunk. Have a look at this insightful article by Fred Pearce in the Guardian on the Great Green Swindle.

Here's a short video produced by documentary filmmaker Jon Cooksey and his team at How To Boil a Frog, featuring DeSmog Project co-founder Jim Hoggan. Enjoy!