Holidays are rushing into sight, and I’m planning my gift shopping. One place I won’t be visiting: eBay — even though my friends and I love digging around on the site. Many of our homes are filled with eBay treasure.
But I’m not going to send a penny more to eBay while it helps fund climate deniers. eBay is a corporate member of ALEC. This is a group that has declared it is launching “a political tsunami against EPA”, and engaging in “guerrilla tactics” to undermine health protections against greenhouse gas pollution. How can any company line up to work against clean, healthy air for our families?
Many companies, like Facebook, Pepsi, Kraft, GM, Yelp and Yahoo, have pulled out of ALEC. When Google recently pulled out, its CEO announced: “The people who oppose [climate change science] are really hurting our children and grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. We should not be aligned with such people. They are just literally lying.”
I noticed that one of eBay’s board members is William Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Company. In my years at House and Garden magazine, I learned a great deal about Bill Ford’s creative and responsible support of sustainable manufacturing. Surely he can bring his moral suasion to bear on eBay management.
I have to wonder what ALEC members want, exactly? Do they want our air pollution to go back to looking like that in China — the way it did before we had EPA? How can ALEC so shamelessly put corporate profit ahead of the health of our families — and theirs, too!
The corporate officers and the politicians undermining EPA don’t offer us alternative solutions to curbing the carbon and methane pollution that is warming our world — and harming children’s health. They’re good at saying NO — even NO to science. But they aren’t good at saying: YES! SOLUTIONS!
That’s what I’m looking for: leadership in addressing an urgent, worldwide problem. That’s where I’m going to spend money. Until then, bye-bye eBay.
Photo: Dr. Cloud / Shutterstock.com