Product Description

From the Tokyo timber terminal, where Japanese conglomerates process rain-forest logs from around the world, to India, China, and Brazil, where global chemical and automobile concerns are rapidly setting up shop, transnationals have made their presence felt in nearly every nation on Earth.
Joshua Karliner brilliantly exposes how transnationals, aided by free trade agreements and World Bank policies, are leading protagonists in the world's most pressing environmental dramas. He takes the reader behind the scenes of the global public-relations companies that launch elaborate campaigns to encourage rampant consumerism as well as to create "green" images for major polluters.
With lively case histories of Chevron, the company that the late Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa identified, with Shell, as the most serious environmental threat to the Niger River Delta, and the Mitsubishi Group, which continues to clear-cut vast swaths through aspen forests to produce 8 million pairs of disposable chopsticks every day, The Corporate Planet offers frightening documentation of the central role transnationals play in environmental destruction.
Arguing that transnational misdeeds can be overcome, Karliner recounts empowering stories of communities confronting the ill effects of corporate colonialism to create their own "grassroots globalization" movements. This important and timely book is a significant contribution to the battle against irresponsible corporate behavior.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2341946 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10-28
• Released on: 1997-10-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 318 pages

From Library Journal
With the globalization of business, Karliner argues, transnational corporations have exported pollution to countries with lax environmental laws, dramatically increasing the danger of ecological catastrophe. Globalization has also displaced indigenous cultures and sustainable, local economies. The author, who directs the Transnational Resource and Action Center, a nonprofit environmental organization, accuses corporations of working with cooperative politicians and officials to avoid existing laws and squash attempts to strengthen environmental protections. He examines Chevron and Mitsubishi in depth, using them as case studies to demonstrate corporate responsibility for creating pollution. Karliner makes many good points and uncovers numerous abuses, but his strident language eventually undermines his thesis. For an overview of environmental issues, a better choice is Ann and Paul Ehrlich's Betrayal of Science and Reason (LJ 10/15/96).?Randy Dykhuis, Michigan Lib. Consortium, Lansing
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
An overly shrill indictment of transnational corporations' leading role in environmental havoc--but an indictment that nonetheless finds its mark. Eco-activist Karliner sounds themes current since the 1970s: Big Capitalism pledges loyalty only to itself and not to any particular nation or region; the First World's large corporations view the rest of the planet as a source of raw materials and labor; the likes of Coca-Cola and Ford think only of the present bottom line, and not the long-term effects of their rush for profit. ``Increasingly flagless and stateless,'' Karliner charges, the transnational corporations ``weave global webs of production, commerce, culture and finance virtually unopposed.'' In making his case that such unrestricted power is a bad thing, Karliner relies too heavily on rhetoric and abstraction; he writes purplishly, for instance, of ``our Blue Planet--home to untold cultural and biological diversity, to clear, raging rivers and majestic, ancient forests, to a plethora of civilizations, nations, tribes, and idiosyncratic communities.'' More statistics and less gush would be welcome in such instances. When he gets down to cases, Karliner is much better. He examines, for example, the Chevron Corporation's quest for control over world oil supplies, a quest that involves the support of brutally oppressive regimes in places like Nigeria and Indonesia and the environmental degradation of huge districts around the world. Karliner is especially fuzzy when it comes to recommending what the average First World citizen can do to help in ``reclaiming the Blue Planet from the clutches of corporate globalization,'' a matter in which his book is singularly unhelpful. This is all too bad, because a glance at the headlines suggests that Karliner is probably right in broad outline. An argument better framed would have done his cause much greater service. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ingram
Citing case histories such as Chevron, Shell, and Mitsubishi, CORPORATE WATCH editor Joshua Karliner brilliantly exposes how transnationals--aided by free trade agreements, World Bank policies, and massive consumer campaigns--play central roles in environmental destruction. This important and timely book is a significant contribution to the battle against irresponsible corporate behavior .