Friday, February 5, 2010

Voters For Wind & Their Corporate Sponsor

The green shirts and how this grassroots citizen’s organization began.
I found a testimonial letter written by Dawn Munk the president of the green shirts (Voters for Wind). This letter describes a relationship between their organization and Geos Global.

About Geos Global Green Energy outreach services “Geos Global “is a Saratoga Springs – based public relations firm specializing in outreach and communications services to the top–tier companies within the clean energy sector. Geos provides select clients with customized approaches for ensuring successful outcomes based upon decades of experience in environmental organizing and energy communications. Geos builds trust through early education and development of community partnerships. We firmly believe an invested public leads to long–term project success.

Steve Sullivan is a Wind facilitator, according to an article in the Watertown times dated Friday, September 26, 2008, written by Nancy Madsen. There was a meeting at TI Central focusing on issues of turbines, the electric grid, setbacks and noise. She reported that one of the guest speakers was Steven C. Sullivan, managing director of Geos Global and consultant to BP Alternative energy.
BP Alternative Energy is one of the top-tier companies that Geos Global serves in the clean energy sector. In their mission statement Geos Global states that they build trust through early education and development of community partnerships using customized approaches. These statements that Geos Global builds trust through early education and community partnerships sound good don’t they? However, what does this really mean? What service is BP buying when they hire Steven C. Sullivan and Geos Global? Geos Global states that they work for top -tier companies meaning the largest alternative energy companies. These services must be expensive. What kind of partnerships do they develop? They develop grass roots citizens organizations, whose mission it is to support the development of a wind farm in the towns of Cape Vincent and Lyme. I know this because I have a testimonial letter written by the president of voters for wind that tells me this. This letter says that Marion Trieste, managing director of Geo’s Global, helped their small group develop their mission statement, elect officers develop bylaws, and begin the task of reaching out to others. This letter continues on to say that the staff of Geos Global is with us every step of the way, providing us with information suggestions and technical and moral support. They have assisted us in planning and organizing community events, fund raising events and have assisted us in learning how to utilize the media to spread our message. Staff members from Geos Global attend our monthly meetings. This letter ends:
“On a personal level, I am grateful to Maz and all of the staff at GEOS who have encouraged me and introduced me to grassroots organization, where a committed group of diverse individuals really can come together and make a difference. A voter for wind is like a family and GEOS is very definitely part of our family.
Sincerely,
Dawn M.Munk “
My whole point to all this is, the next time you see those ever present clusters of green shirts, you need to focus on what this represents. You must ask yourself; do these people represent citizens from a grassroots organization in the community? Who are these people? It has been documented that BP uses Geos Global‘s services and we have the testimonial letter from the president of voters for wind thanking Geos Global for “introducing her to grass roots organization” I think it would be safe to conclude that BP is behind GEOS GLOBALS interest in voters for wind.
Back to my point, when a green shirt representative speaks at a legislative meeting or anywhere else for that matter, is someone from a grassroots organization speaking, or is a wind puppet for BP alternative Energy speaking? When there is a DEIS, Or FEIS public hearing, and a green shirt representative stands to speak is someone from a grassroots organization speaking or is a wind puppet for BP alternative Energy speaking? If the wind committee meets and someone from voters for wind is on this committee, who are they representing?
So the next time you attend that grass roots citizens organization‘s pancake fund raiser you might want to ask yourself Is a pancake just a pan cake? Can we really have our cake and eat it too…


Below is a copy of Dawn Munk’s testimonial letter and copy of a letter written to Marion Trieste of Geos Global. This letter is from another community where BP Alternative energy wants to develop industrial wind. This is a thank you for Ms. Trieste’s support and BP’s $ 2,000 sponsorship for a community festival.

Dawn Munk's Testimonial letter written to Geos Global

The green shirts and how this grassroots citizen’s organization began.

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