Bees are dying by the million -- so what is Bayer, one of the world's biggest producers of bee-killing pesticides, doing about it?
It's launching a huge PR drive, called the Bee Care Tour, to show how much it "cares" about the bees.
These are the same dirty tricks the oil industry uses to attack climate science and that the tobacco industry used to deny that cigarettes cause cancer.
But we've got a plan to make Bayer's lies backfire. We're launching a counter-tour -- we've already got a truck full of dead bees to display, and have signed up some big celebrity names to back it up. Now we need your help so we can visit as many places as possible.
Will you chip in today?
Bayer's spin machine is absolutely shameless. Not only is it paying phony experts to attack the science, it's also launching a slick PR campaign to distract the public.
In recent years, it has hosted a "Bayer Bee Care Tour" and opened two "Bee Care Centers" in Germany and the U.S. to delegitimize the science showing that its chemicals are killing bees.
Bayer has even produced a children's book called "Toby and the Bees," which tells kids that Bayer's pesticides aren't the reason bees are dying.
But we can make all this backfire on Bayer by simply calling Bayer out and making sure consumers know what the company is up to. Every time the company organizes a phony "bee care" event or releases a bogus study, we'll be there to call Bayer out.
That way, all Bayer's PR money will accomplish is to draw attention to the fact that it is killing bees -- putting pressure on the company to pull its bee-killing pesticides off the market. Will you chip in to help get this campaign off the ground?
More information
Friends of the Earth. 28 April 2014.