Environmental Arsehats

I’m starting a new series on ConservationBytes.com — one that exposes the worst environmental offenders on the planet.

I’ve taken the idea from an independent media organisation based in Australia — Crikey — who has been running the Golden Arsehat of the Year awards since 2008. It’s a hilarious, but simultaneously maddening, way of shaming the worst kinds of people.

So in the spirit of a little good fun and environmental naming-and-shaming, I’d like to put together a good list of candidates for the inaugural Environmental Arsehat of the Year awards.

So I’m keen to receive your nominations, either privately via e-mail, the ConservationBytes.com message service, or even in the comments stream of this post. Once I receive a good list of candidates, I’ll do separate posts on particularly deserving individuals, followed by an online poll where you can vote for your (least) favorite Arsehat.

There are a few nomination rules, however.

1. Politicians are easy targets, so I prefer that you avoid automatically nominating your local parliamentary or senate representative. That said, there are some particularly deserving politicians out there who have gone above and beyond the call of normal environmental neglect and have instead actively promoted environmental destruction.
2. People who just make stupid, anti-environment comments (e.g., like climate change denialists) are excluded, unless their comments are followed by some actual environmental damage.
3. Real environmental criminals, like the ones Interpol is searching for, are excluded. If the person has been charged with a real crime, we’ll let the authorities deal with them. I’m looking instead for people who probably should be in gaol, but have so far managed to avoid actually breaking (our admittedly weak) environmental laws.
4. Organisations and corporations per se are excluded, but you can certainly nominate those at their helm.
5. While there is no environmental arsehattery too small to mention, I’d like you to focus on individuals whose decisions have wreaked the most environmental havoc.
6. Please back up your nomination with credible evidence.
7. Please keep the nominations relatively polite and free of foundations for libel proceedings.

I’m also very much in favour of people contributing their evidence for a nomination in the form of a guest post. I’ll help you edit your contribution and we’ll post them throughout the year.

Good luck and I look forward to selecting of the most deserving Environmental Arsehat later this year!

CJA Bradshaw