Teman-teman,
Ini ada artikel menarik dari Third World Network Features. Siapa yang mau
bentuk kelompok anti soft drink?
Salam
Hira
October, 1999
COCA-COLA BREAK
The writer provides a strategy to prevent Coca-Cola from
taking over the world and reducing the quality of our lives.
By Donella Meadows
Don't let Coke take over the world.
I'm not in the habit of reading the annual report of the
Coca-Cola Co., so I thank Adbusters magazine for bringing to
my attention Coke's insidious scheme to take over the world.
'One Billion Down,' says the cover of the company's 1997
report. The first page says '47 Billion to Go'. The second
page clarifies the plan: 'This year, even as we sell 1 billion
servings of our products daily, the world will still consume
47 billion servings of other beverages. We're just getting
started.'
Then come double-page spreads detailing which markets
Coke is intending to move into. A beautiful desert landscape
with a water fountain in the foreground bears this comment:
'In many places, it's easier to find a water fountain than a
Coca-Cola. That's why we continue to strengthen our
distribution system. We're working hard to make our products
an integral part of any landscape so they are always within
easy reach.'
There's a picture of three lovely Chinese women with
steaming teacups, looking curiously at a fourth who, with a
big smile, is pouring Coke into her cup. 'There is a lot of
tea in China and everywhere else in the world. But,
increasingly, people in China are enjoying Coca-Cola too. In
1997 we were named the most recognised international trademark
and most preferred soft drink in that country of 1.2 billion
people.'
At a business-table coffee break, the coolest-looking
person is drinking a Coke. 'Stepping down the hall for a
coffee break has become an office tradition around the world.
But we're intently focused on making sure that any time people
need to be refreshed, they take a "Coca-Cola break".'
Gee, and I thought they were only out to get Pepsi!
A reader has asked me to suggest one small thing a person
can do to make the world better. Here's my suggestion. Don't
help Coke take over the world. Don't help Pepsi either. Don't
buy soft drinks, period. Go for juice, coffee, tea or, best of
all, water.
How would that improve the world? Let me count the ways.
* It would improve your health. Soft drinks are made of
sugar, caffeine, dyes and acid (which makes the bubbles), none
of which is good for you. Diet drinks that substitute
aspartame (Nutrasweet) for the sugar may be even worse, given
evidence of the effects of that chemical on the brain and
nervous system.
* It would improve both your economy and the economy.
Americans spend about $50 billion a year on soft drinks. That
comes to an average of $185 per person, $740 a year for a
family of four. (For those who are into the soft-drink habit,
the actual cost must be much higher, because some of us weigh
into that average with big zeroes.) You could direct that
money toward something that improves your health rather than
undermines it. Or collectively we could direct some of it
toward necessary improvements in the quality of our public
drinking water.
* It would help the environment. Think of all those
bottles and cans! Mountains of them! Aluminium, glass, plastic
- all wrenched from the Earth, refined and shaped with the use
of fossil fuels and the emission of toxins, filled with
unhealthy liquids, sold, emptied and discarded (maybe after a
few rounds of recycling) back to the Earth again. Get your
water from a pipe, put it into a glass or cup that you wash
and reuse. Take a load off the planet.
* To the extent that it starts a trend, it would help the
poor, who are, as the Coke report says, overwhelmed with
advertising claiming that only backward peasants drink water
and that trendy, cool, superior people drink Coke. I can't
count how many times I have visited some poor family in Asia
or Central America and helplessly watched them scrape together
something like a day's income to go out and buy me a Coke.
When I can do so without insulting their pride, I try to head
off such purchases. They can hardly believe that I really
prefer tea or coffee - cheap, everyday drinks to them,
prepared with safe, boiled water.
* It would puncture the world-conquering ambitions of a
few large companies. It might even create a world where we
didn't have to look at their logos everywhere we go. I have
this vision of Coke and Pepsi sales plummeting, which
eventually would eat into revenues so much that the ads would
go away. Out of school hallways. Out of sports arenas and
bus-stops. Off umbrellas and storefronts and T-shirts and
billboards. Finally a visitor from another planet could land
without getting the impression that the whole place is owned
and branded by Coca-Cola.
It isn't hard to practise firm resistance to the global
cola takeover; I've been doing it for decades. As a chemist, I
decided long ago not to ingest anything that comes from a lab.
Coke and Pepsi were the first to go. Later, when I learned
about endocrine disrupters, some of which are used as
stabilisers in plastic, I stopped ingesting anything that
comes in plastic bottles. That was the end of bottled water,
too.
I was left with great concern for the quality of piped
water, ground water, streams - all the water on the planet.
But that's where I want my concern, and all our concern, to
go. (Where do you think Coke and Pepsi get their water,
anyway?)
Hey, repelling this takeover plot is no impossible dream.
We've already got 47 billion down. Just one billion to go. -
Third World Network Features
-ends-
About the writer: Donella Meadows is the director of the
Sustainability Institute USA. The above article first appeared
in Resurgence (May/June 1999, No. 194).
When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World
Network Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine
or agency involved in the article, and give the byline. Please
send us cuttings.
Third World Network is also accessible on the World Wide Web.
Please visit our web site at http://www.twnside.org.sg
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