Staff at Lush Cosmetics are used to going the extra mile to help draw attention to ethical issues, from stripping-off to extol the virtues of unpacked naked products to suspending themselves from hooks in windows to draw attention to the killing of sharks; but Lush Portsmouths manager Tom Pearson really went the extra mile by dressing in an orangutan costume, being strapped to a spinning Biofuel Wheel of Misfortune and having knives thrown at him – all to draw attention to the environmental and social cost of biofuels. The wheel is misfortune is a twisted take on the wheel of fortune game show, with each segment of the wheel documenting the problems with biofuel, as follows: Rainforest Destroyed; Less Space to Grow Food; Massive Carbon Emissions; Orangutans Endangered; and Land Taken From People. Every Lush store in the UK has displayed a wheel of misfortune in the window, but only Derby and Portsmouth had live knife-throwing events. Lush have campaigned against palm oil for several years, and there are now plans to build power stations in Britain fuelled by palm oil from Indonesia, where rainforests are being chopped down to make way for palm plantations. Demand for palm oil as a biofuel is now one of the main drivers of deforestation in Indonesia and so Lush have been working with Biofuelwatch to find out how we can stop the burgeoning biofuel industry. Biofuels are also responsible for increasing hunger and poverty in many developing countries. Action Aid have …
