PETA Fail: Runs Ad Comparing Greyhound Horror Killing to Animal Slaughterhouse Killing Horror

PETA has done it again.

In a not-so-surprising-for-PETA show of good taste, the animal rights group attempted to run an ad comparing animal slaughter to the brutal murder of Tim McClean, the 22-year-old who was beheaded by Vince Weiguang Li on a Greyhound bus in Winnipeg bound Canadian bus on July 30.

“His struggles and cries are ignored … the man with the knife shows no emotion … the victim is slaughtered and his head cut off … his flesh is eaten,” reads the ad, which can be seen on the organization’s website.

The ad was intended to run in the Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic. The newspaper refused it. Rightly so.

If PETA was intending to make themselves look like insane, insensitive radicals who write heavy-handed copy more befitting of Emily Bronte novels, they’ve succeeded. They’ve done a bang-up job of alienating pretty much everyone. Well done, guys. This was definitely a classy choice.

Link [Globe & Mail]

Waste Management Inc.’s ‘Greenopolis’ Social Network: One Big Greenwashed Ad?

Is ‘Greenopolis’, the new green social networking site, a cool place for like-minded people to discuss their efforts to lower their carbon footprints and help the environment, or simply a multi-billion-dollar corporation’s effort to greenwash its reputation?

Greenopolis is meant to give people an easy way to communicate about green practices, providing environmental resources and facts. There’s also a ‘green merit badge’ system, that while meant to motivate and reward people for making incremental steps toward being more green, reminds me of the sort of my-shit-don’t-stink elitism that turns the general public off of the green movement (Smug Alert!).

TechCrunch, for one, thinks that Greenopolis is basically just an advertisement, and not a very well-thought-out one at that:

Frankly this should just be an application on Facebook and MySpace, it would get better traction. But that’s not what the consultants told Waste Management (a $20 billion company that, well, manages waste), I’m guessing, since today they’ve launched Greenopolis, a social network for greenies.

They’re committed, they say, to connecting people and businesses on green issues, and teach people about ways to be more environmentally sound. Like other social networks, members can create profiles and add friends. Users also rack up Green Points and have a Green Profile, which shows just how much they care about the environment.

Greenopolis, I suspect, is designed to show that Waste Management cares about the environment more than anything else. So in a way, it’s like an advertisement. See ZeroFootprint, a Canadian company we’ve covered that also creates local social networks around carbon offsetting in partnership with cities.

It’s a good point – is there really even a need for a stand-alone green social network? How many social networks can one person participate in? Are Greenopolis’ features enough to draw people away from Myspace and Facebook? Probably not, except for those people who are already committed to environmental advocacy. They’re not likely to get a huge influx of advertisers’ favorite targets: social-network-savvy teens and young adults with impressionable minds and lots of discretionary income.

One thing I noticed while browsing the member directory is that there are an awful lot of marketing professionals and companies pushing ‘green’ products (along with a whole lot of Waste Management employees). Greenopolis has the potential to become a greenwashed marketing free-for-all. Hopefully Greenopolis members approach product marketing on the site with a healthy dose of skepticism.

There’s also the fact that this is coming from Waste Management Inc., a $20 billion dollar company that rebranded themselves as ‘green’ after several toxic spills and illegal dumping allegations in the 80s and an accounting scandal in 1998. Their own ads certainly border on greenwashing – boasting, for example, that the waste they’ve collected has powered over 1 million homes, when recycling waste saves far more energy than burning it could create – plus, trash incinerators are the leading source of dioxins, super-toxic carcinogenic chemicals. Signs on their trucks say ‘Last year we recycled enough paper to save over 41 million trees’, yet they recycle less than 5% of the trash they collect.

Is Waste Management, Inc. using Greenopolis as a way to improve their image? Joe Vaillancourt, managing director of Waste Management’s organic growth group had this to say in a press release put out by the company: “We believe that by promoting and creating a dialogue about things such as conservation, recycling, and renewable energy that awareness about our environmental operations and our business offerings will increase.”

Is Waste Management America’s largest recycler? Yes – no other company has been able to get their foot in the door. But are they doing enough to legitimately call themselves green? No. You can’t trust when companies put out ads claiming to be stewards of the environment – even monster polluter Monsanto claims to be green. Since Waste Management Inc. has a virtual stranglehold on the trash industry in the U.S., they’ll continue to profit regardless of whether they make advances in green waste management practices. And as long as the public is convinced that they’re a green company, they can take their sweet time getting around to environmentally friendly practices that are expensive or inconvenient for them.

It’s difficult to categorically call ‘greenwashing’ on Waste Management Inc.’s ‘Greenopolis’, since the company has made some strides toward being greener – but not as many as they’d like the public to think (just look at their catchphrase – ‘Think Green. Think Waste Management’.) I’d like to see them take cues from Germany, where no biodegradable waste or recyclable materials go to landfills. Naturally, combating the waste problem here in the U.S. will have to be a joint effort between the corporations who package products, the consumers who buy them and waste management companies, so they can’t do it all on their own – but they can do more.

Efforts like creating a ‘green’ social network shouldn’t distract the public from the actual practices of Waste Management, Inc. The company has set themselves up for intense scrutiny through their green rebranding, so they’d better be prepared to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. Just being the greenest waste management company in the country isn’t enough when other companies are barely making an effort at all. To truly be green, Waste Management Inc. needs to really step up their environmental initiatives.

Greenopolis may hold some value for people who lack any other forum to connect on green issues, though die-hard environmentalists aren’t likely to get much out of it other than possibly networking and/or educating others. As long as members are aware of the potential for greenwashing – and don’t participate as an alternative to actually being active in their own communities – Greenopolis could act as a portal to get green newbies interested and educated in environmental issues.

Link [TechCrunch] + [Greenopolis]

Adventures in Contextual Advertising: When Messages Cross, John McCain Gets Hurt

I love it when ads clash.

For some reason, we’re getting a ton of John McCain ads on the site right now. We’re pretty clear about our general disdain for Mr. McCain and our belief that if he won in November, our country as we know it would be finished. Barack Obama will save our country.

Anyways- I got a kick out of seeing these two ads juxtaposed on the site. The top ad asks “Which candidate was ranked 894 out of 899 students in college?” (Hint, they still used abacuses when this guy was in college). The ad jumps to a few videos Good Magazine has put together about each candidate. John McCain’s video, if you haven’t guessed already, points out that he graduated 894 out of 899 in his class at the Navy Academy.

The bottom ad is straight from McCain’s campaign. It asks the (stupid) questions “Is it OK to Unconditionally Meet with Anti-American Foreign Leaders” (answer: Yes! It’s fscking called Diplomacy you douchebag!) and jumps to some bullshit page trolling for email addresses and donations. I made a reverse donation by clicking on the ad and signing up as “McCainIsGoingDown@by20inNovember.com“.

I loves me the interwebs.

[Read more]

New Advertising Campaign Uses Both Sweet and Sour to Sell The Need to Save the World

Talk about a visceral advertising campaign.

The Nicolas Hulot Foundation, run by the French ecologist of the same name, is running two disparately different advertising campaigns. One makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, the other turns your stomach and spins the mind. We’re opening with stomach turning.

Here’s a warm and fuzzy.

Back to stomach turning.

Head over to Green Expander to see more of both the good and the bad (no ugly).

Links [Green Expander] & [Defi Pour la Terre]

Brazilian Wax: Really Drives Home the Point that Deforestation Is Painful

Mildly NSFW…

Deforestation hurts, like a bikini wax. From Green.tv:

/cringe at both.

EcoGeek Kills “Clean Coal” Ad and Calls Them Out for the Greenwash

Hank Green is my hero for the day. For those of you who don’t know Mr. Green, he’s the brains and geek behind EcoGeek- the authoritative green technology blog on the net. Hank and I have been blogging pals for the past few years and I’ve even done a bit of writing for his site.

Today Hank woke up to find an ad on his site from the Clean Coal Lobby, sitting pretty right at the top spot. He didn’t waste any time killing that shit and wanted to let the Clean Coal people know why he did. It’s a gem:

No…you’re not green. You’re full of crap.

Your industry turns mountains inside out, poisons the water of the rural poor in America and throughout the world. Your industry has never made an environmental move in its long and storied history without being forced to by a government. The promotional video for ‘clean coal’ at your lame PR site lauds a carbon sequestration plant that has now been canceled because it was determined to be pretty much impossible. The cleanest coal plants in the world still create more sulfer dioxide than the environment can deal with without acidifying the rain and the soil.

Of course, the future is in sequestering carbon, right? Pumping it into the ground so that it never hits the atmosphere. The problem is, building a sequestered carbon coal plant is actually more expensive than building a solar thermal plant. Why would we stick with you when solar is revving up to be cheaper than coal without expensive, unrealistic sequestration?

The only thing that makes you seem even a little green today is how extremely destructive you used to be. You cannot be, you will never be, green. Give up…go home…enjoy the next few decades because they will be your last.

We’re moving on without you, and you’re going to have to deal with that. Actual clean technologies are here now. We don’t need you anymore. There are 45 gigawatts of renewable energy planned for the United States. You are not renewable…you are not America’s Power…you are not the future and you sure as hell aren’t green. Stop pretending.

Sincerely,

Hank Green and the EcoGeek Team

Rock on Hank!

(In case you’re wondering, if we ever get a Clean Coal ad here on EarthFirst we’ll do the same as Hank but will probably drop a few more F bombs than he did.)

Link [EcoGeek]

Coal is the Enemy of Mankind

It makes me sad and angry that there are people in the world who think like this:

Via [GristMill]