The League of Conservation Voters beat me to punch in trashing Chevron’s recent greenwashing ads, with "I Will Point Out Hypocrisy":
In train stations, at bus stops, online, even on our coffee cups, Chevron ads are trying to convince us that the key to ending our energy crisis is individual action. Over pictures of everyday Americans, taglines from Chevron’s "Will You Join Us" ad campaign read:
"I will leave the car at home more."
"I will take my golf clubs out of the trunk."
"I will replace 3 light bulbs with CFLs."
"I will finally get a programmable thermostat."
"I will consider buying a hybrid."All good ideas, certainly, but no matter how many clubs they’re carrying in their golf bags, no matter how many light bulbs they change, no matter how hard they consider that hybrid, the folks at Chevron could probably do a little more.
Yes, Chevron is cleverly pushing the myth that our energy and climate problems can possibly be solved with individual action. Heck, you don’t even really need to act, you can just "consider" acting.
Fortunately, the majority of Americans already took the most important action — they elected Barack Obama President and created a stronger majority of progressives in Congress. Individual action remains important — if for no other reason than to see just how straightforward and cost effective it is to reduce your emissions. But nothing beats political action for the problems of national and global scope.
When LCV sees a greenwashing ad, they wanna rewrite it. As for me, well, as the Stones put it:
Hmm, hmm, hmm, …
I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
Yeah!
That could be the fossil fuel song.
Here are the rest of LCV’s suggested ads for Chevron:
