Climate Technology

Wal-Mart store goes eco-friendly?

Wal-Mart's new big-box store being constructed in McKinney, Texas, has a twist: It will employ several conservation methods and green technologies, making it the company's first "environmentally friendly" store. Apparently, not only will it have a wind turbine to generate 5% of its power, and a rainwater catchment system for 95% of its irrigation needs, but it will use waterless urinals in its restrooms and recycle its oil from the deli and automotive departments to help heat the building.

The inspiration for all this being "to save money and keep costs down."  I guess if you overlook the proliferation of suburban sprawl, the ruination of local businesses, and the poor treatment of its employees, this could almost be seen as a good thing. But, oh wait, they're building it near an already existing "traditional" Wal-Mart so they can "gauge its progress."

Queer Eye for the Turbine

Hip, new wind-turbine designs shed those fusty rotating blades As anti-wind-power crusaders make ever-louder indictments of unsightly turbines, wind advocates are fighting back with a new tool — aesthetics. A handful of wind-power companies are teaming up with designers to develop new contraptions that can harness wind energy without the traditional spinning blades, as well […]

Between the Devil and the Deep Green Supercenter

Wal-Mart building two experimental green stores Mega-giganto retailer Wal-Mart is conducting an experiment. No, not the world-domination experiment, a different one: It’s constructing two “Supercenters” with green-building features designed to reduce energy and water use. The first, in Texas, will have solar cells embedded in skylights; runoff waste water will be captured and reused; heat […]

The Offal Truth

Promising clean-energy company may have to leave U.S. to succeed Certain folks take it as quasi-religious doctrine that strong green regulation is bad for economic growth. Tell it to Philadelphia’s Changing World Technologies, a burgeoning clean-energy company that may have to leave the U.S. precisely because of lax environmental laws. Every day, CWT turns 270 […]

The Axis of Oil

China gets pushy about finding oil and gas supplies outside Mideast Historians cataloguing the unintended consequences of the Iraq war can add another to their list. Until 2003, China had been wooing Saddam Hussein, hoping to lay claim to some of Iraq’s undeveloped oil reserves. But the U.S.-led war, perceived by China’s leaders as a […]

Lend Me Your Gears

Car sharing slowly but surely taking off in cities worldwide Car sharing is gradually gaining ground around the globe, and the future looks bright for a concept once derided as a green fever dream. About 300,000 people worldwide now participate in car sharing; it’s taken off especially well in European nations like Germany, the Netherlands, […]

GE ecomagination commercial features model miners

To promote the recently launched -- and somewhat idyllically named -- Ecomagination campaign, GE has been running a series of commercials highlighting its green initiatives. One in particular, focused on clean(er?) coal, has sparked a good deal of debate over its use of sexy models to excite more than the imagination, if you will.

Josh Ozersky of The New York Times describes the 60-second commercial:

As the spot begins, we hear Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" and see shadowy figures, identifiable only by their helmet lights, walking into a coal mine. (The helmet light, like the physician's reflector, remains indispensable to commercials that don't have a lot of time for explanations.) At first, this ad looks like a paean to labor - the song after all, is a workingman's lament - and we see several strong and stylized male figures that bring to mind W.P.A. murals. But soon the hot female miners appear, carefully soiled and seductively oiled up. The commercial, we see, is visually indistinguishable from a Victoria's Secret ad, right down to the blue filters and hubba-hubba slow motion.

And that's the point: "Thanks to emissions-reducing technology from G.E. energy," an amiable narrator tells us, "harnessing the power of coal is looking more beautiful every day." For G.E., it's a simple setup and punch line. Jonathan Klein, a company spokesman, said, "In 'Model Miners,' the goal is to communicate that G.E.'s emission-reducing technology can make coal a more appealing energy source."

Ozersky, as well as other columnists and a handful of letter-writers, note that it's a bit more complicated than that.

As for me, I just like looking at beautiful people. Is that so wrong?

View the "Model Miners" spot as well as GE's other commercials here and decide for yourself.

One Tree Shill

Sierra Club touts new Ford hybrid SUV The Sierra Club has long criticized Ford Motor Co. for its environmental offenses, primarily the industry-worst average fuel economy of its fleet. So members may be surprised when Ford’s hybrid Mercury Mariner SUV is prominently featured in an upcoming club newsletter and on SierraClub.org. When the green group […]

Exx Marks the Boycott

Activists kick off big boycott of ExxonMobil Spelling-impaired activists at Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, MoveOn.org, and nine other enviro and progressive groups have launched a nationwide “Exxpose Exxon” consumer boycott campaign. While the coalition doesn’t expect to have a big impact on ExxonMobil’s bottom line, it hopes to change the public’s perception of the world’s […]

A-Raisin’ Money in the Sun

Investors pouring millions into new nanotech solar-energy firms A merger of cutting-edge nanotechnology with the earth’s oldest power source may revolutionize clean energy. At least three U.S. start-ups are aiming to develop thin, flexible sheets of tiny solar cells for the mass market. If perfected, the companies say, these nano-cells would catapult solar to the […]