Results tagged “environment” from Uncivil Society
Via Jezebel, a sign that environmentalism has become too trendy for its own good: a new line of eco-sexy costumes. From the ad copy:
This costume is perfect for the eco friendly consumer. Help spread the eco friendly message! Go Green Girl - includes green pleated mini dress featuring recycling badge, white lace and ribbon embellishments, and GO GREEN! Screen print on the butt removable Recyclers Do It Twice pin and earth bag. Costume is packaged in recyclable paper bag. Please note does not include stockings or shoes. This eco-friendly costume is Available in Adult Sizes X-Small, Small, Medium, and Large.
Made of 100% Organic Cotton.
We are doomed.
Via Journalista & Scans Daily, a tender tale of a girl who fears that her family and friends may be causing global warming through their air conditioners--until they explain that air conditioners actually keep Earth's air cool!
As I learned while watching a baseball game yesterday, "Think Green" is the slogan--and the website--of the Waste Management corporation, "the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America."
An interesting resonance: in today's NY Times, a woman who was once the super in her apartment building reflects on the Roto-Rooter guy:
Occasionally, there was a bright spot amid the drudgery. One Saturday morning, while my friends were sleeping or indulging in free kayaking, I was in the basement with the Roto-Rooter guy, standing in two inches of backed-up sewage.
And here’s the thing: The Roto-Rooter guy was really great. Instead of being bitter and cranky about having to do such a noxious, malodorous job, he was telling me how fascinating it was, how much he loved what he did. He had a passion for the history and the future of waste treatment, and had read widely on the subject.
Although my expertise with sewage was limited to fixing a running toilet with a straightened paper clip, the Roto-Rooter guy had innovative ideas about overhauling the entire system of waste management worldwide.
Yes, self-professed social entrepreneurs are nice. But sometimes you can learn a lot more by paying attention to a normal person with an ordinary job.
A reflection by Jonathan Bland.
Via Robot6, this is brilliant stuff--an essential archive for anyone with an interest in the history of charity & public service.
Broadway has nonprofit and for-profit theaters.
Guess which one is the first to go green?
More about the company here.
The Dieline features this new sustainable marketing initiative from Norway. They're not sure what makes this eco-friendly; nor am I. Still, that's the claim!
Sony has taken over Grand Central, sponsoring the Kaleidoscope light show & the AQUOS Experience LCD tree. Well, OK, not a tree, but an ecumenical "tower."
As in, you know, Babel.
Anyway, for a sense of how the tree looks and sounds, watch below. You might also want to check out this video for the whole tree, though the music is washed out by the crowd noise.
As you might suspect, that's not the only reason I spent time around this particular holiday tree. No, what particularly grabbed me: the charitable tie-in and accompanying PR about the AQUOS Experience as a "symbol of hope." Perhaps the hope & charity part would be more convincing if it dropped the biz-speak, such as the references to "each individual consumer" and "enhancing the holiday atmosphere in the terminal."
I also like the explanation, in the blurb just linked above, as to how the affiliated charity's Green Collar Project "aligns well with Sony's core vision of creating energy-saving and energy-creating products"--as if making products that actually *consume* energy is just an unfortunate accident.
Anyway, here's the beginning of the official explanation of the charity connection:
Sharp designed the AQUOS Experience, which will be on display throughout the month of December, enhancing the holiday atmosphere in the terminal. As part of this initiative, Sharp will be making a significant donation to The HOPE Program, a charity that equips its participants with the skills they need to find, keep, and advance in jobs. With Sharp's donation, The HOPE Program will be able to launch the "Green Collar Project," a new program to help people find green collar jobs in an environmental field. This will not only allow participants to become economically self sufficient, but will also help preserve the environment.
"We created the AQUOS Experience as a symbol of hope, especially important during this holiday season, and chose to work with The HOPE Program to help those who are out of work," said Doug Koshima, chairman and CEO, Sharp Electronics Corporation.
Nothing profound to say about it; I just liked the title of this post. The following comment made me laugh too:
It’s very cute and clever. What it is not, and shouldn’t be called, is “ecoâ€. It’s plastic. It will eventually go into the landfill, where it will stay cute for millenia.
So I'm sitting here writing about how social enterprise is a means by which people fashion an identity defined by their own virtue, when what should pop on my TV background noise but an episode of Amazing Wedding Cakes.
A challenge this week: an anniversary cake to meet the client's brief for a "Green Cake" with the theme "love and renewable energy."
Above: a partial image of the resulting do-gooder cake wreck, featuring organic hearts, white chocolate windmills, green icing plants and the sugary inscription, "LOVE is the most Renewable ENERGY source of all!"
Blech.
Read the whole uncensored story here.
Gotta admit, it's funnier than Captain Planet. Although the good guy/bad guy trope unhelpfully over-simplifies a complex issue. Osocio.
The Gawker headline sums it up: Zombie JFK Urges Green Revolution. Personally, I wouldn't OK any ad that reminds me of Clutch Cargo:
Saatchi & Saatch launches a salvo against the green "straightjacket." One small step for Saatchi; one giant leap for social enterprise becoming the next so-called traditional charity.
Here we go again . . .
A wry comment on cars and society via Design You Trust, with prints available from palehorse:
In today's Funky Winkerbean, Tom Batiuk nails the rampant trendhopping among nonprofit fundraisers. Here's the eco-punchline:
The annual Towers of Light 9/11 memorial does have some detractors in the do-gooder community:
Tall brightly lit structures and searchlights attract and disorient neotropical migratory birds. Thousands of them die when they are pull off course by these lights, and then become exhausted from flying around and around searchlights and brightly lit skyscrapers. Migratory songbirds that survive in a city until sunrise often die when they collide with walls of mirror-like glass windows or are run over by city traffic.
The twin beams of lights should be turned off between 11 PM and sunrise to prevent the senseless slaughter of thousands of songbirds.
"A nationwide promotion for a music festival's green credentials. We built a promotion get people to go and plant flowers illegally in towns across Hungary for a free ticket to the festival. We had 11,000 unique visitors to the microsite (http://www.zoldvadmuvelet.hu), nationwide press, and 63 teams of people who joined the promotion to go guerilla gardening."
"To a person using the whole sensorium, nudity is the richest possible expression of structural form. But to the highly visual and lopsided sensibility of industrial societies, the sudden confrontation with tactile flesh is heady music indeed."
--Marshall McLuhan
Pictured above: an on-the-street advertising campaign by Lush soap in Germany. The gimmick: to highlight the excessive packaging of other brands by getting Lush employees to go on the streets with less packaging on their own bodies.
Yes, this was commercial marketing with a social mission, but somehow I don't think I'll be seeing it repeated in New York anytime soon. And as Copyranter inquires, why only the women?
