A recent issue of the horrible Cracked Magazine listed some worst case scenarios for a beloved topic of ours: Greenwashing.

We refrain from linking to it because there’s some, ahem, potty humor but we have to share the winner, “It’s Green Minute!”

“Earth day*, Earth Week, Green Month, Enviro-year…The Don't Kill a Manatee Biennium... most people could give 1/4^th of a crap about the abstract colors of time-spans” it read. A "green week" is just an opportunity for some companies to show how committed a small fraction of their advertising budget is to looking good for a brief time period before going back to their old habits.

 

For example, NBC's "Green Week" consisted of shows across the entire company being given a "green" emphasis - from Heroes, 30 Rock and The Office, to Martha Stewart and Top Chef. This initiative mandated that programs were to introduce at least one green plot into their shows in an effort to "raise awareness." Most programs just half-a***d it, and this resulted in a lot of clumsy, shoe-horned plot lines and awkward soliloquies, but Heroes, at least, really committed to the effort: They recycled the same storyline for the last four years.

The last straw was another part of this program that involved The Weather Channel. They ran segments all throughout the week on climate change, prepared specifically by their Environmental Unit. Unfortunately, halfway through Green Week, NBC did a little conservation of their own and fired everybody.

“The kicker? One of the chief sponsors for "Green Week" was GM... with the Hummer,” said Cracked. Ooh.

*For the record, DTE loves Earth Day! See HERE.

 

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