Saturday, May 19, 2007

Some Supposed Green People NEED A CLUE


I'm sitting here, second cup of coffee in hand looking for Green Links for this new blog when I come across City Hippy, and think cool, lets go have a look. Mind you, at 50 something here, see myself as one of that dying breed, so it was a natural. Arriving at the site, found it had been all but abandoned as its driving force had taken a real job. Nonetheless, I poked around hoping to find some compost, and was mortified when directed to a web source upset with McDonalds marketing of a Happy Meal with a toy hummer.

Seems these folks were truly proud of the BLOGSTORM of outrage they had caused, and were even prouder of their movement to push for a Happy Meal that included an Electric Car instead of a Hummer. Hello people, what is WRONG with this picture?

1. What are supposedly GREEN PEOPLE doing at McDonalds?
2. Do you know how much energy and raw resources go into the producing, marketing and packaging of Happy Meals?
3. Do these GREEN PEOPLE realize how much of the world's rain forests have been destroyed in the name of the fast food industry?

This is not the kind of Green Activism that will save the world from Global Warming, and in fact it contributes to it. Anyone in this BLOGSTORM stop to think how much polluting energy it took to power this frivolous online campaign? If this is City Hippy's idea of trying to live a GREEN LIFE, I'd suggest going back to the drawing board.

Green Bloggers Ask McDonald's for Hybrid Vehicle Happy Meal

WASHINGTON - September 14 - Three green bloggers who helped lead the recent “blogstorm” over the McDonald’s toy Hummers in Happy Meals are now calling on the company to create a hybrid vehicle Happy Meal.

Since the launch of the Ronald McHummer website (ronaldmchummer.com) last month, over 100,000 visitors have personalized more than 113,000 golden arches signs protesting the promotion. Hundreds of blogs--including five in the top 100, according to blog search engine Technorati--have discussed McDonald’s poor marketing decision of promoting Hummers.

"McDonald’s should give away toys that reflect their values if they want to be taken seriously. They would not give away toy guns, now, would they?" said Al Tepper of CityHippy.net.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there

Despite your judgemental, aggressive and patronising tone I have for you a reasonable response to your coffee-fueled tirade against regular people trying to create incremental change the best way they know how.

That blogstorm of course had 'an' effect although quantifying that is hard. Linkage, transparency, awareness, etc etc etc.

A Happy Meal with an electric car is better than a Happy Meal with a Humvee. A world without Happy Meals would be even better of course.

We were not endorsing Fast Food, McDonalds or Happy Meals at all.

No-one said green people were at McDonalds. And even if they are in a McD's shame is not my game. We were trying to appeal to people who are not yet green but might be. What is the point of 'preaching to the converted'?

Yes we understand the impact of the Fast Food industry on the environment.

Luckily for me my own sense of life validation does not involve receiving your approval. That is not a world in which I would want to live.

Namaste

Al

Green Storm Trooper said...

Gee Al, so sorry if I offended you with my post...not really.

How many people voted for the winner of American Idol? Yet, we can barely get 200 people to show up for a NRC public meeting when Entergy is trying to relicense an aging reactor spewing tritium and strontium 90 into the Hudson River.

The 20 and 30 somethings go out and spend $120 on a GREEN fashion garment, and call their friends up and blast it out on My Space so they can feel they are doing their part to save the environment.

Sorry, how many resources are wasted on those kids meal toys, and the packaging...the whole Blogstorm, and the grid energy it used was/is disgusting.