bhosey’s Recent Comments

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  Carrot and Stick and Corporate Kindergarten

  Good points all, as we struggle how best to dispense carrot for good behavior and stick for bad.  Most of the time I'm so disgusted with the mendacious, outright malevolent behavior of corporations that all I want is to reach for a stick and the bigger the better.  Unfortunately though, we are fighting this case in the court of public opinion as well as the courts of law and nobody likes a scold.  So every now and again if some corporation's pr team puts out a release that they've done something eco-friendly, we should balance out our usual stick with an appropriate amount of carrot.  I do however agree with jdhlax that if you are going to dispense some reward, it had better be earned.  Let's not sell our praise too cheaply.  People may not like a scold, but they certainly don't respect a chump either.

  In interacting with corporations we're obviously dealing with entities who have the mindsets of five-year olds (very crafty, devious five-year olds, but children nevertheless).  The way they see things they are the center of the universe, their time-horizon stretches all the way to lunch or maybe naptime and they don't like being told "no".  With this in mind perhaps in teaching corporations how to think and act green, we should aim for the model of a Corporate Kindergarten ©.  Remember in kindergarten when everyone got a star to stick on their desks even whem all they did was show up at the right time with all articles of clothing on the appropriate limbs?  The kids who really excelled would get a gold star, those who were average would get silver and those who managed to quietly remain seated would get bronze.  Only if you were very very bad did you get no star and sent to the principal where you might get the stick (I went to elementary school in Texas).  

  Yes, it's frustrating to have to jump up and down like it's Mardi Gras when all Walmart did was the bare minimum, and that because they were really trying to distract us from the bad things they did.  I wish we had better better corporations, just like teachers wish for better students.  As Dave pointed out though, it's much more practical to work with you've got.  Give Walmart their bronze or maybe silver star but do also remind them that the principal is right down the hall.On Corporations need to be encouraged when they embrace environmental talk, not bashed posted 4 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses

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  Due Credit

  You're right.  Sure there are plenty of reasons to dislike Starbucks (for myself, it's the miniscule percentage of the coffee that they buy which is shadegrown) but let's give credit where credit is due.

  Starting today I'll officially reduce the amount of time I spend loathing and/or badmotuhing Starbucks by five percent.On Coffee giant will buy 5 percent clean power for its U.S. stores posted 4 years, 6 months ago 5 Responses

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  Alternative At Any Price?

  This issue while regional in direct impact represents another marker on the path that the "green" community has taken in the recent years moving from conservation advocacy to tacit consumption advocacy.  

  In my mind the hype over alternative energy sources is the path of least resistance for eco groups.  For a long time they were taking a beating because they had chosen the role of truth-teller, conveying the message that combining limited resources with unlimited appetites really isn't too smart.  While supplemented with a helathy interest in alternative energies, this main message of "Hey why don't you consume a little less?" wasn't swallowed too well by the general public who generally don't like being lectured to.  The corporate interests and their conservative handmaidens in govenrment were all to ready to turn this message of conservation against the greens, dismissing them as elitist negative nancies.

  Rather than continue looking like the bad guys (and helping themselves to the conviently timed lever of mid-east hatred), some greens have latched onto this magical idea of alternative energy sources as the sole end-all be-all solution and damn anyone who gets in their way.  For someone like nuclear advocate Thomas Friedman, it's much easier to tell Nevada to "suck it up" and risk contamination of a third of their state than to tell the entire American people to "suck it up" by consuming a whole lot fewer resources.  

  The public sector sees green groups evangelizing the miracle of alternative energies as a reinforcement of the idea that they can consume all they want--technology will just find ways to squeeze yet more from the environment.  The corporate sector increasingly sees is it as a win for them as well through government subsidies, minimized focus on reduced consumtion and market entry for their patented technologies.

  And so it goes.  Greens who happen to point out the negative impacts of these alternative energy projects are outspent by the corporate interests ,blithely ignored by the general public and shouted down by their own former compatriots.

  For those puzzled by the opposition to the wind project, the negative impacts both environmental and otherwise are clearly laid out in the FAQ at the Alliance's website:

  http://www.saveoursound.org/Faqs/Default.aspx

  If we are going to make decisions about huge projects with wide-ranging impacts whether a national nuclear waste storage site or huge wind factories across the seas, then let's make sure they are informed decisions fully weighing just what it is we are getting ourselves into.On And isn't that the best kind? posted 4 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses

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  Lakoff, Green and the Selling

  Lakoff is only saying what needs to be said: no matter how wonderful a party's ideas are, no matter how good the party's policies are (for the environment, health care, the economy, national security or any of the other issues) the American public simply will not buy something that's "good" for them unless it's also sold to them.

  No matter how wonderful your product, messaging cannot be neglected.  Which line of food has bigger market share, organic food or fast food?  Which magazine has larger circulation, Consumer Reports or Us?  The fact that Lakoff isn't any better at messaging than the current wonks doesn't negate this.  You don't have to be a good salesman in order to recognize the importance of selling nor to call out bad salesmanship when you see it.

  Joshua Green's criticism implies that the recent close losses for the Democratic party are a call to question it's fundamental ideas and any messaging analysis is denial ridden navel-gazing.

  That's like telling an organic food company that in order to gain market share it needs to rethink the whole organic thing. Nonsense. While Democrats have no reason to lose faith in their fundamentals, their sales techniques could use some help.

  It probably wouldn't hurt them any to revamp their organizing techniques as well but that's a whole other can of worms.On Good stuff on anti-enviro Supreme Court justices and more posted 4 years, 7 months ago 2 Responses