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  The impossibility of a green Wal-Mart

  Ms Mitchell makes an interesting argument with lots of "facts" but misses one very important fact about Walmart.  Walmart does not build stores and hope that people come there.  They build them in growing communities and expect that the local community will find the store conveniently located from their home.  Walmart did not force people to move out of central business districts away from the Mom and Pop shops that people claim Walmart is displacing but this is the main reason that people cannot as easily drive to buy household essentials.  Kudos to the person that bikes to Walmart!

  Regarding CO2 emissions.  Gasoline usage in the US expanded by 2.6% from Jan 2006 to Jan 2007 (historically this has been between 1 and 1.5% per year) at a time when a majority of Americans believe that burning of fossil fuels is directly causing global warming and when the price of gasoline is still historically high.  I'm betting that a minuscule percentage of that increase
  is due to traveling to Walmart (where people are buying items they need to live) and a larger percentage is spent going to places that are not directly related to buying essntials for living.

  If we want to make a difference reducing CO2 emissions we need to quit bashing Walmart and start bashing our own driving habits.  How many people could walk to church/school that don't because they can't roll out of bed soon enough?  How many of these people that are using 2.6% more gasoline this year than the previous year complain about the high price of gasoline and choose to ignore that their increased usage directly contributes to the higher price by making the supply that much more tight?  I'll bet that Ms. Mitchell emitted more CO2 in the
  writing of this article (driving to Walmart's to take pictures) than many of us use in a month going to Walmart to buy essentials.  The point is that if you want to make a difference and
  reduce the amount of CO2 that is emitted, a large part of the answer lies collectively inside each of us Americans and not in the dissection of any particular corporation's CO2 reduction strategy.  I realize that this is "an inconvenient truth" but one that we must collectively embrace if we really want to slow golbal warming.
  Remember a large flood starts with a lot of little trickles.
  On The impossibility of a green Wal-Mart posted 2 years, 8 months ago 27 Responses