In the imagined green police state, checkpoints were set up to enforce strict environmental regulations. Predictably, the new car with the fuel efficient Audi “green” diesel engine was waved forward with a smile. On the other hand, violators were charged with throwing away batteries, using plastic credit cards, and overheating swimming pool water.

Some argued the ad had “fascist” overtones, both for its satirical characterization of the environmental movement and also for the not-so-subtle links to Germany’s fascist past. The Audi corporation apparently had strong ties to Hitler and the Nazi movement. “Green police” was also the name of the Nazi uniformed police force. Graham Jukes of San Francisco’s Brasscheck TV wrote: “Millions of dollars were spent conceiving, producing and running this ad during last Sunday’s Super Bowl. Did you find it funny? I sure didn’t. And when you consider that the advertiser helped itself to slave labor during the Nazi era, it’s a whole lot less funny.”

The New York Times commented: “This misguided spot put the ‘mental’ in ‘environmental’.”

San Francisco’s tough pro-environment Mayor Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, tweeted during the Super Bowl, “That ‘green police’ Audi commercial hits home.”

The mayor and many others saw the ad as simply a humorous effort to make an environmentally friendly point and sell cars at the same time.

The Plastics Division of the American Chemical Company took offense to the demonizing of plastic in the ad and immediately put up a web site promoting its eco-friendly attributes. “Many people,” they say, may be “surprised at the environmental benefits of plastics.”

Gregory Unruh, writing for the Huffington Post, says the ad cleverly points to an ongoing debate over the definition of sustainability: “In all seriousness, the ad captures a very real and ongoing struggle to define what exactly sustainability means for industry. It’s widely recognized that ‘sustainability’ is a term that can mean different things to everyone and every business.”

Audi’s goal, then, is to define the word on its own terms with respect to cars. He continues, “For decades, diesel cars in the U.S. have had reputations as polluters, conjuring images of black smoke billowing from the stacks of freight trucks on the highway. But Audi and other European manufactures are working to change the U.S. attitude and mindset toward diesels.”

The bottom line is that business is attempting to define the word on its own profit-friendly terms and, as Unruh concludes, given the huge sums spent on Super Bowl advertising, “the stakes are rising.”

And who cares if the ad conjures symbolism of Germany’s not-so-distant Nazi past: apparently not Audi, especially if it meets the corporate bottom line.

Author: Joe Sims, People’s World

“I’m sorry,” the text of the ad reads. “We could have stopped catastrophic climate change… We didn’t.”

Some of the so called world “leaders” depicted are Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Dmitry Medvedev and others.

“We’re hoping these ads predict the wrong future — the one where world leaders look back with a “coulda, shoulda, woulda” attitude at a Copenhagen climate summit which failed. There’s still time to change the future. Our recipe for world leader regret-avoidance is simple: agree a fair, ambitious, and legally binding deal to save the climate”, writes Brian from the Greenpeace Climate Rescue Webblog.

“The reality is that there’s not a single home or business in America today powered by clean coal,” said Brian Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection. “If coal really wants to be part of America’s energy future, the industry can start by making a real commitment to eliminating their pollution that is a leading cause of global warming.”

Hardwick continued: “It is high time for the coal industry to come clean and admit to the American people that today clean coal is not a reality. No matter how much they say it in their advertising, coal can’t truly be clean until the plants can capture global warming pollution. With so much at stake, we can’t afford to hang our hats on an illusion.”

A multi-million dollar ad campaign featuring ads in print, TV commercials and online ads will help spread the message.

You can take a look at their very first print ad here, which shows a solitary door labelled “Clean Coal Facility Entrance.” Behind the door, though, lies a barren field. “In reality, there’s no such thing as clean coal,” the ad states.

The first TV commercial follows the same theme and can be viewed below:

I do believe the message that there exists no “clean coal” technology got out perfectly clear in both the print and TV ad. But Joe from the Climate Progress blog thinks otherwise:

“Their inaugural ad violates a central rule of messaging, rhetoric, and psychology: Don’t keep repeating a strong word the other side is trying to push.”

What do you think about the advertisements? Will they do a good job debunking the “clean coal” lie?

If you didn’t think Brita’s plastic water bottle advertising campaign was disgusting this one surely is. The Swedish company Flygbussarna (shortly translated to The Flight Busses) wants to get the word out about their recent environmental efforts.

According to the company every third buss that goes to Arlanda (the largest airport in Sweden) is running on Rapeseed Methyl Ester (RME), which is a form of biodiesel. The biodiesel fuel is supposedly coming from fields near the airport.

Flygbussarna is planning that in a three years period become 100% free from fossil fuels by using biodiesels to power their busses to and from the airports.

Their advertising campaign regarding this is disgusting on so many levels. I personally think it is inappropriate to mix and confuse fuel and food in this way.

The images really speak for themselves.

A currently running advertising campaign from Brita, a German company that specializes in water filtration products, says in its ad slogan that “last year 16 million gallons of oil were consumed to make plastic water bottles.”

Brita wants you to stop using water bottles and instead use their water filters to clean their water. While you can ask yourself what use the water filters will do, when the majority of the developed countries have an excellent quality on their water, the advertising campaign highlights one of the most pointless waste products in our society today.

Americans send about 38 billion water bottles a year to landfills. Considering the 1.5 million barrels of oil needed to make those bottles, the environmental impact of plastic bottle waste is truly staggering.

You can check out their site over at FilterForGood.com. While you at it you might also want to check out TakeBackTheFilter.org.

The full images from the ad campaign can be found below: