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.

Humble Oil, who is today more known as Exxon, pretty much nailed it back in the 60′s with this advertisement from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine. Oh, the grim irony. It’s also available in full view on Google Books.

A Picture is Worth…
- Car, bus or bicycle?
- Albatross Carcass
- The Global Distribution of Water
- Gasoline Consumption Per Day
- Why Offshore Drilling Won’t Help

The Swedish company Flygbussarna (shortly translated to The Flight Busses), who offers bus services to and from all the major airports in Sweden, has made this very cool advertisement installation next to a highway in Sweden.

The installation is made out of 50 cars stacked together and painted to look like one of Flygbussarna’s busses. It is designed to advertise Flygbussarna’s bus services and to highlight the fact that it’s much more environmentally friendly to travel by bus than in a car.

“50 cars or 1 coach? If everyone travelled with public transport instead of by car the environment would be much better off. So don’t just take the coach because it’s cheaper – take it to reduce your carbon emissions.”

This installation is part of an advertising campaign with the slogan “it’s smart to be cheap” and will be featured on Flygbussarna’s “anti car” homepage.

Check out the slideshow:

Also check out this picture, taken by the Press-Office City of Münster (Germany), which demonstrates the amount of space required to transport the same number of passengers by car, bus or bicycle.

“We were excited to be part of this important project and tell another side of the ‘clean’ coal story,” said the Coen brothers.

The “Air Freshener” ad is the first in a series of ads that are directed by the Coen brothers for the Reality campaign. The new ads are designed and produced by Boulder, Colorado-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the agency responsible for the ground-breaking “Truth” anti-tobacco campaign.

“The coal industry has spent tens of millions of dollars selling the illusion of so-called ‘clean coa’,” said Brian Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection. “Why? Because marketing and lobbying are much cheaper than actually making coal plants clean.”

Hardwick continued: “Coal companies would rather protect the status quo than actually do what is necessary for coal to be truly clean and be part of an energy future that doesn’t destroy the planet. We’re challenging them to stop the bogus marketing campaign, stop their delay tactics and support real progress toward climate solutions.”

Watch the ad:

I hear PETA tried to get a Go Veg ad to air during the Super Bowl but it was pulled due to highly sexual content. Feelings towards PETA and objectification of women aside, the idea of having a Go Veg ad during the most watched sporting event in the US is pretty cool. I doubt many fans would put down their hotdog, but it could get people thinking more about it. When people start thinking about what they’re eating, that’s when they start cutting down on meat. After all there are a bunch of good reasons, and the idea of eating meat is a little creepy.

Warch the Go Veg advertisement below:

‘Veggie Love’: PETA’s Banned Super Bowl Ad

I saw a piece of graffiti here that illustrated the example nicely it said (translated): To eat meat is to eat death, your body is a cemetery

Representing the Stars and Bars

I have just finished my first week of classes at Universidad de Salamanca where I am studying environmental sciences for the semester. My eco-classes are:
Air Pollution
Sustainable Agriculture
Sociology of Ecology
and Forest Defense Techniques

It promises to be interesting. My Sustainable Agriculture class seems like it’ll be pretty much “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” but as a class. Which is great since I loved the book.

The Air Pollution class promises to be interesting as the professor talks a lot about how cars are evil and how we have a whooooooole lot of them in the US. As I’m the only American in the class, a lot of heads turn to me.

Oh the USA, so beloved in the world.

The first thing people ask me when I tell them I’m from the US is “so you really like Hamburgers right?” They seemed shocked that there is such a thing as an American Vegetarian

While surfing the Washington Post this blogger found a creative ad placement from the Reality Coalition (see image above), which purpose is to tell the American public that there is no “clean coal”:

“I noticed this the other morning when surfing the washington post’s website. When you enter a URL that can’t be found on their site, you get the message at the bottom of the image above, which is akin to a 404 messsage. A hearty well done to the folks at this is reality!”

The advertisement says: “This page does not exist. Kind of like clean coal.”

The Times Online is reporting that a polar bear was found stranded on a block of ice travelling down the Thames in London yesterday.

Although the polar bear only was a giant sculpture designed to help promote a new natural history channel in the UK it highlighted the effects of man-made climate change, in this case melting ice caps.

“A total of 15 artists spent two months constructing the 20ft by 20ft square structure, which was launched at 6:30am before travelling up the Thames, stopping besideTower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. The structure weighing, 1.5 tonnes, was winched into place.

The event coincides with the Eden Channel’s Fragile Earth series, presented by Sir David Attenborough.”

Sir David said in an interview with the Times Online that “the melting of the polar bears’ sea ice habitat is one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time. I commend Eden for highlighting the issue; we need to do what we can to protect the world’s largest land carnivores from extinction.”

Adrian Wills, head of the Eden channel, claimed it would address issues like climate change in an informative and entertaining way: “The Earth is a fragile place and we were keen to launch with a message that would draw attention to the uncertain state of our finely balanced environment.”

According to the Eden channel the polar bear will also be visiting other major cities in the UK, such as Glasgow and Birmingham.

Here is a clever ad that says: “Save Trees. Trees Save.”

From where the advertisement comes from is unknown. If someone knows who made this ad or more background information regarding the advertisement please let us know about it by making a comment below. Thanks!

Here is another clever advertisement. This one is a billboard/solar plant. Yes, you heard right. The billboard has been transformed to a solar plant and generates about 3.4 Kw of electricity during the day. According to Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the owners of the ad, says that is enough electricity for a family of four.

Jennifer Zelwer, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) spokesperson, said that “the energy that is collected by the solar panels actually exceeds the amount used by it on a day-to-day basis.” She proudly (I guess) stated that “this isn’t a billboard. It’s a power plant.”