As long as we’re talking about environmentalism and eco-tainment, I watched some of Six Degrees Could Change the World on the National Geographic Channel tonight (I sure do watch a lot more National Geographic and Discovery programming since I got a high-definition TV). The show is all about the dramatic damage that a few degrees of aggregate global warmth can do. Not surprisingly, it was pretty disturbing stuff, but here’s what really shocked me: one of the sponsors was Hummer!
That’s the same Hummer that is perhaps the most obscenely fat-ass gas guzzler on the (rapidly warming) planet.
I just can’t figure it out… it’s so off-the-wall that it has to be either a bizarre passive-aggressive move of some kind, or else somebody in the marketing department has figured out some crazy-like-a-fox counterintuitive trend. Maybe people who love big cars experience thrilling schadenfreude as they watch maudlin environmentalists wring their hands. Maybe wealthy eco-warriors want to buy up Hummers simply to pull them off the market. Maybe the folks at Hummer realize there’s going to be a market for environmentalists-turned-survivalist who need some horsepower to get to their compound in Montana.
The speculation is fun, but I really am baffled by this. Anybody have any theories out there?
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 
Coming back to Ross Robertson’s “Dark Green”/”Bright Green” distinction, there are also “Pale Greens”, e.g., oil companies that take out ads telling us all how environmentally friendly they are in order to deflect or forestall criticism (or possibly their own nagging guilt?).
I’ve also heard this pale green phenomenon referred to as “greenwashing” (cf. “whitewashing”).