Saturday, June 13, 2009

I'm only happy when it rains....


actually.. i kind of hate the rain but what I really can't stand is the humidity, especially the kind that is so thick you can cut it with a knife and this spring we must have had more rain in NYC than I can recall having in the last 5 years. Not sure if we are talking global warming, global cooling or global weirding but I'm sure there is something different about how humid and nasty the months o May and June have been relative to when I was a kid.

This got me thinking about other 'greening' initiatives and how ridiculous it is to think it is that a company like British Petroleum has convinced the world that they are now 'Beyond Petroleum'. This is a marketing scheme which the guys at MadMen would be proud of. I have been reading this book Supercapitalism seemingly forever and it describes how instead of getting regulated by the government they went to convince law-makers that the old reliable 'self-regulation' would be better. In a matter of months hey seemingly transformed their company into a renewable energy generator which they promoted through their endless commercials showing windmills, water-dams and hamsters. Well research has shown that BP has not been a leader in renewable energy at all, having spent no more or less than any of their main competitors. What they have done though is convince stupid people like myself of spending $.03 a gallon more when I had a choice between BP and Citco a few weeks ago. See the rebranding got the government regulators off their backs and allowed BP to not only look like a leader in renewable energy but also gave them an advantage over their competition, it was a win-win situation and because there is no real regulation they are able to cut their renewable energy projects at will. They then only have to answer to the consumer who is too stupid to realize that what the marketing jargon they are force-fed may not in actuality be true.


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