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Like composting, newspaper reading was something absorbed while is in the womb. For much of my childhood, the Siegel clan had a morning and afternoon paper along with several local weeklies and national magazines. (Yes, college marketing matters: pa Siegel is still subscribing to Newsweek, come hell and high water, more than 50 years after that first cheap college subscription.)

Thus, the idea of life without a dead-tree edition with the morning coffee is a step yet to be taken despite the richness of the blogosphere and the CO2/environmental/watts of energy implications of tons lbs of paper delivered to the door. While we are approaching the time where some form of flexible web reader might make the dead-tree edition truly superfluous, for the moment my Siegel clan gets its hands dirty with the paper in the morning. And, for the moment, this is The Washington Post … but should it be is a question that we discuss.

Follow after the fold for discussion of how a bad NY Times column promoting climate denial and dissing the blogosphere tips the scales for The Post … for this week, at least.

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When I hop onto my bike early in the morning because we’re out of coffee or need some bread, a Giant Food grocery store is the closest option. The store recently went through a renovation and is amid a “grand opening”. Wandering through this store, however, makes this author’s head spin contrasting the store’s realities with Giant’s “green store” statement:

In 2007, we were the only supermarket chain selected by the U.S. Green Building Council (which develops and administers the nationally accepted LEED-EB standard for green buildings) to participate in a program for retailers integrating “green” technology into existing buildings.

• Green Products — We offer a variety of “green” household and cleaning products in our stores.
• Star Power! — Giant was named an ENERGY STAR LEADER in 2007 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a result of our success in improving energy performance across our buildings.
• Energy Efficient Attributes — We were recognized for energy-efficient day lighting, T5 florescent lighting systems, automatic occupancy sensors, and refrigeration systems with high-efficiency fan motors.
• Greenhouse Gas — Energy use in refrigeration and food storage is necessary to provide safe, fresh quality food, so we’ve been working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our stores, distribution centers and transport.
• Energy Saving Innovations — Newer stores are designed with reflective roofs, which reduce heat absorption and use less air conditioning in the summer, and special dimming systems that dim lights based on the amount of daylight harvested.
• Partners in Power — We partnered with energy solutions developer EnerNOC, Inc., to help reduce stress on the electric power grid during high peak demand to help reduce power consumption and prevent blackouts.

Have to say, this looks pretty impressive … “energy efficient attributes”, “working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, and so on, this looks truly great. And, “great” matters because grocery stores are a ripe arena for major and fast payback energy efficiency investments.

Grocery stores and supermarkets represent one of the largest and most important customer segments in the energy services marketplace. There are approximately 127,000 grocery stores and supermarkets in the United States, with combined annual sales of over $425 billion. After labor costs, energy expenditures are the leading operating expense for most supermarkets and grocery stores.

a 10 percent reduction in energy costs for a supermarket facility can translate into as much as an eight percent increase in gross profit!

Looking at the Giant food website would lead one to believe that the Corporation was on the leading edge of that wave seeking increased profits with greater energy efficiency.

Walking the newly renovated Giant Food store, however, drives a quite different and, let us say, chilling conclusion.

• Open refrigerated sections: While the milk shelves and most (not all) frozen food shelves are behind doors, the store is filled with open refrigerated areas that make it extremely uncomfortable to walk the aisles in shorts (which are certainly the preferred biking outfit on 90 degree day). Wal-Mart has found that closing refrigerated sections behind doors drives a 70% reduction in the energy demand and significant reduced spoilage of refrigerated foods. Remember: refrigeration is the #1 energy demand in the grocery store business.
• No sky lights: Like most grocery stores, this is a one-level warehouse like space, with simply a roof (yes, it seems to be white roofed) between the store area and the sky. This space is lighted with fluorescent lights (hopefully, as per the Giant statement, energy efficient ones). Sadly, however, Giant Food didn’t invest in putting in integrated skylights that combine sunlight with fluorescents to maintain a constant level of lighting. Again, the contrast is stark with Wal-Mart, where the integrated lighting saves — on average — $250 per store, per day, in reduced electricity use. And, by the way, provides better light with higher employee morale and better sales than a store without such lights.

These are just two examples of where Giant Food’s store renovation fell far short of the website claims, left profits on the table, and unnecessarily increase the carbon footprint of my morning bowl of cereal.

And, from a shareholder’s perspective, Giant Food’s failure to live up to the promise of their website claims is leaving $s on the table in terms of higher utility bills, wasted food, and less congenial environment driving lower profits. Simply put, lower profits and higher pollution simply doesn’t seem like a winning business plan to me.

To a larger picture …

One of the theme songs for those who see solutions for our climate change challenges is making green by going green. The opportunities are there, ripe fruit on low-hanging branches waiting to harvest, for businesses to improve their profitability while cutting their carbon footprint. There are a myriad of no-brainers out there … yet, every moment, we have fruit rotting on the ground as businesses fail to take advantage of highly profitable opportunities right under their noses.

This post is not meant to be a paean to Wal-Mart as, to be clear, there are many serious problems with Wal-Mart from its impact on local communities (small businesses) to the sustainability of its overall business model (bring in cheap things from China, that won’t last long, and need to be replaced often; have to drive to the store; etc …) to how Wal-Mart treats their workers to … Yet, putting aside any question of altruism or even ‘green-washing’ or whether their organics are really organic, from a very hard-bitten, green-eye shade perspective, Wal-Mart has discovered that they can improve their bottom line via aggressive management of their energy use and aggressive investment in energy efficiency. Forget about whether it is good for the environment, it is good for their bottom line … and, therefore, their shareholders.

Now, clearly, this author cares deeply about that environmental impact … but the point is that one doesn’t need someone to care about the environment or even to acknowledge the science of climate change to bring to the table smart practices that can help to reduce America’s fossil-foolish addictions and mitigate climate change. In this arena, grocery stores, smart business practice should drive “making green by going green”.

P.S.: Look again at that Giant Food Recycling and Environment page quoted above. 2007 … hmmm … three years ago and not updated? Energy efficiency is often referred to as low-hanging fruit that is constantly growing back in a process of continuous improvement and continuous discovery/creation of new opportunities. Is Giant resting on its 2007 laurels or is there continuous improvement required simply of its website?

Now, as with any “this is my first-hand experience” perspective, there certainly could be steps that Giant Food is taking that are making steps toward greater energy efficiency and increased sustainability (or, well, less unsustainability) … above are two stark examples that stare this writer in the face whether he enters this newly renovated store.

By the way, look to their summer 2010 promotion as a sign of Giant Food’s commitment to sustainability and the environment: for ever $100 purchased, Giant customers get a discount of 10 cents per gallon of gas purchased at a Shell station. Yes, shop with us and we’ll make it cheaper for you to pollute.

While Amory Lovins and colleagues (Rocky Mountain Institute) have been singing the song for decades, this tune is becoming a true hit in executive suites around the world …

Making more green …
By going green …

Fortune Magazine’s polling of business leaders to find the top 20 respected businesses notes that “Fresh ideas and being green distinguish the winners in our 25th annual rankings.”

And, related, Sea Studios Foundation has just come out with Ahead of the Curve: Business Responds to Climate Change (warning: video). This 12-minute video looks at the situation related to energy and global warming … and how businesses are shifting to deal with them.

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Too many people think that coal is an inevitable part of our energy future … indefinitely.

This is not just reckless in global warming terms, the statements of inevitability are false — we have a choice and can eliminate coal from our electricity equation if we wish to …

Just a very simple outline of how the United States could, without Herculean efforts, eliminate coal-fired electricity from the electrical system by 2030.

And, do so while improving the economy.

Very simply, about 45 percent of US electricity comes from coal at this time. This is a serious portion of the overall US carbon load. It is also a major source of mercury and other pollutants worsening our lives. And, just remember, clean coal is like dry water — it simply doesn’t exist other than in advertising slogans.

So, how can we eliminate the US dependency on coal-fired electricity while improving the economy and not increasing dependency on foreign energy sources?

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Every day, I strive to Make Energy CENTS from the Home to the Globe. Whether programming the thermostat to low temperatures overnight to providing comments on national energy policy drafts to opening discussions as to Energy COOL technologies and concepts, my efforts to Energize America to a prosperous, climate friendly future cross a broad spectrum.

To be clear and blunt: there is NO SILVER BULLET solution. In my own life, every year sees more ‘investment’ in energy efficiency, new ways to think about / execute conservation from what food we buy to our travel choices, and ways to help remediate the damage I inevitably cause to the planetary system’s ability to support my children’s children to the seventh generation and beyond.

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Under the title The Darker Side of Green, Lexus (e.g., Toyota) has chosen to host a series of “debates” on climate change as part of its roll-out of hybrid Lexus CT200h. These events are hosted by a celebrity, with an environmentalist journalist and prominent skeptic ‘debating’ climate-change issues.

To debate or not to debate: that is the question

To delude people that there is a “debate” about the fundamentals of climate-change science is a core objective of purveyors of Anti-Science Syndrome suffering Hatred Of a Livable Economic System.  A common tactic, that can all too easily gain traction, is to “challenge” scientists or those aligned with science to “debate” with the aim of either of two results:

1. Have the reality-based person (organization) reject the debate challenge (because they are unwilling to give credence to those peddling falsehoods) so that climate skeptics can use this in “see, they’re unwilling to debate because their arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny.
2. Have the reality-based person show up (and speak with caution) to have the (falsehood spewing, gamesmanship player) skeptic run rings around them on the stage to ‘win the audience’.

As Juan Cole put it,

Media thrives on controversy, which produces ratings and advertising revenue. As a result, it is structured into an ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ binary argument. Any broadcast that pits a climate change skeptic against a serious climate scientist is automatically a win for the skeptic, since a false position is being given equal time and legitimacy.

The real target, in any event, is to foster the appearance of a substantive debate to confuse the public when that is utterly misrepresentative of the state of the science.

Let’s pause for a moment to understand “debate“.

Debate or debating is a formal method of interactive and representational argument. … in debating, one side often prevails over the other side by presenting a superior “context” and/or framework of the issue, which is far more subtle and strategic. … The major goal of the study of debate as a method or art is to develop one’s ability to play from either position with equal ease. To inexperienced debaters, some propositions appear easier to defend or to attack; to experienced debaters, any proposition can be defended or attacked after the same amount of preparation time …

While it is not to say that facts don’t matter, but this is about presentation and convincing the ‘judges’ and ‘audience’, not about truthfulness and full honesty.  And, it is essentially impossible to fact check during a debate — either you come prepared (across the entire spectrum of potential debate) or not. To paraphrase, ‘there are lies, damned lies, and statistics used in debates’.

As climate change is perhaps the most complicated issue humanity has or ever will face, the door is wide-open for audience-winning misleading and deceptive arguments … if one is unconcerned about truthfulness and honest discussion. Thus, with ‘two’ sides in a public debate, the science-based side is at a disadvantage: they will strive for truthful discussion, will use terms from science that poorly translate to public discourse, and are cautious about discussing issues for which they might not have expert knowledge or substantive background. No such restraints on the anti-science side, who are willing to disseminate falsehoods, misrepresent evidence, and state things with certainty which are far from certain.  No debate or debate,  the skeptic / denier community wins in almost every circumstance.

Was Lexus played?

Fostering debates, creating the appearance of confusion about the science is a key target of the denier cabal(whether or not funded by fossil-foolish interests like Exxon-Mobil or Koch Industries or …).

Lexus has a new line of hybrid drive vehicles and looked for a path to gain visibility for them.    You have to think that people who have at least some concern about climate change are core sales targets. (Even if this might be ‘eco-chic’ marketing and style rather than anything substantive to reduce humanity’s impact on the planet.)  Thus, in seeking to gain appeal in this audience, Lexus chose to embrace and give visibility to a core tactic of the climate skeptic/denier cabal:  a series of debates on climate change.

How did they arrive at this?

Here is something to place these debates in perspective:

Marketing and PR consultant Patrick Courrielche, who has been promoting and marketing the Darker Side of Green debates for Lexus, has written extensively about “climategate” for Andrew Breitbart‘s BigJournalism sites.

Wow.

The key player in setting this up for Lexus is associated with the scandal-ridden Andrew Breitbart?  And, has arranged for Lexus to pay for Andrew Breitbarts of the Climate Change world to get visibilty?

And, the key consultant for Lexus on this has a record of publishing quite favorable discussions on deceptive and deceitful reporting on climate issues?

And, he managed to get Lexus to move forward with promoting their new cars via one of the favored climate skeptic/deniers’ tactics?

And, what has this done? Put into the HuffPost / People magazine-type world of celebrity watching that there is some form of debate on climate change science and help foster the very confusion which is the core target of climate change skeptics and deniers.

Lexus’ public statement on the logic …

“Lexus hybrid vehicles seamlessly brings together two different lifestyle characteristics – unabashed luxury and modern green technology,” said Andrea Lim, Lexus events marketing manager. “Expanding our debate series helps to reinforce the message embodied in the CT 200h – that two behaviors, not often found side by side, can successfully merge and become a way of life.”

Lexus wants to be making the argument to the luxury car buying world that you can have your cake and eat it too. Many knowledgeable about climate change and concerned of climate catastrophe would disagree. On the other hand, a good number would agree … including Vice President Gore, Environmental Defense Fund, and others who argue that smart moves in energy efficiency and renewable energy will enable us to enhance our way of life (have a better life and greater prosperity) while averting climate change. Rather than using their vehicles and their platform (their publicity resources) to educate Americans that there is a path toward greater prosperity and better living through technology options like hybrids, Lexus decided to contribute to Americans confusion about climate science by supporting the favored tactic of climate skeptics and deniers.

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Take a moment to read this thoughtful guest post from matching mole.

Lafeminista’s Global Warming: Are you f***ing scared yet? highlights yet another reason for grave concern about the impacts of our using the atmosphere as a trash pit: we are killing life in the ocean as

Scientists have discovered that the phytoplankton of the oceans has declined by about 40 per cent over the past century, with much of the loss occurring since the 1950s. They believe the change is linked with rising sea temperatures and global warming.

Should we mention acidification of the oceans? Accelerating extinction rates? Ever-more disrupted weather patterns globally that, among other things, are hurting agricultural production? Stronger storms? Rising seas? ….

At a core level, if you are a parent and unconcerned about what this means for your child’s life (your own as well), well, you are living with blinders on.

Global Warming should effing scare us …

Yet, it doesn’t because it also so complex …

And, sigh, it shouldn’t have to because the solution paths are so clear …

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A simple fact: Andrew Breitbart has been incredibly effective.

With material that legal investigations, reviews by traditional journalism institutions, and other inspections have shown to be “severely edited” material utterly misrepresenting actual events, Breitbart provided the ammunition that enabled the takedown of an organization (ACORN) that had helped — quite literally — 100,000s of people (if not more) but had the sinful reality that it had helped educate lower-income Americans about their rights and mobilize them to vote. Sadly, many politicians who had benefited from ACORN’s mobilization efforts and/or had constituents whose lives had been improved due to ACORN activity jumped on the bandwagon to attack ACORN based on Breitbart’s “severely edited” videos — and the damage, defunding, was done before the evidence exonerating ACORN was in. So much for innocent until proven guilty part …

Breitbart’s selective leaking from the Journolist background discussion led to a resignation of a Washngton Post employee — for words written well prior to his employment — and dismantling of this background discussion group that, according to some participants, had helped foster more accurate and truthful reporting with sharing of perspectives and source material and perspectives among a range of journalists who, evidently, used strong language as if their ‘background’ discussions truly were private.

And, Breitbart’s posting of another “severely edited” video sparked what are now well know events: the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture due to the selective video Breitbart posted with the utterly false implication that she was a racist and acting as a racist in her government duties. The full video, of course, showed exactly the opposite. First, the events discussed were from decades before her federal service and the story was one of going past racism, of how the daughter of a man killed in a hate crime could move past her (legitimate reasons for) anger and actually be an epitome of post-racial problem solving. What is sad is that Breitbart had any credibility to have had any influence on anyone after the sad record of his “journalism”. One of the few good things of Sherrod-gate? “The” media might begin to dismiss him and his Faux-News echo chamber for the decievers that they are. As commented in the Baltimore Sun today,

That Mr. Breitbart associated his hatchet job on Shirley Sherrod with “the imperfect nature of journalism” suggests that he sees himself as a journalist. He’s not. The journalist has to prize above all else the truth, and presenting the truth in the public’s interest. Twisting the truth, editing video to make black look like white and up look like down — that’s the stuff of hocus-pocus and snake oil; it’s not the work of the journalist.

Well, when it comes to the echo chamber of deceptive truthiness and outright deceit in the arena of climate change, sadly there is a pantheon of Breitbarts to chose from who are actively disseminating confusing material and outright falsehoods with gullible (or collaborating) journalists always ready to echo their falsehoods and give them voice in “faux and balanced” Global Warming reporting.

If, however, forced to narrow down in this pantheon of anti-science syndrome sufferers, there seems to be one name that sinks to the bottom: Marc Morano. Consider his background:

• Morano is a former journalist with Cybercast News Service (CNS), which is owned by the conservative Media Research Center. CNS and Morano were the first source in May 2004 of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claims against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election and in January 2006 of similar smears against Vietnam war veteran John Murtha.
• Morano was the  communications director for the Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Morano, working for Senator James Inhofe, used this position to push out a tremendous amount of deceitful climate denial material to an ever-growing network of fellow anti–science syndrome sufferers.
• Morano was “previously known as Rush Limbaugh’s ‘Man in Washington’ a period which, if the timing is right, included this incident:

In 1996, Morano secretly filmed an AIDS fund-raiser on behalf of the Family Research Council, then wrote an article claiming that the fund-raiser featured “lewd dancing, nudity, illicit sex and evidence of illegal drugs,” according to a May 14, 1996, Associated Press article. The Washington Times reported on May 15, 1996, that it was unable to substantiate some of Morano’s claims, and then-Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-WI), a sponsor of the fund-raiser, blasted Morano’s reporting in a statement on the floor of the House. Gunderson noted that Morano “never once tried to interview me or any of the event’s sponsors. Nor did he talk to any of the security personnel, nor the responsible authorities at the Department of Commerce [where the event was held]. Throughout his entire story, not one source is ever identified or quoted. … [H]ate and prejudice are the motives by which Mr. Morano and Mr. [Armstrong] Williams [who wrote a column based on Morano’s report] sought to totally misrepresent the fund-raising events and their purpose.”

• Etc …

Morano has been caught in deception after misrepresentation after factual error after falsehood after cyber-bullying (and) after … yet, he still manages to rate quotations in newspapers. And, “journalists” open his emails. He frequently gets quoted. And, he gets profiles in major magazines and newspapers of record.  He is treated with respectability that, well, his record simply doesn’t merit.  Morano has been a key player in a dis- and mis-information campaign that has had far too much success in confusing the American public about the state of climate science, of the threats before us (the U.S.) and the opportunities that we have if we forthrightly confront the challenge.  Marc Morano represents the Andrew Breitbart of the anti-science syndrome world … and he merits the same attention from journalistic institutions as Breitbart deserves. Let’s see if he gets it.

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Secretary of Energy Steven Chu took on conservative economists in comments this evening, where he spoke with strong praise for regulation and standards for driving energy efficiency in appliances and other energy-related systems.

Chu explained that writing regulation and setting standards are — without exception — the lowest cost move with the highest payoff to the economy that the Department of Energy can pursue.  The DOE has already doubled the rate of writing standards — while making them more aggressive.  He commented that, at a budget meeting meeting earlier today, he instructed the plan to have resources to again double standard writing.

Secretary Chu commented that there was a major gap in the DOE appliance standards program: essentially no enforcement.  On this, Chu stands with President Reagan: Trust, but verify. And, Chu added: go hard on verification. When the DOE General Counsel hired a litigator to enforce standards and began moving forward with enforcement cases, some 40 of DOE’s existing lawyers volunteered to work on enforcement cases … on top of their existing duties.

Chu commented that there are economists that will account, as a value, the reduced freedom of choice due to tightening standards.  To this, Secretary Chu noted that

Forcing people to save is a cost that I am willing to bear.

We’re going to enforce standards.

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