last night i was checking out this post on treehugger.com. so i decided to comment making some critical remarks about coke, but the comment never got published. there are other comments published so i know it's not a technical issue. treehugger, WTF? my sister, ashley, from sustainableroute.com also commented and did not get published. below is the comment that she wrote:
That's great that their "going green" in one office building. What about their bottling plants all over the world that deplete ground water? What about their millions of plastic bottles which are shipped far and wide only to feed sugar water to the world's poorest and pollute their streets and communities? Maybe they should invest that 3 million into educating themselves about their own deplorable environmental record.
Treehugger, while I appreciate most of your blogging efforts, it pains me to see the lack of critical thinking in reporting these stories. Where is the context? If we continue to see efforts like this as moving forward while ignoring the bigger issues that set back efforts to make a safer, greener world, wouldn't that be called 'green washing'? If TH continues to dumb down real environmental problems with companies like Coca Cola then TH is just a part of the problem.
i had a great conversation with some vloggers on twitter about this. thanks for that guys. and while i think it's an overall positive that a company (or rather certain people in a company) realize it's imporant to go green, that certain other people in that same company need to change more than just their building, they need to change their business practices as well. max and stacy from karmabanque radio always have an interesting take on how to get corporations, esp coke, to change through boycotts and the power of the stockholders. go check them out. also check out this wikipedia article on people's criticisms of coke.
what do you think? let's have a conversation. that's why i have a blog, so we can talk back and forth. treehugger is usually pretty good about that. i'm surprised and disappointed that they are choosing to shut the conversation down before it can even begin.
UPDATE: a few hours after i posted this, some comments on treehugger's article are being published. good on ya, treehugger.
