Arkansas Blog

I want Wal-Mart to use whichever bag is the cheapest...keep cost's down..prices lowest possible...Max, I heard you actually have been seen in one of Little Rock's Wal-Marts. Good for you big guy...don't let your Hillcrest neighbors find out...that can't be good in your position!

Does Walmart have showering facilities for it's employees?

The BCDR may just as well print Wal-Mart press releases verbatim. Why is Gary Lookadoo's name even attached to this?

Speaking of going green, I just got my Sierra Club 2006 Congressional Scorecard, listing votes on key five environmental issues.

Vic Snyder, bless him, got five thumbs up for voting pro-environment.
Marion Berry got three.
Pryor, Lincoln and Ross got two each.
Boozman got none. He has a 100% anti-environment record.

Without looking at the particulars, it's easy to scan the chart and see which states have a lot of thumbs up and which don't. It's amazing. Pretty much right down the line, blue states are pro-environment and red states are pro-toxic waste dumps.

I love blue!!

Patrick: what were the five issues, and how did our folks vote on those five?

Unless things have changed, the best environmental records really have less to do with red/blue or conservative/liberal and a lot more to do with coastline. The best environmental voting reps tend to have districts with coastline, followed by mountains.

Those also tend to be places most easily damaged and more noticeable when they are damaged.

As to Wal-Mart, with rising energy costs makes perfect sense that they would invest in being more green. They are heavily energy sensitive. They have an extensive distribution system. Most of their competitors have a much higher percentage of goods shipped to the stores from the manufacturer or from a wholesaler. Wal-Mart is the wholesaler and ships from its distribution centers. On top of that energy costs are a big component in the operation of each location.

The great news for me and you is that if Wal-Mart makes the decision to be very serious their economies of scale will make greening up cheaper for the rest of us. A Wal-Mart decision to incorporate solar energy even over 10 years would require a boost in production of solar cells and with that greater production efficiency and lower costs. Likewise if they approached suppliers to come up with sufficient biodiesel to take their entire fleet to a 50-50 mix in X years the production increase would make biodiesel more viable.

Is Wal-Mart going green because its a sweet group of guys? Nah. But if the nation's largest retailer demonstrates it makes economic sense the Wal-Mart chasers will go green quickly and with much more speed than Congress would ever be able to muster.

Snyder's five thumbs up cost the people of this country a lot of jobs and caused us to have to import more...Good for Boozeman as we need jobs and plants more than money thrown away on things like the Ivory Bill Woodpecter...Old Berry is trying to get 300k tax money to fund that rediculous waste...Jeeeze

Anonymous: please step up and tell me which votes of Snyder's cost the country jobs. Be specific. Which jobs were lost as a result of which votes?

If you can't tell me, then sit still and be quiet. The grownups are talkin'.

As with the policies of so many big companies, Wal Mart might go green for all the wrong reasons.

But, from my point of view, the reasons are irrelevant. If they actually do go green, great, because then everyone else will be able to do it too, without having to compete with WalMart on a non-level playing field.

All the rest of us benefit by having a better world to live in. It's a win-win-win.

Hey, it might even create more jobs for those that work in the businesses that supply the green products. That's a good thing.

Wal-Mart hasn't done anything to raise the bar with green building, when building energy needs comprise almost 40% of the total energy expenditure in the US. In fact, Walmart historically has FOUGHT the green building standards of LEED enforced by some cities. In one case in Wisconsin, they offered the city officials $75,000 - the cost of LEED certification - to NOT have their store certified, with the reasoning that the money could be used for a bike path (the city planners saw it for what it was - a bribe - and refused to let them develop).
I hope that this trend of local city zoning ordinances requiring at least some energy efficient building standards for commercial building over a certain size will continue, and raise the bar for all developers.

Patrick: what were the five issues, and how did our folks vote on those five? Posted by: do tell

1. Energy Bill, the product of the "secret" Cheney Energy Task Force. Lincoln & Pryor, Boozman and Ross voted wrong (from Sierra Club point of view). Berry and Snyder voted right.

2. Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Boozman voted wrong. All others voted right.

3. Coastal Protection. All voted wrong except Snyder, who voted right.

4. Fuel Economy Standards. All voted wrong except Snyder, who voted right.

5. Environmental Funding, including substantial cuts to important environmental programs. Boozman voted wrong. All others voted right.

All voted wrong except Snyder, who voted right.

Might I add that, in an era of mediocrity in government, Vic Snyder stands out as a great man.

If you want to read a great article about Wal-Mart's green greed, try: "Can You Still Hate Wal-Mart?
It's a shockingly eco-friendly plan from the world's most toxic retailer. Did hell just freeze over?"
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
My favorite line from the story is how Wal-Mart is finally realizing that global disaster is bad for business,
The article is a hoot.

I'd like the green Wal-Mart to answer a simple question or two.
First at least some of the stores have a box in which you can place your used plastic bags -- you know, those that somehow reproduce beyond all reason in your utility room. But I have read that those bags are among those things which cannot be recycled. So what happens to them?
And the old blue bags? Did Wal-Mart decide to change the color so all of us driving down a west Texas highway for example wouldn't count all the Wal-Mart bags blown against the fences? (Ok, Ok, I'm blaming W-M for some of its customers' trashy ways.)
Just how much of this is hype?