Eureka! I've discovered a phenomenal waste!

Shell and Nat Geo team up to create 5.4 million pieces of trash

Posted by Erik Hoffner (Guest Contributor) at 3:14 PM on 18 Jul 2007

Read more about: green living | movies | waste | oil

A rant: I'm a big National Geographic dork, so it pains me to kvetch about the ton of crap that comes with each issue. Once relieved of its "recyclable" plastic baggie, the fumes usually make me want to hang it on the clothesline for a while to air out, and I would, except a zillion junky inserts would festoon the lawn (excepting the sometimes great map supplement).

But this month's garbage haul topped it all, as a promotional DVD tumbled to the kitchen floor. Called "Eureka," it's a slick nine-minute commercial for Shell Oil dressed up as a movie, complete with a Hollywood score and gauzy cinematography, wherein our hero, the troubled but lovable petroleum engineer with receding hairline, struggles mightily with the problem of how to get more precious oil out of the earth without disturbing a nearby coral reef system, and remains stumped until he looks into his heart and is given the key by a child. Really. And that's not all.

Shell even has the incredible balls to write clearly on the DVD jacket that this glorious production is meant only for promotion, and is not for sale. Not for sale!

Other oil companies at least are hip to the notion that people want to hear about companies' plans to get beyond oil, not how to get and burn more.

Now imagine one of these little plastic frisbees hitting the trash bin with real force in each of National Geographic's 5.4 million subscribers' homes. I guess this is what you should expect from a (not-for-profit!) magazine which insists that it must print its pretty pictures only on virgin paper, 150 pages of them, monthly. Multiply that by 5.4 million, too.

Oh, a ray of hope! The cover is printed on "recycled-content paper."

For story: Eureka! I've discovered a phenomenal waste!
9 Comments | Post a Comment

Why buy it then?

Really, if those 5.4 million subscribers really cared about the environment they would complain and make the magazine change its ways. Really, one can speak with their pocketbook by cancelling their subscriptions. I have three decades of the magazine on CD-ROM and don't purchase the magazine. I can read what I want from their website for free and purchase archive versions on CD when it is made available. We can argue which is better, three decades of virgin paper for reference or the CDs but I will take my chances with the CDs.

And I don't have to deal with advertising cards, inserts or petroleum ads.

by wayneluke at 4:41 PM on 18 Jul 2007

National Geo

Probably a good point. What did you think of the major article on the melting of the Greenland icesheets? Does such an article count for anything?

by ffletcher at 7:57 PM on 18 Jul 2007

addiction

Yes, collecting National Geographics can become addictive. And they are bulky, by magazine standards. I never subscribed. But I have always subscribed to Natural History, and had built up a collection of some fifteen years of issues, before I realized that was ridiculous. The current magazine I have been saving, with perhaps more justification, is American Indian Art Magazine.

E.O. Wilson, in his recent interview with Bill Moyers, praised National Geographic highly, as having inspired and nourished his interest in insects and other animals. So yes indeed, it has some great virtues.

All the more reason, therefore, that you subscribers should encourage them to shape up, and chuck the clunky insertions.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 2:59 AM on 19 Jul 2007

Why I Don't Buy It

After two interesting editions bought in 2006, I easily came to the conclusion that the editorial goods of NG were being crushed by the advertising bads. NG is packed full of adverts for gas guzzlers, promotional materials for energy companies, invitations to take exotic holidays - just because the advertisers love to see their wares being plugged in a place where people feel good about themselves just for reading the lovely, fluffy articles.

But let's get this clear - NG is not an environmental journal, it is the scientist's equivalent of pulp fiction for the serious reader. If you want to read good stuff that really tells you what you need to know then there are infinitely better journals, like New Scientist, Nature and Science, and plenty of good blogs around too, which use no paper at all.

Keith Farnish
www.theearthblog.org
(an advertising free zone)

Keith Farnish www.theearthblog.org

by farnishk at 3:34 AM on 19 Jul 2007

print

I've considered unsubscribing, but the problem is I like Nat Geo, and they do run some very interesting pieces, things like the Greenland ice sheets piece mentioned:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0706/feature2/

I get the print edition, so far, because there's a limit to the number of words I will read on a screen. Geo articles are long, and I usually don't finish them in one sitting.

Subscribers have advocated for them to walk their talk and use post consumer recycled paper, but the decision still seems to come down on the side of glossy photo reproduction. Other magazines have beefed up their green cred in recent years, but the circulation of Nat Geo is so huge, it could really make a difference.

The dvd produced by Shell mentioned really is something else. They're distributing it as an insert for Wired magazine subscribers, too.

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

by Erik Hoffner at 6:17 AM on 19 Jul 2007
[ Parent ]

quite a jump

Yes, Keith, I entirely agree that the text of NG is cloyingly sweet and irenic, as though the editorial policy were to stay as far from anything like critical commentary as possible, and to keep everybody ever hoping for the best.

And of course the distinguished journals that you mention are excellent.

But I wonder what you think of popular journals which are not quite on the level of Science and Nature, but still far more serious than NG, such as: Natural History, Discover, Scientific American.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 6:35 AM on 19 Jul 2007

an update

Guess that the producers of Earthbeat Radio read Gristmill, because a producer there contacted me to learn more about this DVD - unsurprisingly, they learned about it here and had to ask me for more details because the relevant people at National Geographic are not forthcoming about whether they even sent this DVD with every issue of the magazine, let alone when that might've happened. And they declined to appear on the show to discuss this and other related questions.

Listen to Ross Gelbspan and John Stauber joining Mike Tidwell for a meaty discussion of Nat Geo's habit of editorializing for progress on the climate change front while at the same time accepting such massive ads from the fossil fuel industry, from this week's show:

http://www.earthbeatradio.org/2007/08/

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

by Erik Hoffner at 8:28 AM on 22 Aug 2007

Grist accepts ads

from the same people. The ads might get some people to use their gas, but not more gas. In an attempt to steal business from one another, the oil companies are funding the likes of Grist and National Geographic. Looks like a good deal to me, but I'm not all that bright.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:13 AM on 22 Aug 2007

re: Grist accepts ads

Indeed. The point about advertising was Earthbeat's, not mine.

My bone to pick is with how much oil it took to make a million DVDs that are going to be in the trash shortly.

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

by Erik Hoffner at 12:06 PM on 22 Aug 2007
[ Parent ]

ADVERTISING POLICY

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