Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Annals of advertising: "Carbon free" sugar?
How on earth can sugar be "carbon free"? The damned stuff is made of carbon! Could there be more powerful, profit-motivated evidence that there's good money to be parted from Al Gore's core audience? And if it is not deceptive, fraudulent, and wrong to sell "carbon free" sugar -- crack open your chemistry books, people -- what would be wrong with selling "carbon free" gasoline?
5 Comments:
By 
Brian, at
Tue May 05, 10:47:00 AM:
As the link shows, carbon-free is meant to indicate a carbon-neutral footprint. While it's awkward terminology, it doesn't mean the people who seek to reduce their carbon footprint are foolish.
On the other hand, when the Watts Up website interprets the term literally....
By Escort81, at
Tue May 05, 12:18:00 PM:
Well, sure, Brian, but it's the same as when Patagonia (the makers of outdoor wear) uses environmentalism as part of its brand identity, yet most of the company's products are made with petroleum by-products. Patagonia's facilities are green and the organization's charity is laudable, but its warehouse still ships through the same energy-inefficient retail distribution system as the competition. Finally, in the last few years, the company has even admitted that essentially, "we suck, and have to do better" when it comes to extracting resources from the planet and polluting, which had the remarkable effect of making customers happier. Consumers in that niche evidently want to be confessed to and observe self-flagellation.
But I happen to like many of the products anyway, and they are actually reasonably priced when they go on sale.
By 
, at
Tue May 05, 12:36:00 PM:
Well, I can top that!
My company actually SELLS carbon and (activated carbon) and purports to be GREEN because we try to promote sources of such material that are GROWN (wood and coconut shell) rather than mined (that icky coal, bleah!).
There's one born every minute, or so I'm told.
-David
By silvermine, at
Wed May 06, 12:05:00 AM:
What next? "Organic salt"? (The whole organic thing makes *no* sense if you're a chemist...)
By Foxfier, at
Wed May 06, 01:14:00 AM:
I giggle over the "100% natural" salt you'll sometimes find, too.
The "100% natural sea salt" makes my stomach do a flop, though.
Honestly, I don't mind organic labeling. I treat it the same way I treat "made in china" labels-- for similar reasons. (Organic orchards, for example, use a LOT more sprays than normal ones-- the spray just doesn't work very well, and they tend to harbor diseases that spread to their neighbors, who often face lawsuits for using the same dang spray they've been using for decades. The stuff you find out in a valley that's half yuppie and half family businesses.)
