Retailer (Wal-Mart) to view movie by Gore

[sabra]

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/160205/

Retailer to view movie by Gore


Former Vice President Al Gore will screen his global warming documentary at Wal-Mart’s Bentonville headquarters Wednesday, one of several unexpected audiences finding common ground with the loser of a divisive presidential race.

Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogelman said Gore will show his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, give a speech and answer audience questions.

Gore spokesman Kalee Kreider said Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott invited Gore a month ago to speak at Wednesday’s quarterly gathering of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ’s environmental group.

The Wal-Mart group was founded after an October speech Scott gave to workers. He promised Wal-Mart would invest at least $ 500 million annually to achieve three environmental goals: zero waste, 100 percent renewable energy and ecofriendly products.

[Vidar]

1. I will accept any ally against Bush. However,despite this very good PR

move, WalMart is still evil. It is possible that there are some environmentalists in the WalMart hierarchy. Pollution is not WM's major claim to infamy. Their specialties are decimating small-town businesses, screwing their work force, union-busting, slave labor among their suppliers, & monopolistic excess.

[LiberalEsto]

3. I'm sure they'll trot out a new line of products

that are supposedly green and sustainable, but made by slave labor in China.

[Vidar]

10. There you go!

[warrens]

9. They'll support environmentalism, if they can make a buck at it

They actually opened their first green store in Cali. back in the early 90s. It had solar panels on the roof, natural skylights that stored up energy and acted as lights after the sun went down, flooring at the entrances made from recycled tires, and a lot more. Some of it they rolled out, most of it was too expensive.

They're not totally evil. For instance, compared to other businesses, their top executives are woefully underpaid. But then again, so are most of their employees.

On the whole, though, when they decide to do the right thing, like allow local charities to use their parking lots for fundraising, they do a good job. Most of their "good" stuff, though, such as "Made in the USA," is just a marketing con.

[onehandle]

2. They have enough money to pretend to care about anything.

When they stop importing from China, let me know.

[meganmonkey]

4. Corporate Personhood Is Now Official!

A behemoth destructive corporation now has the ability to watch a movie!!! :puke:

(sorry, I couldn't even get past the headline)

[RCinBrooklyn]

5. Will Wal-Mart damage Gore's credibility or will Gore help theirs?

[Javaman]

6. This has absolutely nothing to do with being environmentally friendly...

china-mart imports everything they sell from china. Their shipping costs cost a fortune. But more so, their electric bill to run their stores are going to kill them in the long run.

So again, here we are with yet another win win situation for big box retail corp giants.

They help the planet by converting their stores by using alt energy, so they can cut down on their overhead, but at the same time they will do the big marketing push saying that they are environmentally conscious.

Fine. Dandy.

Then again, their consumer shopping base (which tends to be to wards the lower end of the economic scale), who are already stretching their budgets thin with the rising cost of gas and heating oil, may not be able to drive, let alone shop at china-mart much longer.

If the price of china-marts items rise due to increase in cost to manufacture(many many plastic items) and ship them (overseas), then the cost will be passed along to the consumer to cover their margin. However, do to the size of their enormous stores, china-marts energy cost may still rise, regardless if they are green power or not, and cut into their overhead.

There are some wild times ahead of us.

It will be interesting also to see, how the many underpaid and under insured employees of china-mart fair. They will still have to drive to work, unless china-mart starts promoting public transportation directly to their stores.

Now that would be something.

As the price of oil/gas starts it's steep rise, it will be very interesting to watch the various big box corporations jockey to keep their costs down but at the same time keep up the appearances as if everything is just peachy.

[hippiechick]

7. Not to mention the tax credits for going 'alt energy' ...

Greedy bastards. That's the only reason they're entertaining the possibility, I'm sure.

[Sherman A1]

11. Agreed

It's about the bottom line, although picking up some points for their tarnished image is a side benefit if it can be accomplished.

[samsingh]

8. i hope Gore gets paid