Environmentalists Push, but Home Depot Refuses to Drop Ads on Fox News on Home Services

Jan

Environmentalists Push, but Home Depot Refuses to Drop Ads on Fox News

posted by admin in Home Depot

Activists are urging Home Depot, which recently unveiled an environmentally conscious marketing program, to withdraw advertising from Fox News, whose hosts and commentators dismiss global warming as liberal hysteria. But Home Depot is unswayed, and the environmentalists appear to be doing something they generally discourage: wasting energy.

A short video by Robert Greenwald, Fox Attacks: The Environment,has been viewed more than 380,000 times since it was posted on YouTube on July 9. Like his feature-length Outfoxed: Rupert Murdochs War on Journalism,the video highlights Fox News clips, in this case experts claiming that global warming caused by pollution is, among other things, a hoax.

In April, Home Depot introduced an Eco Options label for thousands of products that it deemed environmentally friendly.

You cant say were green and give money to an organization that day after day, week after week and month after month says that global warming is something that is made up by a few kooky scientists, Mr. Greenwald said.

Its not our place to judge Fox Newss position or any other media outlets position on global warning,responded Ron Jarvis, vice president for environmental innovation at the retailer, based in Atlanta. Nor will we try to influence that position with our advertising dollars. Were advertisers, not censors.

Mr. Jarvis said that he recently began receiving as many e-mail messages and calls urging Home Depot to continue advertising on Fox News as those from environmentalists.

Vaughan Turekian, chief international officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the journal Science, said the truth about global warming is clear.

The vast majority of very, very capable scientists who have studied this issue for a long time have weighed in to say not only are the data showing that global temperatures are rising, but also that the linkage is clear between greenhouse gases and the rise in global temperature,Mr. Turekian said.

Brian Lewis, a spokesman for Fox News, did not return a message seeking comment.

But Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of the News Corporation, which owns Fox News (and is making a bid for Dow Jones %26 Company, owner of The Wall Street Journal), is warming up to climate change. In a May 8 speech that Mr. Murdoch delivered via satellite to company employees worldwide, he unveiled a number of initiatives to reduce his businesses impact.

Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats, said Mr. Murdoch, who said that he recently purchased a hybrid vehicle. There will always be journalists, including some of our own, who are skeptical, which is natural and healthy. But the debate is shifting from whether climate change is really happening to how to solve it.

Home Depot, meanwhile, has not heard the last of Fox Newss detractors. Kristina Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club, said that beginning tomorrow activists from groups like MoveOn.org would begin delivering copies of a petition with more than 40,000 signatures to Home Depot stores across the nation.

Mr. Greenwalds company, Brave New Films, also recently posted a new video to YouTube, Fox Attacks: Bloggers, which chronicles the cable networks animus toward liberal bloggers and urges viewers to call and complain to advertisers.