Special WaPo Environmental Section Gives Greens Free Advertising

In honor of Earth Day 2010, the Washington Post dedicated eight tree-killing pages to a special advertising supplement titled "Environmental Leadership." (Unavailable online).

Although it was woefully short on actual ads, the advertising supplement featured thirteen columns that sponsored, championed, and moralized the environmental catastrophe sure to result if Americans - and sometimes others - don't dramatically overhaul the economy and lifestyles. It predictably featured loud calls for more and more government while consciously downplaying the costs to the American economy.

Sources for the special "Environmental Leadership" supplement include:

• Sources for the special "Environmental Leadership" supplement include:
• New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg urging Congress to adopt the Green Taxis Act requiring all taxi owners to buy hybrids when retiring old vehicles.
• Greensburg, Kansas Mayor Bob Dixson recommending every city emulate Greensburg's environmental standards for buildings.
• Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency showing environmentalism and economic growth aren't mutually exclusive
• David Saperstein, director of the left wing Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism on morality and evironmentalism.
• Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment arguing that green technology will improve the military's effectiveness (Environmentalism as a national security issue.)
• Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Church pontificating that environmentalism and morals are mutually inclusive.
• Bill Scanlon, writer for National Renewable Energy Laboratory calling for increased funding of wind energy.
• Joan Ogden, co-director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways Program at University of California, Davis saying government aid is needed for zero-emission vehicles.
• Marchant Wentworth from the left wing Union of Concerned Scientists
• Rick Fedrizzi, CEO of U.S. Green Building Council on trapping carbon-emission from coal plants
• Joan Fitzgerald, Director, Law, Policy and Society Program at Northeastern University urging one and all to move beyond talk of market forces and embrace the true nature of "environmental reform and economic stimulus" - "our friends, families and neighbors"

Jon Entine, a Visiting Fellow at the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute, was also included - promoting smarter corporate environmentalism.

And Richard A. Meserve, president at Carnegie Institution for Science argued that nuclear energy must be included in energy strategies going forward.

The Post, which can't be accused of restraint in pushing its political agenda, must have been disappointed in the roughly three pages of ads in its eight-page ad supplement. But it isn't really surprising when it's offering solutions to a non-existing problem where debate really is over.