'Tell me why I should care about an endangered mouse in Arizona?'

NY Times:

IT was billed the Choice Meeting: a secret two-day conference in Arkansas in 2005 pairing Wal-Mart Stores, a symbol of scorched-earth global capitalism, with some of the nation’s most influential environmentalists. And it began with a zinger.

“Tell me why I should care about an endangered mouse in Arizona?” asked H. Lee Scott Jr., the retail giant’s chief executive, only partly in jest.

At the time, Wal-Mart was the target of a well-orchestrated assault focusing on its labor practices and environmental record. It was also straining to keep its legendary growth on track. Mr. Scott, hungry for ways to protect and transform his company, began to see environmental sustainability as a way to achieve two goals: improve Wal-Mart’s bottom line and its reputation.

So he presented his colleagues with a radical option — the “choice” that gave the meeting its name — encouraging them to adopt a sustainability program to remake the entire company, from the materials used to build stores to the light bulbs stocked on its shelves. Although participants were conflicted, a vote on the initiative was unanimous: Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and biggest buyer of manufactured goods, would go green.

By virtue of its herculean size, Wal-Mart eventually dragged much of corporate America along with it, leading mighty suppliers like General Electric and Procter & Gamble to transform their own business practices.

Under Mr. Scott, who is retiring this month at the age of 59, the company that democratized consumption in the United States — enabling working-class families to buy former luxuries like inexpensive flat-screen televisions, down comforters and porterhouse steaks — has begun to democratize environmental sustainability.

For decades, many consumers felt that going green was a luxury, too, reserved primarily for those with enough money — and time on their hands — to buy groceries at natural food stores and organic clothing from specialty retailers.

Today, the roughly 200 million customers who pass through Wal-Mart’s doors each year buy fluorescent light bulbs that use up to 75 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs, concentrated laundry detergent that uses 50 percent less water and prescription drugs that contain 50 percent less packaging.

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I still don't give a rat ass about an endangered mouse in Arizona. But, I do care about value when I shop and that is why I probably do most of my shopping at Walmart. It is the same reason I am more likely to stop at McDonald's if I need to stop while traveling for some food. I have never stopped at either because of some goo-goo greeny feelings.

I do favor efficiency and some of the innovations at Walmart promote that virtue and if that happens to make the greens glow that is OK. But, I have never bought into their anti Darwinism where the same people that insist on teaching evolution in schools pass laws to try to stop it.

Efficiency is a for more important virtue than conservation. It allows commerce to thrive and business to grow. Too many in the environmental movement are anti energy and anti business. They want to use the fear of global warming to impose their control freak agenda on the world. I would rather be warm than suffer under that.