Greenwashing is universal, at least at NBC.

Last year, I pointed out the uber-lameness of NBC’s “Green is Universal” week (see “NBC’s Vast Green Wasteland or Lipstick on a Pig“). This year’s was worse. The few NBC primetime shows I watch don’t even seem to bother anymore — if any readers actually saw any green programming outside of the news division, let me know.

But the real farce for NBC is that in the middle of their greenwashing exercise they fired the Weather Channel’s Environmental Unit! You cannot make this stuff up.

OK, in theory, if you were a writer for an NBC show, you could make this stuff up and put it on in the middle of Green Week, but it’d have to be on a ridiculous sitcom that derisively mocks the network, like 30 Rock. Here’s the story:

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Going to the Los Angeles Auto Show, I felt something like I was entering an alien world, a planet where the native inhabitants are automobiles and all the humans just interlopers. The centrality of the automobile to Los Angeles is no secret, but only when you spend an hour journeying from the airport through the congested ribbons of the freeway system, the red streams of taillights pushing past the white streams of headlights in every direction you look, does it become a visceral truth. Even downtown, walking the sidewalks seems an odd pursuit. Every block is parking lots and parking garages. The dry, summery air carries the dusty odor of exhaust.

Inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, the press preview days of the Auto Show are intended to present the auto industry as it wishes to be seen. Executives read from teleprompters to unveil the Exciting New Car from under a silken shroud to the strange crush of industry officials, press, autobloggers, and PR reps that comprise the crowd. As I walk through the sparse, gleaming field of cars from one great unveil to the next, workers quietly buff every surface with static-resistant dust mops and photographers snap shots of dashboard layouts. It is surreal.

So far as I — no gearhead or racing fanatic or auto show habitué — could tell, the industry right now doesn’t know who it wants to be. Brash, adolescent machismo, from the Ferrari girls to the Tony Hawk Jeep Commander, is juxtaposed uncomfortably with so-earnest-it’s-painful celebrations of efficiency and eco-friendliness. Green autobloggers, like Gas 2.0, AutoblogGreen, and HybridCarBlog, had enough material for dozens of posts.

Automotive environmentalism, clockwise from top left: the “Unsurpassed Fuel Economy” of the F-150, “Drive @ earth” with Mitsubishi, Toyota’s “Regenerate Your Thinking” and “Green Technology Quiz” displays, Ford’s “EcoBoost” display.

Only the bespoke high-end sports car manufacturers like Spyker — who turn out about one hundred handmade $250,000 cars that look vaguely like 1950s era jetplanes each year for billionaire car collectors — and the self-deprecatingly geeky Smart Car salespeople seemed to be having genuine fun. But I just may not be able to read the vibe. For example, I don’t really know how I’m supposed to respond to the introduction of a more efficient diesel midsize sedan or a hybrid midsize sedan or a fuel-cell midsize sedan.

That said, the somber circumstances of this year’s show were apparent and unavoidable, with global auto sales down about 20 percent, and GM, Ford, and Chrysler on the brink of collapse. Trinkets, goodies, and glitz were cut way back. The Ford executives were mobbed by the press with questions about the bailout hearings and the company’s future. As a Honda executive acknowledged before unveiling a new high fuel-economy midsize sedan, “None of us is immune.”

From the EPA press office:

This holiday season you can give a gift that is green in more ways than one. With Energy Star labeled products, you are helping someone save money on their energy bill and protect the environment by fighting climate change.

In fact, the typical homeowner can save more than 30 percent, or about $700 on annual energy bills with Energy Star labeled products. EPA has identified a few products to keep your eye out for as you start holiday shopping:

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