by Jess Zimmerman in a Grist cross-post

Enough people thought this was a good idea that the ad made it into print. How did this ad meeting go? “We need to convince the youth to buy giant boat-cars.” “Okay, tell them bikes will cockblock them.” “Perfect, let’s call it a day.” Nice work, Don Draper.

GM has clearly been getting a lot of blowback for this ad, which presents biking as an embarrassment so profound you’ll want to hide your face from the sight of pretty girls. They’ve been falling over themselves to apologize on their Twitter feed. It’s tough for them! Reality sucks, guys.

UPDATE:  David in the comments directs us to the great response ad by Giant Bicycles:

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General Electric Co may lease costly vehicle batteries to electric-car buyers, joining other companies looking to get more people to buy alternative-energy automobiles.

The largest U.S. conglomerate is just at the “thinking stage” of such a move, said Mark Little, head of GE’s research and development efforts, on Friday at an event at Nissan Motor Co’s (7201.T) research center near Detroit….

A battery leasing program is a venture that could allow GE to show off its range of businesses, from its industrial core which could be influential in manufacturing the batteries, to its GE Capital finance arm which could support the leasing.

This could be a crucial strategy for keeping down the first cost of electric cars.  Cost is one of the biggest barriers to entry for any alternative fuel vehicle, but especially electrics, since batteries can add considerable cost upfront and take many years to pay for themselves.

Indeed, batteries continue to come down in price, and  the slow global economy continues to keep oil prices down.  In a decade, EVs  will be considerably more cost-effective, but  the key is to jumpstart the market now so you can start getting economies of scale and heading down the learning curve

A key reason this strategy may be viable is that there is likely to be a large aftermarket for these batteries.

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GM cleanup of the Bedford Superfund site.

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation’s largest toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. On Tuesday, Obama “announced his intent to nominate” Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, “America’s #1 Superfund Polluter“:

Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997, General Electric has been a leader in the effort to roll back the Superfund law and stave off any requirements for full cleanup and restoration of sites they helped create.

This February, General Electric lost an eight-year battle to “prove that parts of the Superfund law are unconstitutional.” One of the 600-person DOJ environmental division’s “primary responsibilities is to enforce federal civil and criminal environmental laws such as” the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno’s name is found in the Westlaw database as an attorney defending General Motors in another Superfund case, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana:

Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey’s Branch and the Pleasant Run Creek watershed.

Although General Motors entered into an agreement in 2001 with the EPA to clean up the site, a number of local residents whose land has been contaminated by polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have sued for damages in Allgood v. GM (now Barlow v. GM), in a contentious and caustic dispute over cleanup, monitoring, and lost property values.

During the Clinton administration, Moreno was involved in another controversial case, unsuccessfully defending the Secretary of Commerce’s decision to weaken the dolphin-safe tuna standard. In Brower v. Daley, Earth Island Institute, The Humane Society of the United States, and other individuals and organizations brought suit against the United States government for actions that were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law,” winning their case in 2000.

Editor’s note: The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson is attending the Los Angeles Auto Show this week. Here is his first dispatch.

In an interview earlier today, Britta Gross, General Motors’ manager of Hydrogen and Electrical Infrastructure Development talks about working with electric utilities to prepare for the widescale deployment of the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt. As she and the other managers of the Volt project discuss the next-generation vehicle they plan to put into production in 2010, GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner flew down to Washington, D.C. to plead for a bailout for his teetering company.

Watch it:

The mood at the auto show is subdued and uncertain, with mixed messages of machismo, affordability, and environmental responsibility. How the industry handles the great challenges of today will determine its future. As Gross said, “These are tough times for automakers, but a very exciting time.”

General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz, on the 100th anniversary of GM’s founding, appeared on Stephen Colbert’s show last night, and embarrassed his company. Lutz, unfortunately for this aging industrial giant, is a Luddite, supporting the most extreme crackpot denials of the science of climate change and attacking the Volt — GM’s next-generation hybrid automobile that can run entirely on electricity for trips of 40 miles or less — as a weak, unattractive car. His extremism was barely matched by Colbert’s parodic statements:

Colbert: Why not just call this the Chevy Gore? You don’t believe global warming is real, you’ve said so.

Lutz: I accept that the planet is heated, but I, like many noted scientists, I don’t believe in the CO2 theory.

Colbert: Exactly! I just think that people are leaving their toaster ovens open. [Or] it’s just sun-spot activity.

Lutz: In the opinion of about 32,000 of the world’s leading scientists, yes.

Watch it:

Lutz’s “32,000 of the world’s leading scientists” nonsense is taken from press releases by the right-wing industry-funded Heartland Institute, amplified by right-wing blogs and radio shows. This is a zombie lie, which was begun in 1998 by the right-wing industry-funded Oregon Institute. The National Academy of Sciences, whose name was misleadingly used, issued this warning on April 20, 1998:

The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science.

One might think Lutz was merely joking along, but this February, Lutz called global warming “a total crock of shit.” General Motors deserves better leadership, particularly when its economic future depends on escaping the suicidal oil-based economy that has driven the company to the brink. As Max Gladwell writes:

The irony is that Lutz and his ilk are buying this Big Oil propaganda. Meanwhile, his company’s cozy relationship with Big Oil has lead them to the verge of bankruptcy, unless American taxpayers come through with a bailout. The supreme irony is that the bailout is to help GM meet efficiency standards that it needs to achieve anyway to stay competitive with foreign automakers. When will they learn?

UPDATE: The Seminal‘s Josh Nelson notes, “On their website, GM claims to be concerned about the environment. They even specifically address their greenhouse gas emissions:”

There is no question that our products and manufacturing facilities have an impact on the environment. Not only do internal combustion engines produce emissions and greenhouse gases, but in the process of building millions of vehicles per year, our manufacturing facilities emit CO2 and greenhouse gases as well. The good news is that GM is hard at work trying to reduce our impact on the environment.