Summary
The Sierra Club has recently agreed to promote Ford's new gas-electric hybrid SUV, the Mercury Mariner Hybrid, and educate customers about gas-electric hybrids.
Original source:
http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,68270,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
Details
One of the biggest environmental activist groups in the United States, the Sierra Club, has stopped bashing Ford and taken the unlikely step of helping to promote an SUV.
The Sierra Club has agreed to promote Ford's new gas-electric hybrid SUV, the 3,787-pound Mercury Mariner Hybrid, to its 300,000 members and will work with the company to educate consumers about gas-electric hybrids.
"It ain't every day that we say something nice about Ford -- in fact it ain't every decade," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global-warming program.
Becker said after years of criticizing Ford for not producing any hybrid vehicles, "we felt it necessary to recognize what they had done."
The $30,000 Mariner went on sale this month and is rated by the Environmental Protection Agency at 33 miles per gallon in the city and 29 on the highway -- about one-third more fuel efficient than the gasoline-powered Mariner.
He said Ford did not pay the Sierra Club for its marketing efforts.
In November 2003, the Sierra Club staged rallies outside Ford dealerships and issued a statement claiming "Ford's vehicles release more global-warming pollution worldwide than the entire country of Mexico."
Jennifer Krill, zero-emissions campaign director for the Rainforest Action Network, said selling a few thousand hybrid vehicles amounts to "baby steps when (Ford) should be taking giant leaps" in addressing fuel economy.
Krill said Ford's fleet of vehicles has the worst fuel efficiency of any major automaker and that projected sales of the Mariner Hybrid will amount to "less than six one-hundredths of 1 percent" of the company's total vehicle sales.
Lincoln Mercury public affairs manager Sara Tatchio said partnering with the Sierra Club gives the company access to people likely to buy hybrids.
About the author: Mike Adams is an award-winning journalist and holistic nutritionist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, and he has created several downloadable courses on survival and preparedness, including his widely-downloaded course on personal safety and self-defense. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams created TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural living video sharing site featuring thousands of user videos on foods, fitness, green living and more. He's also the founder and CEO of a well known email mail merge software developer whose software, 'Email Marketing Director,' currently runs the NaturalNews email subscriptions. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and pursues hobbies such as martial arts, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. Known as the 'Health Ranger,' Adams' personal health statistics and mission statements are located at www.HealthRanger.org
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Email this article to a friend
Share
this article on: 
