Wachovia Touts ‘Earth Hour,’ Celebrates ‘Human Achievement Hour’ Instead
In weeks leading up to “Earth Hour” on March 27, my bank, Wachovia (Wells Fargo), was urging customers to “turn off your lights.” My local branch of the bank had been been plugging this event to all members in ATM and in-house displays.
Wachovia (Wells Fargo) ATM Screen for Earth Hour
As a matter of fact, the bank is on the record supporting climate change action (according to their Environmental Initiative statements online.)
To test the company’s actual commitment to “Earth Hour” and climate action, I visited my local Wachovia branch office during the critical hour — March 27 at 8:30pm ET.
I discovered that they were hiding under their own campaign!
During Earth Hour
Every light was on — inside and out.
I’m not unhappy that Wachovia refused to participate in Earth Hour, and chose to celebrate Human Achievement Hour instead. But I’m outraged at the hypocrisy of urging members and customers to participate in yet another example of “do as we say and not as we do” philosophy.
Worse, Wachovia claimed on their ATM ad that they “support Earth Hour,” yet, clearly, they are only campaigning on an enviro-slogan. When the time came to turn off the lights themselves, they didn’t. Perhaps there are good reasons why a bank would want to keep its lights on at night — look prosperous and vibrant, deter crime — instead of looking like they’ve been victims of a power failure or, worse, were unable to pay their electric bill.
Maybe the Wachovia folks, just like the rest of us, don’t want to sit in the dark for an hour, thinking of what life would be like without electricity.
Post on Moonbattery that the University of Wisconsin is saving the planet – by switching fonts!:
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2010/03/saving-the-plan.html
Jeremy Kennedy, You are 100% correct. The bank should have turned off all its lights and power. Also, I wonder if any hospitals promoted earth hour because they should turn off their power as well. As you yourself stated banks need to leave on their lights for security reasons. I do not really think you can blame them for that. That is such a easy logical conclusion, why would you write this piece? My only conclusion is that you are purposefully making a dishonest argument. Clearly they do support earth hour if they are constantly promoting and advertising for the even. If their purpose was to help the earth hour get more participants then they probably succeed.
I didn’t even know there was an earth hour. No guilt. No shame. Just plain ignorance.
Brian — So that means I can promote vegan eating while having steak? Cool.
Was that pic taken after normal business hours? No training seminar or business meeting inside?
Then what you’re probably looking at are the lights the janitors need to see by in order to clean the bank in preparation for the next business day.
Even so, the ‘do as we say, not as we do’ tag still applies.
I think we shoud live by torchlight, with the torches fueled by the liposucted fat of celebrity enviroweenies. We should feed the rest of each celebritard to pigs, whose poop will produce methane for the green cars we’ll use to drive to the Outback Steakhouse.
The point, Jeremy, is that they’re being somewhat dishonest in saying “Join Us” when they apparently had no intention of participating themselves, regardless of the reason.
“Join Us” clearly implies “we’re going to do this, why don’t you do it too?” But then they failed to follow through.
It’s really not that hard to understand.
Ah, what a bunch of crap.
All those dumb-asses who turned their lights off for an hour should be forced to spend a year in North Korea.
4. Charlie Martin: If your survival depended on you eating steak, but you still believed, for g-d knows whatever reason, in promoting veganism, then yes that is what I am saying. A bank cannot turn its power off for an hour, they need security. That means lights on and what not. It is like people with the bumper sticker “my other car is a bike.” one can be a strong advocate of biking, but still need a car for certain things, like long distance travel or going to the store. If you try to hold anyone person or corporation to the epitome of a certain idea there will always be a hypocritical moment. To think otherwise would be to hold humanity to an imposable standard. One can strive for perfection, but should not be faulted for not achieving it, it is the attempt that is admirable.
8. Banned by Huffpo: your comment clearly makes no sense. You should thank the people who used less power. If it is during a peak hour that could bring down your cost of energy for that time period. I did it last year and it was increasable interesting to get around by candle light for an hour. I am a big camper/ hunter and not a giant xenophobic person like you so it did not bother me.
Walkoverya is the worst excuse for a company it has been my misfortune to be associated with. If they were the last place to get the last drop of water on planet earth I would have to die of dehydration.
I hope they green themselves right out of business. Permanently.
Oh and we had every available light in the house on. TV’s, computers, oven, Wii, if it took energy we used it. Just doing our little part to celebrate “Earth hour”.
Warren- It was a Saturday,(my birthday BTW) no business the next day.
Brian N- I know people that only have a bike, one guy I know brought home 10 8ft 2x4s tied to the side of his bike. I have brought home several bags of groceries on mine. Today strapped on the back I had a 20lb bag of cat food and a yoga mat on top of that, no problem. The only thing I can’t carry on my bike is my great dane!
Maybe the branches couldn’t switch off the lights due to security, but what about corporate offices? Did they go dark??
“Green” and “Climate Change” are self-congratulatory, phoney, hypocrisy. They’re leftist human self-hatred — hating human progress that saves countless lives and brings better lives to billions — They’re useful idiot-death cults exploited by the world’s ultimately most greedy and power hungry.
Turning lights off symbolizes a return to the helpless vulnerable primitive, and maligns the good, the creative, the brilliant.
I normally don’t use much electricity, and most often have only one or two lights, the fridge, a fan, and radio on.
During “Earth Hour” though, I turned on every single light in the house, including the closets, and every other available electrical appliance, including an outside flood light.
That’s my answer to such a hateful symbolism as “lights out.”
#11 Nancy,
See, Wachovia doesn’t want customers who ride bikes carrying cat food. They want more productive citizens, who won’t cost them to maintain small accounts, but who will instead keep large balances in their checking accounts at 0.1% interest.
“Earth hour” appeals to the deluded folks who believe other people get ahead by sheer luck and pedigree, rather than by getting educated, showing up at work every day on time, saving some of each paycheck, and generally doing what most people do to be financially successful in life.
Then the cosseted politicians who beat the class envy drum get elected with the help of those recipients of taxpayer largesse, and proceed to steal the real workers and savers assets, in order to grow a bigger bureaucracy to steal even more.
Remember the ’70′s, with 70% income tax rates? I do. And they’re coming back, thanks to 0bama encouraging people to covet their neighbor’s goods, and take them without compensation. That used to be called “theft.” But now, it’s called “redistribution.” Doesn’t that sound better? If it does, how about if I ‘redistribute’ your wallet into my pocket?
If “Earth hour” is such a worthy idea, let’s see the Watermelons do an “Earth week,” with no TV, or lights, or microwave, or washer & dryer, or refrigerator, etc. Then folks will clearly see the direction the “Greens” are leading our country. Seewhatimean? One lousy hour a year is zero sacrifice. Isn’t it?
BTW, Happy Birthday.
Jeez, what’s the big deal with this Earth Hour? North Korea has Earth Hour 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Try something new, enviro-nuts.
PS: I turned every light and appliance on in my house just for sh*ts and giggles.
Great idea turning the power off for an hour and then turning everything on all at once at the end of the hour. That power surge is job security for those that maintain the grid. Probably uses more fuel than the hour off saves.
I wouldn’t to use a bank that hires Alfred J. Prufrocks to sit around and dream up useless pop-culture crap like this rather than watch my money.
You’ve got money in there? Get it out. Quick. They’re next to go.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if someone like Al Gore thought up the idea of an “Earth hour”, and you can bet Gore would not be participating at his own house. This is the man who uses more power to heat his pool house than most people use to heat their homes. Hypocrisy is a staple of the left, they are all in favor of sacrificing for the common good – as long as someone else is doing the sacrificing instead of them.
I didn’t even know there was an “Earth hour”, but if I did I would make a point of going around and turning on every light in my house. I am not about to be bullied by a few enviro-whackos or fall for their chicken little schemes.
Interesting … tell you all what – I’ll cruise by a few local banks tonight and take some pictures … I’m curious after all cause I think around here most of their lights are off after hours – motion sensors and other alarm systems are sufficient to alert the police of an attempted break in – but if memory serves in this neck of the woods, the lights go out after hours … so I’ll post the pictorial results tonight and let you know what I find out
This is Jeremy Kennedy, the investigator and author of this story. I wanted to follow-up the report with Wachovia’s response to the accusation of hypocrisy.
After meeting with the branch office manager of the Buford location of where I filmed and photographed the hypocrisy of Wachovia’s promotional “Earth Hour” event, I can report the following, based on my interview-conversation with the Wachovia representative, Amy Brien.
According to Amy Brien, Sr Fin. Ctr Mngr Assistant VP of the Wachovia Mall of Georgia Financial Center (Buford, GA 30519), she nor bank officers were given instructions to alter any energy use for non-essential (landscape, in-house lights) and essential (ATM, parking lot lighting) lighting. Mrs. Brien said that an email announcement from Corporate was received on Thursday Mar. 25th to all officers reminding them of the upcoming event. However, no further instruction, specifics on implementation or further action was given.
After further review, Mrs. Brien discovered that Wachovia Regional Building Management (WRBM) was instructed to turn off non-essential lights to Wachovia facilities.Mrs. Brien confessed that she nor other branch executives have control over building facilities and that authoritative decisions relating to maintenance and electricity were made through the WRBM. Therefore, the branch-level of the financial industry has no authority to alter energy schedules established by the WRBM.
Mrs. Brien also stated that turning off essential lights was a safety risk for customers, some of which have been victims of past-ATM robbery crimes. She stated that it wasn’t practical to power off these lights, regardless of how ‘commited’ Wachovia were to this event.
In summary, Mrs. Brien concluded that as a representative of Wachovia Financial, she can’t explain why information or instruction wasn’t implemented from the top-level down. She also said that the WRBM have “no excuse” for not following Corporate instruction.
Meanwhile, Communications Executive Jay Lawrence responded to my personal call to answer these remaining questions regarding the event.
1) How much was spent on the campaign? Unknown. However, a $50,000 donation was given to Earth Hour.gov
2) Why were Wachovia branch locations exempt? Communication and instruction wasn’t conveyed properly to the local level branch locations. “In simplest terms, they didn’t get the memo.”
3) Will Wachovia give a formal apology to the Customers who they coaxed but failed to lead by example while insulting the environmentalists they defrauded? “We made a big, big mistake and lessons have been learned. You have our attention!”
I appreciate your follow through on your article. This was an excellent investigation. Hopefully due to your efforts next year the company will follow through on its promises.
It’s interesting that in the follow-up, Jeremy Kennedy mentions that Wachovia made $50,000 donation to Earth Hour.gov. A couple of thoughts: 1) I’m less concerned over all this flap about whether Wachovia turned off their lights than I am over the apparent idiocy of them giving $50,000 to an eco-ripoff organization such as Earth Hour. 2) if its a “.gov”, I presume all of us, through our taxes are also supporting this madness. Where in our government does this Earth Hour organization exist and why am I paying for it?
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