We hate to say “I told you so,” but....

Marc Gunther on ClimateBiz discussed Wal-Mart on his blog yesterday, and points out something we’ve been trying to get across as well. Even as its greenhouse gas emissions have begun to fall, the company’s overall carbon footprint has continued to rise.

As Gwen Ruta of the Environmental Defense Fund, a Wal-Mart partner, writes in her frank assessment of the company’s 2009 sustainability report, the problem is that all the good things that Wal-Mart is doing—increasing its use of renewable energy, driving efficiency in individual stores, improving its fleet operations and pushing up its recycling rate—are offset by the fact that the company is adding more stores and selling more stuff.

In late 2007 we released our own environmental report, in which we brought up the following:

Wal-Mart’s new stores will use more energy than its energy-saving measures will save. Its fleet of trucks, massive overseas shipping to import its goods, and the increasing vehicle miles traveled by its consumers all contribute heavily to CO2 emissions and the number of ozone-causing particulates released into the air. Its huge stores and even larger parking lots contribute to the degradation of our water supply, affecting our drinking water and the viability of aquatic life.

Wal-Mart’s response has been that by increasing its market share, it can replace less efficient competitors and thereby reduce emissions in the retail sector as a whole, even as it continues to expand. That might ultimately be true in the far, far distant future, especially if one day every store is a Wal-Mart. But in the interim, Wal-Mart’s total carbon emissions continue to outpace its efficiency gains. And as Gunther so eloquently adds:

If the Earth’s atmosphere could speak, it would tell us that it doesn’t care about efficiency or renewables or recyling—or market share.

Wal-Mart’s Big Problem: Climate Change [ClimateBiz]

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The way they fight them tooth and nail, you’d think Wal-Mart believes its eventual downfall could come at the hands of unions. But could there be another force at work, something evil that lives deep within the bowels of our planet, a nightmare that keeps Wal-Mart up at night clutching its pillows and sweating in its cheap Sam’s Club bed?

Expensive oil?

Admit it...you thought I was going the science fiction route. A vicious Balrog from Lord of the Rings that lives beneath the Earth’s crust and breathes fire. I guess you could make the leap to oil - it too has a black heart and is flammable, after all. And in his new book $20 Per Gallon, Christopher Steiner imagines an everyday world in which the price of gasoline (and oil) continues to rise (and rise...and rise some more), and the immediate impact that would have on our lives. The Oregonian has a sample:

$6/gallon: We will finally kill the SUV, allowing Los Angeles to emerge from smog and saving 15,600 lives a year from deadly auto crashes, since people will be driving far less. At the same time, revenues from gas taxes will plunge, causing roads and bridges to crumble, leading to higher tolls.
$14: “Wal-Mart killed by high cost of global transport. Mom-and-pop retailers return to Main Street. U.S. Factories revive.” The bad? “With driving cut in half and asphalt costs soaring, even toll roads shut down.”
$20: Mass biking and transit, including the nationwide high-speed rail network that will supposedly happen at $18 a gallon. Plus, 90 percent of Americans will live in cities. “The bad,” according to Steiner’s prediction is nuclear power will power everything, including cargo ships and polyester will be “too expensive for clothes.”

Steiner notes that as oil and gas prices rise, business models like Wal-Mart’s (heavy on cheap overseas imports, reliant on a driving/mobile consumer) will become progressively more unsustainable. Could we see companies like Wal-Mart lobbying against raising the Federal gas tax or a tax on miles driven? Could future rises in costs be behind Wal-Mart’s attempts to move into more urban areas? Check out an interview with Steiner on Michigan NPR after the jump, and then share your thoughts.

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