As an instance of pop culture, consumerism, and food trends the new burger joint in Keizer is an undeniable thing, maybe a big thing. While the paper did not do a big Black Friday package, they did send what looked to be a six person team for saturation coverage on the restaurant opening. Portland media also sent individuals and some teams. (In this the business outsourced much of its marketing and look how much they got for free! And of course, even this note reinforces that in a very small way. There's no bad press in that regard.)
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| Front page today |
Still, while
Greta is Time's Person of the Year, the story here erases all the people in cars waiting at a drive-thru with idling motors, that the restaurant is a shrine to cheap beef, and all the travel and trips the opening induced. It's a kind of carbon pollution bingo, really.
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| A couple days ago |
In addition to the other angles it should be a transportation story and a climate story about our wilful disregard for emissions.
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| Yesterday |
Maybe in absolute terms as a source for carbon pollution the new restaurant isn't actually all that significant for a city or metro area and is a small thing, but as a symbol of our current wilful blindness, it is potent.
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| Today's double-dip of coverage: Interior page today |
If we are going to be serious about climate, we are going to have to examine, even interrogate, our fondness for these things and adopt policy will make more of them more expensive and difficult, and perhaps even ban some elements outright. Treating them as entertainment only just reinforces the
status quo and our coming train wreck.
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| Front page last summer |
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SUV ad today with notes on long burger lines
Also, note the names: "renegade," and "gladiator,"
undercutting efforts for safe driving |
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Between the beef, the driving, and the suburban mall location,
we have a carbon pollution bingo here
(via VTPI, Salem notes added) |
The fact that we silo our coverage and analysis, firmly compartmentalize pop culture from environmental politics and our autoism, hampers clear thinking.
In 2020 we are going to attempt to formulate a Climate Action Plan, and our uncritical regard for autoism is a sign of what we are up against and how thoroughly we need to rethink systems.
Progress Report, December 20th
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| December 20th front page update |
It is striking that the only problems with long car lines are impact to "traffic flow" and the patience of consumers waiting. The idea of waiting in line in car is not itself called into question nor the associated emissions.
Further Report, January 19th, 2020
There are plenty of evidences that we are in a phase of decline and decadence now. Here's a particularly good one.
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| January 19th update |
4 comments:
Waiting 2.5 to 3 hours to get a greasy burger? No, thank you!, nothing is worth that kind of waste of time and energy.
Truth is I never go to fast food restaurants. Not so much because of the environment, but because the food is awful .... and expensive. I could feed a family of 4 at home for what is cost for one single meal at one of these places. And my meal will be healthier and not cause stomach cramps!
In our household we eat beef rarely. Mostly chicken and occasional fish or legumes. We are not vegans by any means, but we do have a meatless day at least once a week...sometimes twice.
Good to know that my habits will also be helping the environment too!
Customers should have been required to park in the Volcanoes stadium parking lot, paying for the privilege, and WALK to the store. That would have shown how much demand there was in the opening weeks.
(Updated with new clip on the lines)
I may back to this later, but the online piece about crowd-sourcing wait-times finally made it to print.
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