CAFE Standard for TV Networks

A few weeks ago I was part of the Green Is Universal. The whole thing seems a little silly to me. I know that NBC is trying to raise the media visibility of being more green to people. They want to show us more ways to save energy and not be wasteful.

The reason I think this is silly is because NBC is going to still run ads for just about anything. Most of the car company ads they ran for Hybrids, but they still ran a Lincoln SUV ad. If NBC going to turn down ads for products because they are not green enough? Are they going to make judgements about their major advertisers? To be honest I am not expecting them to.

What is the standard for a Green television network. There are people who will say that TV networks can never be green. The art of adverting stands against the very idea of being green. Right now they are trying to cash in on being green. If that is the case, we should hold them to some standards.

My idea is that there should be a CAFE standard for television networks and automobile advertising. The CAFE standard is the rules for fleet fuel milage for cars. From the NHTSA website:

What is CAFE?

Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) is the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer’s fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 lbs. or less, manufactured for sale in the United States, for any given model year. Fuel economy is defined as the average mileage traveled by an automobile per gallon of gasoline (or equivalent amount of other fuel) consumed as measured in accordance with the testing and evaluation protocol set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This standard should apply to Networks. There should be a one to one standard. This way the cars with the best MPG will get more ads. I think this would go a log way for what people drive.