In the satire game these days, it’s hard to stay one step ahead of reality.
As the Detroit News cartoonist, I’ve regularly lampooned Washington’s “greening” of the automobile with an eco-NASCAR send-up. This one is from 2011. This one from 2008. This one from 2004. And so on.
Now comes the real news headline, courtesy of the Washington Examiner, that NASCAR is partnering with the EPA to green the sport:
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, NASCAR will encourage fans to buy “sustainable concessions” at races, expand the use of “safer chemical products,” conserve water, reduce waste, promote recycling, push products approved by the EPA that have a small enviro footprint and encourage suppliers to get an “E3 tuneup” aimed at promoting sustainable manufacturing.
This after NASCAR had already buckled to the EPA (and Big Ethanol) on using E15 fuel (apparently, reducing world corn supplies to the needy by diverting corn to politically-connected Big Ethanol is what passes as good corporate citizenship these days). Once the rebel of sports — a distinction that attracted a Live Free or Die, anti-government demographic and the iconic NASCAR Dad — NASCAR’s heavy corporate sponsorship is turning it PC.
“This collaboration is a statement of NASCAR’s commitment to green innovation and our role as a leader in sustainability,” said Mike Lynch, NASCAR managing director of green innovation. NASCAR director of green innovation? We can’t make this stuff up.
Will the satirical poster that accompanies this post be reality come 2015?
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