No, not that… rather, the Chinese are experiencing American-style SUV mania with their low gas prices. Also in this edition:Find out how walk-able your neighborhood is, and People Cube helps offices become sustainable.

Links for this week’s ZapRoot:

China Hummer

Zipcode Village

Walk Score (Also see the “Walk this Way” series at Ecolocalizer)

People Cube

A 45 year old mechanic from Dorset, England, always wanted a Hummer, but not the cost of maintenance and keeping it filled with gas.

So, Andy Saunders took a 1998 Suzuki Wagon, which he called an “old people carrier”, added custom steel panels and other parts to get that special Hummer look.

Now he drives a pint-sized version of the army’s Humvee personal troop transporter at a savings. Instead of 12mpg, he says the “credit crunch Hummer” gets 60mpg.

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Capable of climbing a 407mm vertical wally, operate in up to 610mm of water and traverse a 40% slope, it won’t be available commercially. Sorry boys.

Source

The words ‘green’ and ‘Hummer’ don’t usually occur together, except when compiling a complete list of oxymorons. But earlier today at the Saab/Hummer press conference, GM debuted it’s concept H-X Hummer, calling it the “Green Hummer”. The new model is smaller, lighter, and intended for a younger demographic, with the added capability of running on E85 ethanol. It also has an interesting modular construction that allows you to reconfigure the cab at will. Martin Walsh, General Manager of the brand, told us that the new model could get mileage in the mid-20s (although no hard numbers were available).

Ok, this isn’t exactly the 60 mpg Hummer I’ve mentioned before, but that’s a 10 mpg increase in efficiency over previous models. To be honest, it also looks a lot less like a Hummer, being smaller and sportier-more like a lunar explorer than the H2 (that’s my take). But Mr. Walsh said Hummers will continue to decrease in size as customers demand greater fuel efficiency and continue to voice environmental concerns.

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First, credit where credit’s due: GM is one of the few major public corporations (and the first I’ve seen in the auto industry) to realize that social media, and the blogosphere in particular, doesn’t take kindly to being treated like any old marketing mechanism. On-message spin doesn’t work online because bloggers are people who take pride in peering through the fog, and distilling information for their readers. Conversations on the web are not one-way, and information can’t be controlled in the ways executives are used to. They are learning that the blogosphere is never afraid to call “bullshit” when it sees it, and the possibility of instant feedback ensures that all viewpoints can be heard, immediately.

Okay, I’m being too kind. I’d guess that the vast majority of the company’s top executives still don’t understand exactly why they approved the creation of their social media unit, but at least they know they needed one. They managed to hire people who realize that success in the blogosphere is about having an honest conversation, good or bad, and that admitting mistakes builds trust with consumers. But a disconnect remains. Bob Lutz, GM’s main internal blogger, has advocated for a gas tax to help create consumer demand to force the industry to invest aggressively in breakthrough transportation technologies. That’s great, but if he can’t speak for the company, is it doing any good?

GM’s social media people hope that it will. I honestly got the sense that they really do want to help change the company’s culture from the inside. Obviously, that’s a long road. In this environment, only an honest, respectful dialogue is ever going to overcome the decades of inertia of a behemoth like GM.

Finally, with the advent of our medium, that dialogue is becoming possible in ways it never has been. One thing’s for sure: the louder and more aggressive the environmental community is in calling GM a bunch of fascists who pushed the Hummer on unsuspecting Americans, the less they’re helping their (and our) cause. They only provoke a more defensive reaction from the people at the top of the company. Despite my distaste for Hummer owners, no sane person can fault a company that answers to shareholders for responding to demand in a high-margin niche. A part of me can’t help but think that activists who try to pressure corporations into putting the planet above profit are missing the forest for the trees.

Obviously, something is seriously wrong with a system in which well-meaning people continue to create products that ignore the environmental, resource, and economic crises that lie ahead. But it’s not as if they’re acting irrationally, given the information available to them. We all work in a system that is fundamentally flawed, and if activists want things to get better, they might be better off banding together to address root causes rather than the symptoms. If every person with a “downstream” (i.e. GM- or DuPont-specific) complaint joined a national movement to advocate for public financing of elections, or changing the way corporate rights are considered under the law, we might finally be able to start addressing the fundamental tensions between activists and the business world.

As an activist who runs a business, I can say with confidence that both sides are well-meaning. No one wants a world in which our grandkids look back and scream “What were you thinking?!” So let’s start working together to create a future we can be proud of. None of us can succeed without the rest of us.

Note: GM paid for my airfare and accommodations in connection with my coverage of the event. Finally, in the spirit of honest, open dialogue, I’d like to issue a formal invitation for someone from GM to discuss with an electric vehicle activist the issue of the EV1 electric car, including the “hows” and “whys” of its history. The movie Who Killed the Electric Car? was a great way to start the conversation, but film remains a one-way medium, and I am personally interested to see a real conversation about the issue develop. Email me, and I’ll make sure it gets set up.