Gnome’s own Andrew brought my attention to this fascinating piece reporting on a forthcoming study which suggests that the presence of salads and other healthy options on fast-food menus actually leads customers to make less healthy choices.

The name of the column is ‘Drilling Down’, and I wonder if that might be one piece of irritating management-speak destined to become less voguish in the aftermath of the oil spill.  What is certain is that the spill’s consequences will be profound both environmentally and politically.  President Obama today said that ‘In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come,’ which seems an odd way of putting it – but then perhaps he was keen to divert Bush-era-analogies away from Katrina territory.

BP’s flowery logo and its slogan of ‘Beyond Petroleum’ could pretty well be summed up as the oil industry’s equivalent of putting salad on the menu, given that alternative energy accounts for a minute fraction of BP’s $80 billion spend over the last five years.  James Cameron’s Avatar was panned for its pantomime-villain portrayal of the Resources Development Agency and its drilling for ‘unobtainium’ - and with good reason.  The ‘who us?’ hypocrisy of real-life Big Oil is worse for everyone’s health.

- posted by Edward Randell