Ex-Sierra Club head Adam Werbach hired to "green" Wal-Mart.

First reaction: WTF? Wal-Mart, that anything but sustainable, community-raping, evil den of buy-more-stuff-to-fill-your-empty-heart?

But then, one stark reality:

I was a typical San Franciscan, very disconnected from Middle America, and, I tell you, now I'm turned off when I hear people use the expression 'fly-over states.' I mean, I love my little Bernal Heights neighborhood, I love having Progressive Grounds Coffee right up the street, and all those things. But the thing that was most educational to me is that this isn't the dream everyone has. Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, it is America out there, and right now what they want is to have parking to do their shopping all in one place, to have strawberries for $2 in February. And if the public demands, a retailer will provide. You say you hate Wal-Mart? Well, the American public has chosen this place; they like Wal-Mart a hell of a lot.

Okay, so Werbach would also make a great politician. But it is true: people love Wal-Mart. And no amount of maintaining that they are a hellmouth of evil is going to change that. Hell, even if they had children sacrifice goats to some archaic god at noon in the food court and had terrorists publicly molest the elderly and infirm in the pharmacy y'all just know most people would put their blinders on and continue to buy the Wal's cheap-ass Chinese crap and then complain about lead poisoning and the export of American jobs. That's how we humans work.

So, as much as it pains me to say it, I think Werbach is doing more good than harm by partnering with the devil.

The "greening" of America's biggest retailer -- even if it is selective and I suspect merely to help their bottom line -- cannot be denied as a very good thing. Analyzing and implementing where they can cut down on fuel and electricity would make huge dents in carbon emissions around the globe and possibly cause a ripple effect among their suppliers and distributors. Marketing organic produce in 4,000 megastores increases the demand for this type of farming. And bringing the concept of global warming to the "red states," as it were, is a tasty proposition. With a glass-half-full mentality you could almost say they would be creating demand for things (in this case, good things) people never thought they needed before. And lookee there -- isn't that the Wal-Mart way? Everyone's happy.

This still doesn't mean I advocate shopping at Wal-Mart. Though I can understand the sentiment this might promote, it in no way means if you can't beat 'em join 'em. There are certainly still glaring problems with Wal-Mart, the biggie being their tendency to make money off poverty. This starts with stores that are more often than not opened in economically depressed areas with employees who make the lowest possible wages and are denied affordable healthcare (and are therefore often subsidized by taxpayers), and ends with catering to a customer base largely populated by the poor, the elderly, and the chronically un-or-under employed.

The in-between in this poverty clusterfuck? Exploiting sweatshop and child-labor to fill their stores with low-quality crap. This leads to the other big bad no-no of supporting Wal-Mart -- the horrifying cause and effect of its supply chain. From the loss of domestic jobs to the sweatshops that are a direct result of supply and then demand of toasters or sweatpants or what have you for $4.99, the suffering that exists because of corporate and consumer greed is appalling.

I'm not trying to invalidate all the criticism Wal-Mart gets, but in this crisis we collectively face, being negative is not a winning strategy. The whole system is broken, and we've all got a moral charge to fix it.

We're all hypocrites somehow when it comes to sustainability and the like, so I acknowledge the importance of baby steps, especially with the Big Bad. I remain a Negative Nellie about Wal-Mart's actual motivation and investment in becoming more "green," but I'm on board with seeing what happens.