Renewable Energy Pin-Up Sexpots: Shrewd or Tasteless?

It’s no secret that advertisers love to sell products with scantily clad women. But does an exploitative ploy used to peddle beer and lingerie belong in an environmental campaign?

That’s the question that’s been debated since the debut of the Renewable Girls calendar, a collection of 12 risqué photos pairing girls in barely-there clothing with solar powered gadgets. The professed aim of the calendar is to “shift the public perception of renewable energy away from left leaning or crunch,” and to, presumably, make it more fun and accessible.

On a surface level, this makes sense. Sex sells, and if there’s anything that needs to be sold to a stubbornly-apprehensive public, it’s renewable energy, the politically-squandered beacon of hope for our environmental and economic future.

But despite the potentially noble intention, the taste level leaves a little something to be desired. A cleavage-baring woman on her hands and knees, surrounded by bananas? An apron-clad housewife with a caught-in-the-act glare? Is this really what it will take for people to wake up to renewables—and what's the cost to women's rights in the process?

There are indications that the campaign may indeed be doing more harm than good. In the comments section of a Huffington Post blog about the calendar, the responses of those who don’t already seem to embrace renewable energy run the gamut from frat boy “wink, wink” zingers (“I feel renewed, just looking at these pictures!”) to flat-out offensive (no example needed). HuffPo itself takes the scheme to its basest roots, by asking people to rank the women on a hotness scale of of 1 to 10—“lukewarm” to “solar flair.”

Then again, maybe I'm simply not the right audience. I think renewable energy is plenty sexy enough on its own. Give your take in the poll above. And now that I’ve gotten your attention, tell Congress to pass a strong renewable energy standard, ASAP.

Photo credit: RenewableGirls.com