Activists claim responsibility for viral sensation, corporate makeover.
Greenpeace, the Yes Lab, and members of the Occupy movement are claiming responsibility for a set of actions that have focused intense attention on Shell's Arctic drilling program.
"This experience shows that a few energized people can compete with the billions that Shell spends on advertising and lobbying," said James Turner from Greenpeace, who posed as an advertising executive at the event. "As people find out how this oil company is exploiting global warming to cause yet more global warming, thus endangering everyone, they won't allow it, no matter how many billions Shell has in its war chest."
The centerpiece of the action was a lavish party in the Space Needle, in which a model of an Arctic-bound oil rig "accidentally" spewed liquid in the face of the rig designer's "widow"—actually 84-year-old Occupy activist Dorli Rainey, well-known for having been brutally pepper-sprayed in the face by Seattle Police during Occupy protests last fall.
A one-minute video of that "malfunction," shot by Occupy "infiltrator" Logan Price, quickly reached the top spot on Reddit and the #2 spot on Youtube, with a half-million views in less than 24 hours.
"We know that climate change is putting the entire planet at risk," said Rainey. "It's our duty to stop companies like Shell from using fossil fuels as a lethal weapon—even if it means being sprayed again and again in the face."
As Shell denied, with disappointing blandness, having had anything to do with the party or the "malfunction," the Yes Lab sent out a press release on Shell's behalf, threatening anyone who reposted the video and attacking also the activists' brand-new ArcticReady.com website, which includes a social media ad generator and a dangerously addictive children's video game called Angry Bergs. The fake Shell release generated additional media coverage.
Earlier this year, Shell obtained a legal injunction stopping any Greenpeace activist from coming within 1km of any Shell vessel. To thank the company, Greenpeace teamed up with the Yes Lab to plan a promotional advertising campaign for Shell's Arctic drilling efforts, which Shell prefers to keep quiet. Besides the ill-fated ceremony and the website, the campaign includes a number of other elements that will shadow Shell's summer Arctic destruction campaign.
The device which sprayed Rainey's face was a model of Shell's drill rig, the Kulluk, which is set to soon depart Seattle for the Arctic. The Kulluk was built-in 1983 by Mitsui, the same company that, two decades later, built the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon. Earlier this year, Mitsui paid out $90 million to the U.S. for its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
"What Shell is preparing to do in the Arctic is the height of obscenity," said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Lab. "We've got to do everything we possibly can to draw attention to this unfolding disaster, and more importantly we've got to stop it."
"The melting Arctic is becoming a defining environmental issue of our era, and this campaign is just a taste of what's to come," said Turner.
(Note: As of this writing, some major news sources are still posting information from the fake Shell press release. The Yes Lab's intention is not to allow misinformation to linger.)
Contact:
James Turner, Greenpeace, james.turner@greenpeace.org, 415-812-1142
The Yes Lab, info@yeslab.org
Follow The Yes Men on Twitter: www.twitter.com/theyesmen
Tragically, automobile manufacturers already have had designs for electric-powered automobiles sitting shelved and collecting dust for decades. Why were these plans shelved?
(And why did a significant portion of my clothing and bedding have to be permanently damaged by a petroleum-based "laundry detergent" that congealed a stinking brown goop on my laundry?)--and damages anything else inanimate it touches! Let alone the damage to my person through inhalant, ingestive, and dermal adsorption!
Get a clue, people, this stuff and its derivatives are very toxic! Think of the poor creatures that died lo, these many eons ago—over an estimated 38,000 years--in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA!
I have concluded that mankind is truly "suicidal," let alone, "homicidal."
Godiva
The "Quest" for more fossil fuels is a losing proposition--even Thomas Edison said so when he launched his inventions powered by electricity! Nor are fossil fuels a “renewable resource” considering the millions of years it takes to re-generate!
Arctic drilling, offshore drilling--even land-based drilling--for fossil fuels is undermining "terra firma"--literally. The geologic instability of the continued pursuit of fossil fuels, let alone the other concurrent devastations created by these fuels and their by-products, cannot be overemphasized. (Think Earthquakes, Volcanoes—including from the Ocean Floor, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Tsunamis, Sinking Land Masses, and so forth.)
Let us remember the words of Thomas Edison: "We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy -- sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that." ~Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)
Most importantly, we must recognize that harnessing solar power via satellite from the sun and transmitting this same power to earth is now feasible--both technologically and financially (just ask NASA)! The USA and other "rocket scientists" have been tracking the feasibility of harnessing the sun's power for a very long time. So did Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison (and likely Leonardo da Vinci, as well as, Michelangelo).
Continued Part Two