This is hilarious. I’d like to see this kind of thing used at other pompous gatherings once in a while to spice them up. [Switching to Dennis Hopper voice] Challenge authority, man!
Yes Men Strike Oil: Civil Disobedients Make Modest Flesh-to-Fuel Proposal
“Without oil, at least four billion people would starve. This spiral of trouble would make the oil infrastructure utterly useless” — unless their bodies could be turned into fuel.
That was the satirical message delivered by two corporate ethics activists to the Gas and Oil Exposition 2007 in Calgary, Alberta. The activists, part of political trickster collective the Yes Men, used the Exposition to stage their latest theatre of corporate absurdity, with Exxon/Mobil and the Natural Petroleum Council playing the fools.
The prank, intended as a critique of the fossil fuel industry’s influence on energy policy, caused confusion and consternation on the final day of the Exposition, one of the industry’s largest gatherings.
After noting that current energy policies will likely lead to “huge global calamities” and disrupt oil supplies, Wolff told the audience “that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could “keep fuel flowing” by transforming the billions of people who die into oil,” said a Yes Men press release.
Yes Man Mike Bonnano, posing as an Exxon representative named Florian Osenberg, added that “With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left.”
The impostors led growingly suspicious attendees in lighting Vivoleum candles made, they said, from a former Exxon janitor who died from cleaning a toxic spill. When shown a mock video of the janitor professing his desire to be turned in death into candles, a conference organizer pulled Bonanno and Bichlbaum from the stage.
Techron Green…..
J/P=?
Yeah, thats the reference – – but– soylent green actually makes some sense whereas not too much for Techron Green.
I don’t know why eating cats, dogs and horses is outlawed in the GOUSA. Meat is meat, protein is protein. And the fur is natural.
But, weren’t these guys part of Chaney’s energy advisory group?
The conference organizers called the police and were insisting that they go to Jail. The Calgary Police were going to let them go on their way but then they organizers pushed the issue and the police fined them a few hundred dollars.
I think that the organizers are the ones to blame for not doing their due diligence with checking out their presenters. Once again just because someone has a web site doesn’t make them legit. These guys get invited to conferences all the time based on their web presents.
I live in Calgary and depend on the oil and gas industry for my living, but I applaud these guys for their ingenuity.
-Spooof
Looks like the population of Gitmo just went up by 2.
The irony is that thanks to the miracle of repolimerization, you can turn flesh into viable oil.
The Yes Men are the best. Their doc is very good and shows other situations like that.
#2…bobbo….You would fit in well with the Chinese, and other South Asian countries with all of those domestic animals on their menu.
I often have heart to heart talks with myself about how I can be a total supporter of animal rights and still eat meat. At the moment I’m justifing it with the reasoning that the whole natural world is run on a system of interdependency. Something always eats something else. If I didn’t eat that Pork fried rice, you could bet a cat would, so why shouldn’t I enjoy it. Makes sense to me. 🙂
I firmly believe that the day will come when we knowingly or unknowingly will be eating people protien. The way population is going, and the ability to feed all those mouths becomes harder and harder, it’s bound to happen.
And if as Angle says, it’s possible to use us as a fuel, then never let an Exxon/Mobile guy anywhere near your family.
#8
“I firmly believe that the day will come when we knowingly or unknowingly will be eating people protien.”
I already have, it’s kinda salty, sour and a bit bitter 😉
Between Kyoto limits on air conditioning and car mileage limits that created less safe cars, environmentalists have been killing poor people in their zeal to reduce oil usage. This just completes the circle.
#10 – MikeN,
What??!!?
In what way are fuel efficient cars less safe? I was under the impression that it was the huge SUVs that were unsafe. They are rated about as safe as a mid-sized car overall. And, due to the dramatically higher probability of rollover and the fact that small children fare very poorly in those rollovers, are much less safe for children.
I also have not heard about particular air conditioning limits of Kyoto nor anything about them killing anyone. So, please back up these statements.
#8 – joshua,
If all we ate was soylent green, the population would, of necessity, be self-regulating.
I like pork ’cause it tastes like people!
OK, just kidding, my taboo on the subject is as strong as anyone’s. But, we should be asking why. We should be considering the huge waste of food that occurs when we bury people. Couldn’t we at least market a new product produced by funeral homes and marketed to farmers? We could call it Humulch brand fertilizer.
#11…Misanthropic Scott…..If we recycled Uncle Harry, it would interfere with his meeting Jesus face to face and climbing out of his hole on salvation day.
Our eating our own (other than Angle’s preferences) probably isn’t going to ever happen. 🙂
8–I am vegetarian also. Will eat meat to be sociable and if there is nothing else, and as a garnish. Maybe, I just like vegetables?
I LOVE people who post one thing and then immediately post just the opposite. You should too. Look at who/what you REALLY are and go with it.
Like Bill Maher–I have my preferences and choices but I see no reason my choices are better than anyone elses much less that they should be the basis for legislation. That is the controlling hand of an authoritarian, whether its source is religious or political. The MORAL position is to have and recommend ones position to others and to deal with Cesear as little as possible. FREEDOM is allowing others to do that which you would not.
I posted this elsewhere, but it fits. I was in vietnam having a bowl of stew. A little hand floated to the surface. I stopped eating, and to this day, I only hope it was a monkey.
Scott, try googling CAFE kills. The estimates are thousands of extra car deaths a year due to gas mileage limits. You don’t have to have an SUV. Before the CAFE rules, people drove around in large sedans.
As for air conditioners, those limits happened more in Europe, which is implementing Kyoto emissions restrictions, and you may have heard about some heat waves killing people there.
speed limits are great, but they have proven that Lower speeds can cause more accidents…
reasoning:
Those that WANT to speed, arnt in that TIGHT group, when something bad happens. Cars can spread out more, insted of Rushing up to a group of cars, Going the spead limit and blocking both lanes, and cant get past. That nervous person infront Makes a mistake, and 5 cars back, the person dont see it, and SLAMS into someones rear.
Its like the Sunset freeway in PDX oregon… Starts with Sylvan Hill, and everyone rushs to get up the hill…at 50mph. If they were able to go faster, those at the top would be over it, sooner, and open more area behind them. but nope…They stuggle up the 4miles of grade.
#14 – MikeN,
That has to be the single most biased report I’ve ever seen. What kills is the difference in vehicle size. Further, with huge SUVs being only as safe as mid-sized cars, I think we can get rid of all but the ones for people who really need them and save lives and tons of fuel.
When people drove the huge sedans you reference, you seem to forget that the standards of the time were to preserve the car, not its inhabitants. Those cars were so rigid that the car held up beautifully and the occupants died. That’s why today’s cares are designed to crunch. It absorbs the impact, leaves the rigid passenger compartment in tact and saves lives.
This report is an obvious last ditch attempt by the auto manufacturers to get out of building good cars. Then, when the Japanese build them, the American companies will
allboth go whining to the government for help. Don’t worry though, I’m sure AAA will lobby for the auto manufacturers and oil companies instead of their members as they always do. And, they’ll probably win too.#14 – MikeN,
I realized I should be more specific. Here are just a few facts off the top of my head that are obviously and deliberately ignored by your CAFE kills report.
1. Smaller lighter vehicles have shorter stopping distances and can thus avoid accidents more readily. Yes, most accidents are still front end accidents. Few do not have at least one vehicle with a front end hit.
2. Higher speed accidents are more deadly. More fuel efficient vehicles are often, though not always, slower.
3. 70-130,000 people a year in the U.S. alone die of air pollution. Better fuel efficiency would reduce that number.
4.Light trucks do not meet the same safety standards as cars and are thus inherently less safe.
5. Light trucks have more of a tendency to roll over and kill their occupants, especially any children inside.
6. Light trucks have their bumpers too high to meet those of cars and thus kill occupants of other vehicles when they are in accidents.
6. Global warming is already killing people in Darfur and will kill many more. Any reduction saves far more lives than will be saved in the auto accidents. http://tinyurl.com/39a8d7
7. The deaths from heat waves in Europe were of people that didn’t even have air conditioners, not because of Kyoto, but because they never needed them before. Thus these deaths are global warming related and can be reduced with more fuel efficient cars and other energy savings.
8. The Iraq war, admit it or not, is a war for oil. Had we chosen instead to impose stricter CAFE standards tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.
17
#1
smaller lighter vehicles end up as trash cans If anything is left after ANY crash, and your insurrance company will be PISSED with any collision.
#2.
Fuel efficentcy, my ASS…My 86 Old gets 30+mpg at 70mph…Its HOW FAST you get to the speed…Heavy FOOT dont save gas.
#3.
Point a finger…Tell me WHO did it….From coal plants to Burning of OLD ammunition…WHO did it.
#4.
OK,, but they have a LOWER weight point IF’ LOADEd then your car.
IF’ unloaded, they bounce REALLY well.
#5.
NOT if the person driving it, KNOWS that he needs to LOAD the back end…
#6.
Explain LIGHT TRUCKS??? anything under 1 ton?
Under 1/2 ton??
OR those BIG OLD THINGS that the USA makes???
Small trucks MEET bumpers with cars…BIG trucks DONT.
Where I live, you need the ground Clearance to get thru the fields…IN TOWN, I dont know WHY, but SOME people NEVER use a truck AS a TRUCK…
#6.1
I would consider that its killing people ALL OVER THE WORLD, not just there.
#7…Hmmm, how about having 3′ of snow every year, in 1960’s and NOT having any NOW…. And with the Raising HEAT, that the oceans may be giving MORE moisture to the air, and more clouds, and MORe rain, and MAYBE we can get back to 3′ of snow..
#7.
MORE TREES…really…MORE trees…If you look at th4 difference
#8…OK, RIGHT…If we would keep our noses out of the other countries BUSNEESS, we would have all these probelms DEALING with them.
#18 – ECA,
English is a very difficult language for both grammar and spelling. At a minimum, I would suggest getting Firefox 2.0+, which has a built in spell checker. However, if English is a second language for you and you would like to be taken a bit more seriously, you might consider typing your posts in Microsoft Word, which checks both spelling and grammar, then pasting them into the window.
That said, I’ll do my best to take your post seriously.
#1 Insurance companies won’t like a crash regardless of the car size. All cars of all sizes are designed to crunch easily now to absorb the shock. This way, the car ends up in the trash can, but the humans inside do not.
#2 You’ve made my point quite well here. 1986 was the year in which U.S. average fuel economy peaked. Drive your ’86 olds carefully though. AAA was still fighting against air bags at the time, so you probably don’t have them.
#3 The planet does not care who caused the pollution. Nor do the dead care where it came from. We need to reduce it from all sources to the best of our ability. One way to do so is to drive more fuel efficient vehicles.
#4 Actually, even loaded, their center of gravity will still be much higher than that of a car.
#5 Perhaps these sorts of things help. However, there is no way to get the center of gravity of a vehicle with 9″ of ground clearance and a roof 6′ off the ground down to the level of a car with 6″ of ground clearance and a roof just 4.5′ off the ground.
#6 Light truck is a legal definition. Vehicles classed as light trucks are not required to meet either the safety or the fuel efficiency standards of passenger vehicles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_truck
#6.1 We’re in total agreement. I was just giving a concrete example.
#7 Sorry, I’m not getting either of your points here. I will say though that the only reason I put this point in was in response to MikeN’s post #14.
#8 I think I’m missing this point too. If you mean to say that we’d have to deal with an Iraq that had no weapons of mass destruction, was not involved in 9/11, was a secular government, but was genuinely a threat to Israel, I agree. I think that would have been easier to deal with than today’s Iraq. And, it would have left us the military capability to deal with the larger threats of nuclear Iran and North Korea.
You keep talking about light trucks. It was the CAFE rules that created this SUV explosion. You don’t see big station wagons anymore. And the current full-size cars used to be called midsize. It’s not the auto industry’s report. The National Academy of Sciences concluded that speed kills. So did the NHTSA.
As for global warming causing deaths in Darfur. I think everyone knows why there is death in Darfur, and it’s not because of global warming. You can even search this blog for previous posts on the subject.
Also, to point #3, air pollution is down, and that has nothing to do with CAFE, since fuel mileage has gown down since it’s passed. People have switched to lower mileage SUVs. Eliminating CAFE rules would increase fuel mileage, as there would be less SUVs bought at 15-20 mpg, and more cars at 20-25.
If the Iraq war is a war for oil, then the easiest thing would have been to drop sanctions, and let Iraqi oil bring prices down. Or they could expand local production, but somehow an administration that can lie about weapons in Iraq to start a war, can’t get the Senate to allow more drilling. A higher CAFE doesn’t lead to nearly the savings you expect. If your car gets better mileage, then you are less sensitive to gas prices, and you will drive more.
#20 – MikeN,
Yes, it was the fact that light trucks met less stringent CAFE standards that allowed the auto manufacturers to take advantage of the loophole.
On Darfur, I guess you didn’t read the article from the Secretary General of the United Nations, published in the Washington Post that stated that Darfur was caused by climate change. I’ve also read it in a couple of previous articles and at least one book. So, no, everyone doesn’t know what caused Darfur. You don’t. Possibly no one is 100% sure on the subject. But, there is a lot of good information leading to the conclusion that climate was at least a major factor.
Removing CAFE would simply allow the auto manufacturers to build everything with the worst possible fuel mileage. And, since we’re gullible enough to be sold by their advertising, as evidenced by your belief that removing CAFE would improve mileage, we would buy their crap.
I’m having a hard time arguing against your last paragraph because I really don’t see the point of it at all. It doesn’t seem to have a clear point. Certainly peoples’ driving habits are somewhat affected by oil prices. However, there is a minimum amount people must drive to get to work, the supermarket, etc. This is the bulk of most peoples’ driving, IMHO, and will remain unchanged by prices.
Right now, Iraqi oil can’t bring fuel prices down probably mostly because the military is burning as much fuel as we’re getting at the moment, give or take a bit.
However, fuel prices are not that high right now, just a few cents over the record set in the 1980s when the price is adjusted to today dollars. So, why lower them? I’d rather see them go up. I certainly agree with you about removing the subsidies for oil.
If you’d rather see fuel prices go up, then you should support a lower overall fuel mileage. My point was that a 40% increase in fuel mileage will not lead to a corresponding drop in fuel use. The better efficiency will lead to people driving more.
>belief that removing CAFE would improve mileage,
Well CAFE didn’t lower fuel mileage as predicted, because of the SUV loophole. I think it’s reasonable to expect that undoing CAFE would reverse the trend. You would see people opting for larger cars instead of SUVs if the car companies were allowed to make them.
If car companies are automatically going to make things at the worst possible fuel mileage, then why are companies releasing hybrids and fuel economy cars?