Readers, join me and fellow identity correction officers from the Yes Lab on a journey to a world in which Royal Dutch Shell does not pretend its plan to drill for oil in the Arctic is a happy, necessary thing. Join me on a trip to a place where Shell tells the truth, where the oil giant says that heading up to one of the last pristine places on earth to do insanely risky industrial work on what amounts to a trust-us safety plan is–to put it baldly–nutso.
Journey with me, friends, to Arctic Ready, a satirical website Greenpeace cooked up with Yes Lab to unapologetically speak on behalf of Shells Arctic Drilling id about the companys maniacal profit grab in the Alaskan seas. Come to an imaginary land where Shell gets real and says what its collective brain trust actually thinks:
Er, wait a sec. You say youve already left Shells land of PR and gone to Arctic Ready on your own? You say youre one of the thousands of people who have already used the sites spoof ad generator to create your own version of Shells Lets Go! campaign?
Well heck yeah, internet! Thanks!
Sorry to sound so surprised, but truthfully, when we dreamed up ArcticReady.com as a compliment to our #shellFAIL work (more on that here), we werent actually expecting you to rush in like you have.
I mean, we had our fantasies, but we werent sure if you were as (pardon) Arctic Ready as we hoped youd be. After all, theres been a lot of cash spent in the past five years to get you thinking Shells way is the only way, butloit turns out, you werent fooled by Shells PR at all.
You knew what they’re up to, and you jumped at the chance to tell them. And while the overwhelming response to ArcticReady.com undoubtedly shows that Shell isn’t going to have quite as easy of a time in the Arctic as it feels entitled to, it has showed us something, too.
Its showed us that there are tons of you out there that see Arctic drilling not as Shell wants you to see ita painless way to keep the engine runningbut as it really is: a way for the worlds richest companies to engorge themselves further while the rest of us sweat it out.
Shell may not want to listen to all of you in the reality-based community, but Greenpeace hears you loud and clear. You want the Arctic preserved, not drilled.
Thanks for helping us tell Shell that this expedition to exploit global warming for more of the oil thats causing global warming in the first place is a call for catastrophe, a crazy invitation for the world to come with Big Oil as it hurtles toward . . . well, actually, you said it best:
Let’s Go? On second thought, lets not. Lets keep working on this new, better #SaveTheArctic world instead.
