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BP Babies Sell Green Gasoline
Slate reviews the new creepy cartoon commercials for BP. The most recent, embedded above, suggests that BP is the gas station of choice for environmentally-responsible babies with drivers licenses:
BP hopes to cement itself as the most "green" of the massive oil companies. To this end, the ad shows little windmills in the background. Also, BP service stations (there are more than 11,000 in the United States alone) have switched from plastic to paper bags at their convenience stores, and hand out trading cards with environmentally sensitive tips for kids (for instance: Use both sides of the paper when you color)....
BP wants its logo (that flower/sun thingy, known as the "helios") to be the shorthand promise of a satisfying and environment-friendly service-station experience. These ads are not a bad effort on that score. But ultimately, I think gas-station choice will always come down to price, convenience, and maybe a quick eyeing of the grounds just to make sure they're not intolerably disgusting.
For more on BP's misguided efforts to become the greenest gas company (and more musings on the flower/sun thingy) check out "The Age of Corporate Environmentalism."
|5.8.07 @ 3:12PM|#
Here's a handy way to test the real motivations and intentions
you face when debating a climate-change alarmist. Give him this
challenge:
Just for the sake of argument, assume that skeptics are right about
one thing only - that human-generated carbon dioxide is not a
significant contributor to the global warming trend of the past
century, nor will it be a significant contributor to the future
warning trend. Assume that everything else the alarmists claim is
true. Assume that the global mean temperature (yeah, I know, just
play along here) will rise by several degrees. Assume that land ice
will melt, dump into the sea, and push sea levels up. Assume more
flooding, more powerful storms, more precip in places that don't
need it and less precip in places that do. Assume that polar bears
and bullfrogs will die. Assume kudzu and other weeds will swallow
the countryside. And so on.
Even if the warning trend is a natural phenomenon, caused by
sunspots or other cycles uncaused by human action, shouldn't we try
to stop it, anyway? Why are we arguing about causation?
Similarly, try another thought experiment on him. What if the
recent warming ended next year. Alarmists claim that we are already
experiencing deleterious effects from it. Shouldn't we take steps
to reduce the mean temperature? How far down should we try to take
it? What is the "right" temperature?
If your sparring partner argues that human beings shouldn't
interfere with a natural process, then he is giving the game away.
His goal is not to maximize benefits and minimize costs associated
with climate changes. His goal is to change human action for other
reasons, and his motivation is essentially religious.
|5.8.07 @ 3:21PM|#
That would be an excellent article for a high school newspaper. When do you graduate?
|5.8.07 @ 3:25PM|#
...environmentally sensitive tips for kids (for instance:
Use both sides of the paper when you color)....
Fools! Little kids HATE to color on both sides of the paper! And
they don't even like scrap paper that's been printed on one side
either.
|5.8.07 @ 3:33PM|#
"That would be an excellent article for a high school newspaper.
When do you graduate?"
What Exxon said...
|5.8.07 @ 3:44PM|#
...BP's misguided efforts to become the greenest gas
company...
You're going to have to help me out on this one - they're using the
power of PR to spin their contribution to environmental causes into
a selling point, making them more attractive to consumers who are
increasingly concerned about such things. Is it a bad thing because
of the size of their contributions? Otherwise I can't for the life
of me figure this one out.
Jim|5.8.07 @ 3:45PM|#
That would be an excellent article for a high school
newspaper. When do you graduate?
pwned.
|5.8.07 @ 3:51PM|#
BP hopes to cement itself as the most "green" of the massive
oil companies.
And this will translate into higher returns to shareholders, how,
exactly?
That would be an excellent article for a high school
newspaper.
Unclear on the reference for "That".
|5.8.07 @ 4:02PM|#
" Is it a bad thing because of the size of their contributions?
Otherwise I can't for the life of me figure this one out."
Yes, that's it. Big company, big contribution, big evil. Only
really, little companies are moral.
|5.8.07 @ 4:08PM|#
And this will translate into higher returns to shareholders,
how, exactly?
Um, because they hope to attract car drivers who are
environmentally aware.
|5.8.07 @ 4:10PM|#
Just for the sake of argument, assume that skeptics are right about
one thing only - that human-generated carbon dioxide is not a
significant contributor to the global warming trend of the past
century, nor will it be a significant contributor to the future
warning trend.
Damn, that's quite an assumption.
You end up with: "let's assume that you're wrong, now defend your
position".
|5.8.07 @ 4:21PM|#
I just feel some juvenile need to call BP the buttfuckingest oil
company in the world, but I can't think of a good setup.
I met Lord Browne last year. Liked the cut of his suit.
|5.8.07 @ 4:34PM|#
Damn, that's quite an assumption.
It's called a hypothetical.
I often chastise global warming deniers for arguing that "humans
aren't causing global warming" implies "humans don't need to do
anything about global warming." If global warming will have
catastrophic effects on humanity, we should address it whether or
not humanity is to blame -- as assuredly as we would address an
asteroid that was going to hammer the planet.
J Hood asks the question of the other side of the debate. I think
it's an interesting and enlightening thought experiment. Care to
address it?
cgee|5.8.07 @ 4:49PM|#
My kids, boys ages 6 and 4, absolutely love that commercial.
They think it is hilarious to see babies driving a car, I
guess.
I'm with SOB however on the paper issue: not only will my sons
refuse to write, draw, or color on both sides of a piece of paper,
they will also reject even slightly crumpled or folded paper. You'd
think that they were drafting the Magna Carta or something, instead
of illustrating their 854th rendition of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles
Kick Eggman's Ass.
|5.8.07 @ 4:53PM|#
No, really, I'm stumped. BP is making a lot of noise about the
fact that they're voluntarily supporting 'green' initiatives, and
being rewarded in the marketplace for it; it is thus possible that
the social ostracism of their competitors may drive others to make
similar moves.
Why is this bad? Because you (Katherine) think that 'green'
initiatives are silly? Help!
|5.8.07 @ 4:55PM|#
Use both sides of the paper when you wipe.
I think that's a brownie tip. Also, it saves energy if you only
shake once.
Ned Flanders|5.8.07 @ 5:14PM|#
if it's clear and yellah, you got juice, there fellah! If it's cloudy and brown, you're in cider town!
|5.8.07 @ 5:29PM|#
Um, because they hope to attract car drivers who are
environmentally aware.
Lets compare earnings growth for BP, the Greenies' oil company, and
Exxon, the bane of Greenies everywhere. Over the last two years, BP
is up 10%, underperforming the market and its sector. Exxon is up
40%, beating the market and pacing its sector.
So I would say BP is wasting the shareholder's money on a vanity
campaign.
|5.8.07 @ 5:33PM|#
If global warming will have catastrophic effects on
humanity, we should address it whether or not humanity is to blame
-- as assuredly as we would address an asteroid that was going to
hammer the planet.
True, but that moves the global warming debate away from
neo-Puritan lifestyle control, and toward geo-engineering. None of
the people pushing the global warming agenda seem interested in
doing that. Wonder why? Could it be that GW is just a pretext for a
neo-Puritan agenda?
It also begs the question, of course, of whether global warming
will in fact be, on net, catastrophic. Given that warming/cooling
cycles are natural, I tend to think not.
|5.8.07 @ 5:42PM|#
"Could it be that GW is just a pretext for a neo-Puritan
agenda?"
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my high school
newspaper article.
|5.8.07 @ 5:49PM|#
J Hood.
"Similarly, try another thought experiment on him. What if the
recent warming ended next year. Alarmists claim that we are already
experiencing deleterious effects from it. Shouldn't we take steps
to reduce the mean temperature? How far down should we try to take
it? What is the "right" temperature?
If your sparring partner argues that human beings shouldn't
interfere with a natural process, then he is giving the game away.
His goal is not to maximize benefits and minimize costs associated
with climate changes. His goal is to change human action for other
reasons, and his motivation is essentially religious."
Despite being an attempt to examine the issue from another angle,
to respond to this seriously requires that you ignore the topic at
hand*. What does "warming ended next year" mean in terms of this
topic? We are not talking about short term fluctuations but long
term trends.
But let's attempt to address your more abstract points.
"Shouldn't we take steps to reduce the mean temperature?"
If the mechanisms that are causing the abnormal warming have
magically disappeared (let's assume, to meet your hypothetical
conditions, that the world has figured out how to be CO2 neutral
and implemented all the needed changes by June 2007), what would be
the motivation for undertaking active measures? Passive observation
would seem to be the appropriate course.
"What is the "right" temperature?"
There isn't a right temperature. The main negatives involved in AGW
are the rate at which our contribution is changing the climate.
When species or cultures have to deal with these changes over
millenia (the "natural pace" which will involve occasional
catastrophic events) there isn't really a problem. When you reduce
that time frame to decades, then things get complicated. There are
absolute values we want to avoid (See "Impact from the Deep"
Scientific American, Oct. 2006), but there aren't really "right"
temperatures.
"If your sparring partner argues that human beings shouldn't
interfere with a natural process."
What if they argue that humans should minimize interference with
natural processes because those processes have inherent/intrinsic
value? Aren't there many positions along this continuum?
"His goal is not to maximize benefits and minimize costs associated
with climate changes."
Doesn't follow. If you see a benefit in nature unencumbered by
human interference, a desire to maximize that benefit works into a
cost/benefit analysis. You just feel they are using the wrong set
of cost and benefit measures to play the game.
"His goal is to change human action for other reasons, and his
motivation is essentially religious."
These do not follow. Those "other reasons" may be supported by a
different set of assumptions about what costs and benefits look
like. There is no reason to assume that two reasonable people can't
disagree...no need to assume that a religious zeal is
involved.
*Your thought experiment mainly serves to demonstrate that you are
thinking about the issue very superficially. If you were talking to
someone with a similarly superficial grasp of the issue you might
get them to think deeper, I guess.
A2|5.8.07 @ 6:03PM|#
I'm frankly surprised that at this point in the thread, noone has commented on how screwed up the commercial itself is. If I, as an animator, had been handed a description of what they wanted me to draw here, I would have asked them what they'd been taking before they came up with this. Somehow, babies driving around a landscape out of a modernist Alice in Wonderland doesn't want to make me go buy gas.
|5.8.07 @ 6:17PM|#
Eh, somebody just wanted to get crazy with the toon
shaders.
It's not a fantastic ad, but it's not horrible, either.
|5.8.07 @ 9:19PM|#
Maybe they should take the money they are spending on their green credentials and try fixing their leaking pipelines in Alaska?
Cracker\'s Boy|5.8.07 @ 9:49PM|#
What's amazing is that we somehow shot straight beyond "there is
global warming" to "man is causing global warming" when there is
plenty of evidence that global warming just happens. It's happened
before and it will happen again. Man's got nothing to do with it.
So, if man didn't cause it... why do we think 1) man CAN fix it, or
2) man SHOULD fix it?
Oh yeah. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! It's for the children.
CB
|5.8.07 @ 11:39PM|#
Even if the warning trend is a natural phenomenon, caused by
sunspots or other cycles uncaused by human action, shouldn't we try
to stop it, anyway? Why are we arguing about causation?
Outlaw sunspots!
Mike Laursen|5.9.07 @ 12:33AM|#
Here's a handy way to test the real motivations and
intentions you face when debating a climate-change
alarmist.
Sigh, I don't suppose we can keep it to just one global warming
thread a day.
|5.9.07 @ 9:00AM|#
Rich Ard, You don't see the irony of a carbon energy company portraying itself as champion of the environment? Its like if a tobacco company opened a hospital and billed itself as the most health conscious company in the industry.
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