Stripping Down To 350 PPM

Another online campaign has thrown its creativity behind an effort to raise awareness of the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark on Dec. 7. This ad — by 350.org — has “gone viral” in the last two weeks and is designed to aid Americans in visualizing the need to reduce global carbon emissions to 350 parts per million. The ad featured 11 young, skinny supermodels stripping from their multi-layers of heavy winter clothing.

 Elites’ Carbon Emissions Far Surpass The Masses’

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Another online campaign has thrown its creativity behind an effort to raise awareness of the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark on Dec. 7.

This ad — by 350.org — has “gone viral” in the last two weeks and is designed to aid Americans in visualizing the need to reduce global carbon emissions to 350 parts per million.

The ad featured 11 young, skinny supermodels stripping from their multi-layers of heavy winter clothing.

As the young women remove their britches, a ticker in the upper left corner of the screen counted down from 390 parts per million, i.e. the “bad” number.

Once the models shimmy down to just their bras and panties, the voice-over said, “This is what 352 million parts per mission looks like. If you want to see what 350 — our natural state — you’ll have to get your politicians to act now.”

Joe Brewer, a consultant at Cognitive Policy Works, defended the ad’s effectiveness around theories espoused by fellow cognitive scientist George Lakoff in a recent piece called “How Stripping Supermodels Promote Action on Climate Change.”

“A major theme of this video is that solving the climate crisis is a natural compulsion… just like having a sex drive is an innate quality for human beings,” Brewer wrote. “It playfully asserts that engagement with the challenges we face in dealing with climate can be pleasurable and fun.”

He continued, “What’s more, the final moments of the video set up the pressure to ‘finish the job’ and get those last two parts per million out of the way. A clear and powerful objective has been set up (for those who find supermodels sexy) to get down to ‘bare essentials’ where these people most like to be.”

Adrian Ivakhiv, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, agreed with Brewer’s points, except his critique of the fashion industry. He recommended “playing up” the “highly sophisticated, complex pieces of science” behind climate change in future advertisements.

“I would argue that part of making that message broader is playing up its science (just to raise awareness of how we know about climate change) and, secondly, playing up its ethics and politics: its potential (and already claimed) victims, its costs, and the vested interests on both sides (old energy’ on one, new entrepreneurialism on the other),” he said.

As of deadline, over 500,000 people on YouTube have viewed the 350.org supermodel ad, which was inspired by the Global Day of Climate Action event referred to as “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.”

Not yet touched upon, however, were the carbon loads the superweathy class emits that brings about global change, as suggested by George Monbiot, a columnist covering climate change for The Guardian/UK.

As evidence, Monbiot pointed to a paper published by the journal Environment and Urbanization stating that “around one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all.”

Monbiot explained the point from his own personal experience price-checking ultra-luxurious yachts known to scramble across the Mediterranean Sea.

“But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3400 l/hr when travelling at 60 knots. That’s nearly one litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometrer,” he wrote in a piece called “The Population Myth.”

Monbiot also described the lavish accessories of these megayachts with their “teak and mahogany fittings,” “jet skis,” and “mini-submarine,” not to mention the transportation to get to the marina (private plane and helicopter) and food once on board (bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar).

“As the owner of one of these yachts I’ll do more damage to the biosphere in 10 minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we’re burning, baby,” he added.

While not savvy to Monbiot’s criticism of the elites’ emissions of carbon, the WorldNetDaily noted this superclass’ stated goal is to control the growth of the world’s population last May.

These “secret billionaire’s club” met last May at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and president of Rockefeller University to discuss how to curb population growth as a way of reducing carbon emissions.

Those in attendence, according to The London Sunday Times, included Bill Gates, David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Michael Bloomberg.

Bill Gates, the former head of the Microsoft computer software firm, had already indictated in February the goal to cap the world population at 8.3 billion people.

However, population observers, like the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, have noted that the world’s population is nothing to worry too much about.

According to the 2004 U.N.“World At Six Billion” report, the world’s population growth rate has declined from two percent per year (the peak) to about 1.3 percent.

The population will increase this century, but growth won’t last forever on its own due to “declining fertility and the aging of populations.”

“United Nations projections (medium fertility scenario) indicate that world population will nearly stabilize at just above 10 billion persons after 2200,” the report noted.

If anything needed to be curbed, it’s the West’s consumption of the planet’s resources, not the South’s population, Monbiot added.

“People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less; they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance,” he wrote.

Monbiot bemoaned the absense of protest movements taking direct action against the “stinking rich” this past September.

But he has friends in high places.

The Archbishop of Canterbury slammed the idea that economic growth will cure climate change; Dr. Rowan Williams told The Daily Mail last month:

“We cannot grow indefinitely in economic terms without moving towards the death of what is most distinctively human, the death of the habits that make sense in a shared world where life has to be sustained by co-operation not only between humans but between humans and their material world.”

Last week, in fact, the Archbishop suggested that the Copenhagen summit was insignificant compared to impact the world’s major religions due to their “deeper roots” in the world.

In a recent speech at Southwark Cathedral in London. Dr. Williams said, ‘Whatever we do to combat the nightmare possibilities of wholesale environmental catastrophe has to be grounded not primarily in the scramble for survival but in the hope of human happiness.’