The Sierra Club Compass linked today to Greenpeace’s ad featuring a pasty-faced kid threatening us grown-ups for screwing up the environment. Apparently, he and his generation won’t be ignored or patronized any longer.
Kid, you don’t impress me. In the heart of the Reagan years I was recording anti-nuclear diatribes like this on my shoebox tape recorder, and as you can see that worked out real well both for me and for nuclear disarmament. If the best you can do is a histrionic plea to the better nature of adults plus an absolutist threat, an athletic-grey Hanes and 35 cents worth of whiteface… well, kid, I guess you better buy a firearm, stockpile Power Bars and learn to compost.
But seriously, though, folks: Pat Joseph at the Compass helpfully observed that most of the reaction to this ad has been negative: “Small wonder, what with the veiled threat from some punk kid in a Unabomber hoodie.” Joseph also pointed out the similarity to a certain Star Trek episode; Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic asked “Um . . . does Greenpeace really want to be suggesting that they’re planning on unleashing some kind of youth-driven terrorist campaign if congress doesn’t act swiftly on climate change?” and a commenter on Yglesias’s post quoted Star Wars: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”
Apparently the battle for the planet is going to be War of the Sci Fi Cliches, with Yoda paired off against the Children of the Damned on a lake of rising lava. Sign me up, and save me some Power Bars.
Link.
Image via Greenpeace.