“Kids, be glad about our melting polar ice caps”

“Everyone can appreciate how oil — the dinosaurs’ parting gift to Man — can be used to help build a better future for everyone. Let’s Go!”

This is not Shell speaking. But it does look that way when you enter the (spoof) campaign website arcticready.com.

Surely everyone can appreciate how Shell is building “a better future for everyone”. Or not so? Read on. The sarcasm gets worse. Or better — depending on your viewpoint.

“The Let’s Go! Arctic campaign is Shell’s way of reaching out to our partners in the public community, in order to help you understand some of the issues behind Arctic drilling,” states the website.

In the following excerpt from the (fake) “Shell website”, the company explains in this way to children what it is they are doing to our planet:

“Right now, the polar ice caps of our planet are melting.

That’s bad—but it’s also good!

That’s right! It’s bad because our planet needs ice at the poles. But it’s good because when the polar ice melts, we at Shell can go up there to get more oil, which can do a whole lot of things. Thanks to oil:

• Mommy and Daddy can drive to the store to buy you new toys.
• Companies like Mattel™ can build new toys.
• Engineers can drive to work to design new, better toys that are even more fun to play with.
• When you’re done with your toys, trucks can take them away to dispose of.

Oil can even help us fix some of the problems that melting ice causes.

So it’s fine to be sad about our melting polar ice caps, and about how sad that makes the planet — but remember to be glad as well, because of all that the oil we’re finding there is letting you do, now and far into the future!

Won’t you help Shell get Arctic oil? Just make sure those icebergs stay melted, and melt any new ones that threaten to cause big problems.”

 

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The “Shell website” states that the company’s ‘Let’s Go! Arctic campaign’ comes after exhaustive market research, in which they found out “that people like straight talk about oil, and that what they prize most is honesty and enthusiasm about the challenges in obtaining it, with sensitivity to environmental and cultural ramifications riding a distant second.”

With the Let’s Go! Arctic campaign, therefore, they “have stressed the excitement of working in distant frontiers, in some of the most dangerous conditions known or unknown to Man, and depending for survival not so much on the cutting-edge quality of our equipment, as on the sharpness of our wits.”

According to the campaign website, Shell has allegedly recognised that many of their customers experience knee-jerk reactions to the news that so many mammals will be affected by the company’ drilling in the arctic. To address these concerns, they have launched the ‘Let’s Go! Mercy Poll’.

» The campaign enourages you to create your own campaign slogan on a photo here: arcticready.com/social

» Continue reading: arcticready.com/arctic

 

 

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Ice Ride

Now onto something about Shell which is real, and which takes place around the planet on Sunday 15 September 2013:

Savethearctic.org writes:

“The Arctic belongs to all us and Shell is leading the race to destroy it in search of dirty oil. The time to act is now! Say NO to the #FormulaShell at www.savethearctic.org/?fbsta49en and join the movement to #SaveTheArctic.”