EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS — Yes Men hit

June 14, 2007 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS
Con­fer­ence orga­niz­er fails to have Yes Men arrest­ed

Text of speech, pho­tos, video: http://www.vivoleum.com/event/
GO-EXPO state­ment: http://newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2007/14/c5086.html
Press con­fer­ence before this event, Fri­day, Cal­gary: http://arusha.org/event/7214
Con­tact: mailto:fuel@theyesmen.org
More links at end of release.

Imposters pos­ing as Exxon­Mo­bil and Nation­al Petro­le­um Coun­cil (NPC) rep­re­sen­ta­tives deliv­ered an out­ra­geous keynote speech to 300 oil­men at GO-EXPO, Canada’s largest oil con­fer­ence, held at Stam­pede Park in Cal­gary, Alber­ta, today.

The speech was billed before­hand by the GO-EXPO orga­niz­ers as the major high­light of this year’s con­fer­ence, which had 20,000 atten­dees. In it, the “NPC rep” was expect­ed to deliv­er the long-await­ed con­clu­sions of a study com­mis­sioned by US Ener­gy Sec­re­tary Samuel Bod­man. The NPC is head­ed by for­mer Exxon­Mo­bil CEO Lee Ray­mond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)

In the actu­al speech, the “NPC rep” announced that cur­rent U.S. and Cana­di­an ener­gy poli­cies (notably the mas­sive, car­bon-inten­sive exploita­tion of Alber­ta’s oil sands, and the devel­op­ment of liq­uid coal) are increas­ing the chances of huge glob­al calami­ties. But he reas­sured the audi­ence that in the worst case sce­nario, the oil indus­try could “keep fuel flow­ing” by trans­form­ing the bil­lions of peo­ple who die into oil.

“We need some­thing like whales, but infi­nite­ly more abun­dant,” said “NPC rep” “Shep­ard Wolff” (actu­al­ly Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describ­ing the tech­nol­o­gy used to ren­der human flesh into a new Exxon oil prod­uct called Viv­oleum. 3‑D ani­ma­tions of the process brought it to life.

“Viv­oleum works in per­fect syn­er­gy with the con­tin­ued expan­sion of fos­sil fuel pro­duc­tion,” not­ed “Exxon rep” “Flo­ri­an Osen­berg” (Yes Man Mike Bonan­no). “With more fos­sil fuels comes a greater chance of dis­as­ter, but that means more feed­stock for Viv­oleum. Fuel will con­tin­ue to flow for those of us left.”

The oil­men lis­tened to the lec­ture with atten­tion, and then lit “com­mem­o­ra­tive can­dles” sup­pos­ed­ly made of Viv­oleum obtained from the flesh of an “Exxon jan­i­tor” who died as a result of clean­ing up a tox­ic spill. The audi­ence only react­ed when the jan­i­tor, in a video trib­ute, announced that he wished to be trans­formed into can­dles after his death, and all became crys­tal-clear.

At that point, Simon Mel­lor, Com­mer­cial & Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Direc­tor for the com­pa­ny putting on the event, strode up and phys­i­cal­ly forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mel­lor escort­ed Bonan­no out the door, a dozen jour­nal­ists sur­round­ed Bichlbaum, who, still in char­ac­ter as “Shep­ard Wolff,” explained to them the ratio­nale for Viv­oleum.

“We’ve got to get ready. After all, fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment like that of my com­pa­ny is increas­ing the chances of cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, which could lead to mas­sive calami­ties, caus­ing migra­tion and con­flicts that would like­ly dis­able the pipelines and oil wells. With­out oil we could no longer pro­duce or trans­port food, and most of human­i­ty would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bod­ies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us.”

“We’re not talk­ing about killing any­one,” added the “NPC rep.” “We’re talk­ing about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 peo­ple already die from cli­mate-change relat­ed effects every year. That’s only going to go up — maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cru­el.”

Secu­ri­ty guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and he and Bonan­no were detained until Cal­gary Police Ser­vice offi­cers could arrive. The police­men, deter­min­ing that no major infrac­tions had been com­mit­ted, per­mit­ted the Yes Men to leave.

Canada’s oil sands, along with “liq­uid coal,” are key­stones of Bush’s Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty plan. Min­ing the oil sands is one of the dirt­i­est forms of oil pro­duc­tion and has turned Cana­da into one of the world’s worst car­bon emit­ters. The pro­duc­tion of “liq­uid coal” has twice the car­bon foot­print as that of ordi­nary gaso­line. Such tech­nolo­gies increase the like­li­hood of mas­sive cli­mate cat­a­stro­phes that will con­demn to death untold mil­lions of peo­ple, main­ly poor.

“If our idea of ener­gy secu­ri­ty is to increase the chances of cli­mate calami­ty, we have a very fun­ny sense of what secu­ri­ty real­ly is,” Bonan­no said. “While Exxon­Mo­bil con­tin­ues to post record prof­its, they use their mon­ey to per­suade gov­ern­ments to do noth­ing about cli­mate change. This is a crime against human­i­ty.”

“Putting the for­mer Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and solic­it­ing his advice on our ener­gy future, is like putting the wolf in charge of the flock,” said “Shep­ard Wolff” (Bichlbaum). “Exxon has done more dam­age to the envi­ron­ment and to our chances of sur­vival than any oth­er com­pa­ny on earth. Why should we let them deter­mine our future?”

About the NPC and Exxon­Mo­bil: About the NPC and Exon Mobil
About the Alber­ta oil sands: About Alber­ta oil sands
About liq­uid coal: Sier­ra club on liq­uid coal