Last week I attended the preview screening of The Yes Men Fix The World at the Odeon Panton in London’s West End. Narrated by Andy and Mike, the self-styled Yes Men, it followed their highly creative protests against corporations and governments guilty of humanitarian and environmental misdemeanours. It’s a laugh-out-loud romp across the continents that you absolutely must see if you’ve ever dreamed of changing the world, but being an indie film unencumbered by distribution or advertising budgets you only get a couple of days to view it.
You can read more about the exploits of the Yes Men in Cari’s excellent preview blog here and find details of where to see it here.
In the meantime, if you live in London you might be more familiar with the Yes Men from their front page appearance in the Evening Standard yesterday, photographed in a joint stunt with Climate Rush to highlight the hypocrisy of Mandelson’s leadership as he takes over from the prime minister whilst Brown goes on holiday. Not only is Mandelson a non-elected politician (democracy?! is this really what it looks like?!) but he is also completely corrupt: Leila Deen from Plane Stupid threw custard over Mandelson in February in order to draw attention to his part in hob-nobbing with BAA execs and then lobbying for the third runway at Heathrow. He is well known for pushing the demands of big business over concerns about Climate Change.
It was indeed a slightly surreal sight to see the unmistakable inflatable shapes of the Yes Men in their Halliburton SurvivaBalls – patented ways of escaping the worst effects of Climate Change if you’ve got enough cash – blocking the entrance to Mandelson’s residence in Regent’s Park together with two girls dressed daintily as suffragettes. Surrounded by mini windmills in plant pots they held aloft a banner which read Mandy Put The Wind In Vestas’ Sales, a timely message as the rooftop protest continues at the Vestas factory in Cowes.
And yet, the Yes Men were not content with a fiendishly early start to pull off the prank with Climate Rush, and were also determined to pay Richard Branson a visit yesterday atfternoon. Why? you might ask…
In a spoof film released onto YouTube yesterday Branson is seen posing astride The World, the huge fake island development constructed in the shape of, yes you guessed it, the world, in Dubai. He’s wearing an amazingly garish Union Jack suit as he cuddles up to some generic pretty girls in red sashes not unlike those favoured by Climate Rush (the sashes, that is.) As Branson states that “we’re just popping people into space and popping them straight back down again,” SurvivaBalls tumble across the screen.
This week it was announced that an Arab investment company has invested in Branson’s Virgin Galactic venture, which plans to take rich people into space on short jaunts to gawp at the wonder of our little planet. The specialist travel company Kuoni are quoted in The Independent as saying that “there will always be super-explorers with the financial ability… to marvel at the Earth from afar. If this is someone’s interest and desire, you can’t put a price on it.” The cost of these trips to the super-rich? A mere $200,000 for two hours. Already 85,000 have registered an interest, with a proportion paying up front. The cost to the earth? Well, Branson is master of greenwash, and he’d have you believe that this vanity project of his will be as eco-friendly as they come. Now I wonder how anyone can imagine that flying into space can come without a cost to the environment? But it seems that if you fuel your jets with biofuel all will be well.
Ah, biofuels, the biggest lie of them all and the subject of the July Climate Rush, where we blocked the street outside an agri-investment conference in Grovesnor Square in order to draw attention to the devastating effects of the rise in the use of palm oil across the globe.
Not only do the monoculture plantations of this “wonder” oil cause massive tropical deforestation and an attendant rise in CO2 emissions, but they result in a 90% loss in wildlife diversity. Did you know that we have lost 90% of the orangutans in the past 100 years?
In many parts of the world biofuels such as jatropha are grown on “marginal wasteland” which isn’t actually marginal at all – it’s common land that provides a living for the people who live nearby. Food Not Fuel, seen below at the Palm Oil Climate Rush, campaign on issues around the increasing use of land to create biofuel for cars, planes and soon apparently, space rockets. All this instead of using land to encourage biodiversity and feed the planet.
How can a man who backs the creation of large scale monocultures to fly rich people into space purport to have any interest in the environment at all? Branson helped to found The Elders, a group of influential rich people who think they can save the world. “Could a small, dedicated group of independent elders help to resolve global problems and ease human suffering?” asks their website. Brilliant! How about space travel for the rich? That ought to do it.
And so, with this in mind, I met Andy, Mike and an assorted gaggle of helpers outside Green Park tube station, not far from where Richard Branson has set up his Galatic shop on an unassuming terraced street (albeit a posh one of course). We’d just bought the Evening Standard and the Yes Men were fairly incredulous with their front page status until I pointed out that if you team up with Climate Rush on an auspicious date that’s the kind of coverage you can expect to get.
Across the road in Green Park out came the SurvivaBall suits and we watched with amusement as Mike and Andy climbed inside, and cunningly inflated themselves through the use of two fans mounted on helmets, before we all tripped across the road, moving slowly to accommodate a ripped SurvivaBall and a broken fan poking professionally out of the top of Mike’s head. Squeezing up the narrow steps the Yes Men pushed the buzzer to gain entrance to the Galactic offices.
Alas the Yes Men didn’t get in (not unsurprisingly given their attire) and they seemed content to instead plant themselves on the doorstep and chant “Branson’s Stooopid”, which of course sounds much better in an American accent. Alex in the third SurvivaBall looked more like an overripe pumpkin than a bastion of “survival technology” but the beauty of the SurvivaBalls is that they look so utterly ridiculous.
“How dumb is space travel for the rich?” chanted the Yes Men, faces squooshed into awkward angles. “This dumb!” they exclaimed before continuing, “What do we want? Space travel for the rich. When do we want it? Never!”
Despite stating through the intercom that they would stay on the stoop until Branson “stops his ‘green’ hypocrisy and Virgin stops flying planes”, the uncomfortable suits were soon shaken off and the action completed. It may not have garnered the press attention of their early morning stunt, but it was filmed by their entourage, and will surely set the scene for many a further protest. Spaceships and astronauts call to mind the possibility of so many creative actions… The cogs in my mind are already turning. Are yours?
Tags:
activism, climate rush, direct action, Mandelson, space travel, Vestas, Yes Men
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