January 30, 2002

12:19 PM

Some months ago a friend of ours, a birdwatcher, found a large sticker on the rear hatch of her SUV that said I'm Changing the Climate! Ask me how! along with a link to this site.
posted by tranquileye (14 comments total)

I love it.
posted by walrus at 12:21 PM on January 30, 2002

2. Do not tag small SUV's such as any Suburu, Toyota 4Runner, etc. Owners of these small and reasonably fuel efficient SUV's keep complaining to me when they are tagged. We are after only the grotesque and bloated gas guzzling members of the SUV species.

At least my Suzuki is off-limits.
posted by adampsyche at 12:23 PM on January 30, 2002

this has SO been done to death.
posted by jbelshaw at 12:25 PM on January 30, 2002

I catch you tagging me and you get citizen's arrest for vandalism. Change your ways before you bother with some one's property, no matter how wonderful the cause...does this tagger eat meat? club him. Not go to church? club him. Drvie 5 miles above speed limit? club him.
posted by Postroad at 12:27 PM on January 30, 2002

It must be nice to be absolutely certain of the inherent rightness of one's beliefs.

Me, I always find myself questioning my own at every turn.
posted by UncleFes at 12:29 PM on January 30, 2002

Originally covered in this posting and in a few others.
posted by gluechunk at 12:30 PM on January 30, 2002

These people seem to be full of self-preening spite, and more interested in attacking their neighbors than actually doing something about the environment. The SUV is here, for the moment, and all that metal is not going to go away. There are plenty of other things to be done for the environment. For instance, they could get out their cars and clean up the litter along the roadside.
posted by Faze at 12:35 PM on January 30, 2002

Clean up the litter? That'll help. Better to educate people not to drop it?
posted by vbfg at 12:39 PM on January 30, 2002

I did a search for the URL... really.
posted by tranquileye at 12:42 PM on January 30, 2002

Pretty soon we'll all have little bumper stickers pasted all over ourselves and our property. "I haven't cleaned my air filter" "My gutters are dirty" "I burn real wood" "I like pork chops" "I don't walk enough" "I talk on the phone too much" "I'm too slow" "I'm too fast" "I take 20 minute showers" "My cholesterol is too high" "My dog barks loud" "I watch too much TV" "I keep my Christmas lights up too long."
posted by pardonyou? at 12:46 PM on January 30, 2002

Pretty soon we'll all have little bumper stickers pasted all over ourselves and our property. "I haven't cleaned my air filter" "My gutters are dirty" "I burn real wood" "I like pork chops" "I don't walk enough" "I talk on the phone too much" "I'm too slow" "I'm too fast" "I take 20 minute showers" "My cholesterol is too high" "My dog barks loud" "I watch too much TV" "I keep my Christmas lights up too long."
posted by pardonyou? at 12:47 PM on January 30, 2002

Sounds like the naive art project I did in school during the gulf war. I spray painted army men with chrome paint, attached magnets to their bases, and then added them to the hood of gas guzzlers as ornaments. I then added a little note on their window that stated that our presence in Iraq was directly related to our dependence on foreign oil. Whatever... It backfired one drunk night when we wandered up the hill to Brown University to get some late night food. I put a soldier on the hood of a car while I was waiting for my burger to be ready at the "Silver Truck", a sandwich shop on wheels that parked near the quad. I looked up to find the owner of the car running out of the Silver Truck with a big knife in his hand. I calmed him down, and told him it was a joke, but needless to say, I didn't eat the hamburger when it was done cooking.
posted by machaus at 12:51 PM on January 30, 2002

There are plenty of other things to be done for the environment.

Faze is right. This smacks of psuedo-activist college antics. And I wonder how many folks pump their fist in the air when they see this site because they really think it will strike a blow against environmental pollution vs. people who just enjoy complaining that SUVs are ubiquitious and trendy.

Most people I went to college with never were able to offer a decent explanation how SUVs were raping the planet--they kind of said, "Uh, you know, they're just annoying".

/skepticism
posted by Karl at 12:56 PM on January 30, 2002

There was a time when drinking and driving was socially acceptable. Now it isn't, and thousands fewer die every year on UK roads as a result.

Unlike drunk driving, the antisocial consequences of the act of SUV ownership are not directly perceived - which means for the vast majority of people they don't exist at all (a state of consciousness the multimillion pound advertising campaigns maintain nicely). So if anything, there is an even greater need for a public awareness campaign.

People contributed to creating the anti-drink/driving moral climate by expressing their disapproval. Not all of them were moral, upstanding people who could really cast the first stone without a red face. But the outcome was good, at a cost so small as to be hard to measure.

Not wildly enthusiastic about the practice. But then, I'm not wildly enthusiastic about the genetic defects caused by the groundwater contamination that resource extraction industries create - and massive SUVs create a disproportionate demand on resources.

So I will risk the ire of the libertarians and support. Let the hammering commence....
posted by RichLyon at 1:44 PM on January 30, 2002