Chill my ride? Win a hummer? No thanks!
January 8th, 2008 by jane
Would you be seen driving around in a hummer? With a 2 out of 10 rating by the Environmental Protection Agency, poor fuel efficiency and emitting over 3 times more carbon dioxide than your average car, I would think twice before stepping into one of these gas guzzlers. Hummers are virtually a symbol for everything we shouldn’t be doing, given the outlook for global climate change.
So when Brownes (a West Australian dairy company taken over recently by Fonterra Brands Australia) launched a competition (‘Chill my ride’) giving Australians the opportunity to win one of these destructive military vehicles, I got angry.
The competition is rather ironic as Australia’s dairy industry will suffer from decreased pasture production and lower milk yields resulting from increased heat stress in cattle due to climate change.
My friends and I were compelled to take action in response to this competition and the hummer. Other activists have already taken action by throwing green splotches of paint onto the hummer advertisement in the city centre.
Below are 3 simple things you can do (and that we did) to make a difference in a non violent manner.
1. Stop purchasing brownes dairy products.
2. Let Brownes (Fonterra Brands) know that you are no longer buying their products and why. You can save time by using the letter my friend created by clicking here (feel free to modify it) or create your own.
The letter can be emailed to Paul Murphy (Dairy marketing manager of Fonterra Brands) at paul.murphy@fonterra.com or posted to Paul at 327 Ferntree Gully Road, Mt Waverley, Victoria 3149.
3. Talk to others about the impacts of the hummer and this competition. Encourage them to consider buying other local dairy products instead of Brownes.
Today my friend received a long email response from the marketing manager, Paul Murphy. At the end of his response he stated:
I apologise if our ‘Chill my Ride’ promotion appears to indicate that we are not sensitive to environmental issues. Your feedback certainly prompts us to be more thoughtful when developing promotions in the future.
This ‘Chill my ride’ competition will be over in a few days time but sadly the impacts of the prize hummer and other hummers will be felt within our lifetimes and for the next 200 years at least (that’s how long on average carbon dioxide lasts in the atmosphere for). I can’t help but think to myself, when will the penny drop? When will companies and individuals wake up and see that they have been shooting themselves in the foot? With the power of all our voices, I hope this will be sooner rather than later.
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January 15th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
About this post of yours, Jane, I agree that vehicles like hummers stand for everything that our lifestyles shouldn’t be about! We need to make people widely aware of the sheer ridiculousness of vehicles as status symbols or ego-boosters.
In fact, there is an urgent need to take a stand against personalized transport per se, especially in overcrowded metros such as Mumbai, where I live.
It is urgent to define the optimal ratio of vehicles to roadspace & parking space available, or rather…
No. & Size of vehicles : Sq. metres of road & parking space
Every city can carry only so many cars in terms of its roadspace and parking spaces without becoming increasingly dysfunctional, unliveable and unmotorable. I personally believe that Mumbai’s optimum was reached and crossed back in the early 90s.
Therefore it is necessary to take an unpopular measure and cap the number of vehicles, and roll back by about 10 years. Failing this, the benefits of technology advances will fail to convert into social advances. They will only add unproductivity by clogging the motoring and living spaces of various metros.
Jane, I hope people like us will have the moral courage to say up loud that ‘The emperor has no clothes’. I hope we will have the guts to vociferously lobby for unpopular measures such as defining strict public limits on growth of vehicular populations.
Warmly,
Krish
http://globalwarming.rediffiland.com
http://friendlyghost.rediffiland.com