We’ve seen a lot of stupid videos lately, such as the 10:10 fiasco of blowing up school children because they were ambivalent about reducing their carbon footprint. Now, we are treated to a “behind the scenes” video of how Hyundai shot a commercial for a gasoline powered car, using no gasoline and leaving no carbon footprint. There’s all sorts of clever human powered props, and the whole set resembles some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption. But the real punch line is: they had some guys push the car to get it going for one scene.
Honestly, I don’t see the point. It seems beyond ridiculous to make a zero carbon footprint commercial for cars that use gasoline. Note all the trucks, rental, and equipment vans surrounding the commercial shoot, now how did all those get there? Pedal power? Watch this video:
Here’s another video aptly titled “Creating the illusion”:
And yet another on the alternative power sources:
Nice, but the thing that makes this a candidate for the FAIL blog is this: transporting all this equipment to the shoot couldn’t be done “carbon free”.
Here’s the final product, the actual commercial:
If they really wanted to create an “illusion” you’d think they would have had the good sense to keep the U-haul, Budget, and Ryder rental trucks out of the video scenes. But, when you are on a mission, details like this apparently don’t matter. On the plus side, at least they didn’t blow up anything or anyone.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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Where’s Monty Python when you need them.
Human power is not carbon-free.
Maybe it’s some sort of Korean humor. Razzing the gai-jin and all that. If watch the clip as a satire, it really works (the green consultant was my favorite).
Zero carbon footprint my A**e
Talk about cherry picking the data, only measure while the camera is running. What about the hundred or so people who all drove to the set. The eco-trailer I’m sure has a nice big diesel engine. All that was saved here was a few kWr to run the equipment. Probably the worst part of the Ad was the 4% they gave to Al Gore’s slush fund as carbon credits.
Age of stupid? Yes.
I’d like to see Caterpillar make a commerical on how they helped dig a canal, mine, etc with a no carbon foot print. You can see it all now men standing around with shovels digging and some others with baskets carrying the dirt up out of the hole.
By the way does’t all the CO2 being breathed out because of extra effort count? More food will have to be grown to account for the used calories.
For pity sakes this is silly.
Wow. Just wow.
I’ve long held that the Greenies are religious zealots, and this … just about takes the cake. Before I’m branded a AGW-denialist or something – there are things meantioned that are of benefit: No plastic drinking bottles. Absolutely! I’m sick of the fvqqing plastic water bottle fetish. And, reducing trash. Again – I’m for it. I hope they rented a portable dishwasher (they exist), and a bunch of cheap-ass chinatte plates, metal utensils, and banned outside food. That’s how groups can be efficient.
Unfortunately, the zealotry angle got to them. Pedal-powered plant movers. Puhleeze. People riding bikes to charge very “hip” car batteries wrapped in Web2.0 mid-tone orange plastic housings. Puhleeze. Solar cells! And all the U-Haul trucks to get the stuff there. Did the actors and helpers stay in tents? They’re VERY “low carbon footprint”. Did they abandon showers (huge “carbon” sinks), washing hands in warmed water, taking cabs, eating heated food? Go entirely vegetarian? Ya see, hot water, cabs, well-cooked food and especially meat-based foods are huge carbon sources.
But their point – their only real point – was that the ingenuitive minds of the Green Bank Generation (21-39) can collectively do their Rahs and Oohs around an abundant theology of Greenness. They can chart their progress (that takes a whole person, costs be damned), a whole bunch of extra equipment (requiring diesel to get it there, and a whole lot more people, costs be damned). All this for a car commercial. A car that, prior to its “life on the road”, is built from an industrial infrastructure that is estimated to require nearly as much “carbon” in manufacturing the stuff, as the car itself will require in its first 5 years on the road. The greenest solution? NO CAR.
=GoatGuy=
You’re missing the point, Anthony. Ads of this sort aren’t made to impress the punters or to sell the product, they’re made by artists to impress their peers. If they happen to sell a few widgets, well so much the better. (Although for some directors, selling product is a black mark.)
Why? How could it be cost effective? Or like most things “green,” is this a situation in which costs do not matter?
Why not just buy carbon offsets?
At $.05 per ton, it’d only cost a few bucks to make a traditional car commercial carbon neutral.
In a nutshell, this is the whole “green” thing.
It’s not about actually doing something, it’s about the appearance. And if you don’t like it then you must support dumping raw chemicals into pristine rivers too.
Any guesses how many resources are used to make reusable grocery bags, vs how many plastic bags they replace? How about the obvious stupidity of ignoring the manufacturing emissions on a hybrid car, as if tailpipe emissions are the only metric?
It’s actually sad… when I was traveling regularly I used to ask for the rental Hyundai’s… they were nice little cars. Too bad they fall apart after just a few short years.
Oh my, so they’re making a commercial to encourage the purchase of a gasoline drinking, CO2 belching, internal combustion automobile. And trying to convince people they care about the environment and lie about being carbon free. I’ll have to have a few beers to mull this over. Do people really buy based on disingenuous advertisements? Its a blatant lie on several levels!
With all that extra manpower and additional set design required, I would bet that this was an expensive production compared to traditional productions. I wonder how much those guys were getting paid to ride bicycles to charge batteries.
Our local airport proudly advertises that it is “carbon positive”. That takes the biscuit.
If I see nonsense like this on a product at the supermarket, I put it back on ths shelf.
All the best.
They’re awesome! They saved 98% of their carbon!
They spent 300% more money on those ads.
Brilliant!
PS… one of the most amazing things I learned today – from a neighbor:
The amount of energy that it takes to safely can food en masse is 97% less than to cook the same food by traditional techniques on the stove. Yep. The reason is because virtually all canning operations recycle the heat-of-preparation efficiently. The canning materials (plastic-coated steel) is also nicely recycleable.
Here’s another cooking fact. Compared to electric stoves, a gas stove loses over 75% of the thermal energy of the burning natural gas. The coupling of burned-gas to pot-bottom is terrible. So, no matter how “efficient” gas is supposed to be, it hardly compares to electrical. To bad electricity “per therm” costs so much. EVEN if one includes the thermodynamic inefficiency of converting heat-to-electricity (65% losses), electricity still wins. The ultimate? Microwave. Nearly 95% efficient in converting electricity to heat-in-food.
=GoatGuy=
Well I’m sure they all felt really good about themselves. Most manure salesmen do.
HAHA I always thought the same thing whenever I saw that commercial. How did they get everyone there and all the equipment?
No link to the commercial itself?
Apparently there was not only a full film production crew, but a separate crew to take the two documentary shorts about the making of the commercial — maybe two separate crews. I’m losing track, but that’s a LOT of resources going into this one commercial.
Hmmm, I wonder how the CO2 production of the lungs of the crankers compares to that of a car gently sailing through an actual countryside? Have they accounted for the difference between the CO2 sequestration rates of REAL trees versus the pictures of trees on their giant, uber-expensive carbon-intensive vinyl phototransfer? I’m intrigued by that conveyer of shrubs. Did they kill live carbon-consuming plants to make that thing, or did they use fake plants manufactured out of plastic with a carbon-intensive process?
As an exercise in cinematography I think this is really intriguing and interesting in and of itself. As an exercise in ecological sensitivity it’s a giant greenwashing FAIL — the REAL illusion is the illusion that any reduction in harm to the environment is evident here. In fact, measured by expenditure of resources, human, financial and environmental, this is clearly far more costly than a basic on-site, point-and-shoot-take-back-to-the-studio-and-edit commercial. If they want to be REALLY ecofriendly, why not render everything digitally in 3D from scratch on a single desktop computer?
REPLY: Thanks, added the actual commercial – Anthony
This is par for the course. No one should be surprised by this. It is what is expected. Until someone tops the idea that building mirrors in space to “cool” the Earth is a legitamite idea, I will be somewhat immune.
John
Blazingly stupid.
Human powered is not carbon free. It might be minimal if the people aren’t breathing.. One little gas engine is a lot more environmentally friendly than this huge mob of bozos making and using all these props.
They should be absolutely embarassed. All for 3000 Watts when the sun shines. A gas powered generator would have a lot less negative impact than this mess.
Riding a bicycle has a carbon footprint which depends on what you eat:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/08/carbon-footprint-cycling
Since I do not plan to replace my present vehicle with a Hyundai anyway, they can spend as much money doing as many silly commercials as they wish…
Is this an example of the Car Not cycle or the Auto cycle? I forget my thermo after all these years. [Just kidding, I have a copy of “Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire: And Other Papers on the Second Law of Thermodynamics” by Carnot et al. on my reading table. And yes I know it is the Otto cycle.]
Don’t people exhale a lot of CO2 when they’re pushing cars? Think of the methane released from the cows that fed those hungry workers.
I give them serious props for reducing solid waste on the set by 3/4 if that is actually true. Film sets produce massive amounts of garbage and I am happy to see this being addressed with an emphasis on waste reduction, reuse and composting.