My story today on changing out my incandescent recessed lighting for high efficiency LED units couldn’t have come too soon. I don’t have to worry now.
This video below is one of the most talked about Superbowl commercials today. You have to watch it more than once to catch all the visual gags in it.
Watch the Audi commercial featuring Cheap Trick, the Green Police, and the Audi A3 TDI® clean diesel, Green Car Journals 2010 Green Car of the Year®.
Here’s another variant with a styrofoam sniffing anteater:
There’s a whole series of these which you can see at the “Green Police” channel on YouTube here
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H.R.2857
GIVE Act (Reported in House)
Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, or the GIVE Act
SEC. 152. ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL CIVILIAN COMMUNITY CORPS PROGRAM
SEC. 1506. TRAINING.
including a focus on energy conservation, environmental stewardship or conservation, infrastructure improvement, urban and rural development, or disaster preparedness needs
I enjoyed what I took to be mocking the greens, but it didn’t make me want to buy an Audi. That’s a confusing message!
Scarlet Pumpernickel (01:09:04) :
“Since when is DIESEL clean?? It produces the most POLLUTION and HEALTH problem and accounts for 80% of smog. The world is nuts!”
Scarlet,
http://www.greencar.com/articles/difference-between-diesel-gasoline-engines.php
“Many Americans still envision a diesel-powered vehicle belching out clouds of black smoke. But if that’s your view of diesel vehicles now, then you have a lot to learn.”
“Computerized, turbocharged diesel engines equipped with emission control devices have pretty much taken care of this very obvious pollution problem.”
“With the growing attention being devoted to C02 reductions these days, not to mention legislation that’s sure to drive the auto industry toward higher efficiency and lower C02-emitting vehicles, diesel is sure to have a promising future.”
Incandescent light bulb sales have been banned in Germany.
Styrofoam is banned in Seattle.
You can also be fined in Seattle if excessive amounts of recyclables are found in your garbage.
Butch (07:41:07) :
I enjoyed what I took to be mocking the greens, but it didn’t make me want to buy an Audi. That’s a confusing message!
That sums it up for me too. I get the satire. I don’t get how Audi figures to sell green cars with it.
Mike Ramsey
@old construction worker (04:43:05) :
“RichieP (01:26:16) :
This is, I repeat, no joke – it’s coming to a republic near you soon.’
Why do you keep electing the same type of politician. It sound like you could use your Tea Party Movement.”
*All our main political parties share the same agw ideology and you couldn’t put a fag paper between them on this issue. The BNP (fascists) and UKIP (anti-EU no hopers) are the only serious dissenters and neither have the remotest chance of having any major (or minor for that matter) influence on our impending election. And I’m certainly not intending to vote for “traditional” Nazis! The saddest part is that in the UK, unlike the States, a Tea Party movement would require people to get up from Strictly Come Dancing on the TV and actually do something. Not a major facet of the average Brit’s life at the moment, given how utterly turned off politics we are. Also, most average folk are deeply indoctrinated by government propaganda and so don’t give much thought to these issues. Resigned acceptance is where the masses are, though it may change, but slowly. I hope so.
@Spenc Canada (23:30:40) :
“My niece and I were watching the game and she was flabbergasted when she saw these ads. For the first time the issue came home to her. ”
I believe that’s exactly what the ad was meant to do. Audi is on the side of liberty. They know that if the Greens do come into ascendancy to this degree, the issue will not be “this car or that” but “no car for you, comrade”. I can’t shake the suspicion that Audi is already stretched to the limit trying to meet all the useless regulations they must operate under; any more and even the big corporations like themselves will fold.
Oh, and I forgot to add: If I needed a car right now, and could afford a new one, I’d buy an Audi, and point to this ad as why. This is one of the bravest ads I’ve seen.
Hey, before it was revealed to be an ad for Audi, I thought it was promo for California!!! 🙂
r (06:48:00) :
… but I buy and horde incandescent light bulbs.
A single compact florescent light bulb has enough mercury in it to contaminate 6000 gallons of drinking water. The ones I had that were supposed to last 10 years lasted one and a half
Drom where did all mercury come from?….from Jupiter, Mars, a proxima centauri planet?…NO…it came from Mother Gaia, and to mother Gaia it will return, btw as all Gaia worshipers too. (or rather to hell?)
Zeke the Sneak (07:36:47) That is why, in history channel, in dicovery channel and through all progressive MSM preach about the End of the World, about armageddon, about mayan and hopi’s prophesies. YOU WANT those scenarios or you are hunching them as near possibilities, but, again, the USA or UK are not the world!: YOU have been selected to disappear from Gaia’s face, and you are already in such a process, thanks to greenies. The only way out left for you is to stop them right now.
When they announced the introduction of buses as mass transportation in our community a few years ago, I dreaded the smell and pollution that I thought they would cause. However, there has been next to no smell or pollution coming from these buses, even though they are obviously diesel-powered. I am quite impressed by the advances in cleaning up diesel!
I think this advertisement will be an interesting microscope into the world views of the people who see it.
I think you will find vastly differing responses to the message. As noted here on this blog, most of the hard core AGW “green” movement folks seem to have poorly developed senses of irony and humor. They will see the commercial as a view of the way the world should be and not find it funny or satirical. It will reinforce their world view that this is the way the world “ought to be”.
Meanwhile the folks who do not buy into the AGW movement will find it both hysterically funny and at a deep level disturbing as a glimpse of what the world could turn into if the AGW/Green movement is not throttled back.
For people in that camp (or susceptible to this line of thought) it will be a wake up call satire, that as mentioned above will make some folks do a double take, and start to ponder where this never ending parade of new regulations are heading. Some will think it far fetched until people in the UK point out that in some respects this world is already in the making.
The third group are the Yuppie players who are the natural market for the high performance Audie A3. They will see it for exactly what it is, a pitch that they can come off as a financially successful, intelligent, green environmentally aware individual (chick magnet) and still have a high performance car. Sort of like a tax shelter scheme, just a Machiavellian way to play the game and get what they really want and screw the green agenda.
I thought it was marvelous satire, and will have a strong negative impact on the Green movement (at least here in the U.S. ——– It might also increase, black market hordes of 100w incandescent bulbs, and shotgun shell sales as well 😉
Larry
brc, re: Prius drivers
I drive a Prius. I bought it because I liked the technology and I enjoy getting high MPGs. But, I must say, you are completely correct about the attitude of a typical Prius owner.
I used to participate in a Prius message forum on the internet. These guys are extremely overzealous, hysterical environmentalists. They count toilet flushes in order to save water, they spend thousands on appliances that will save them only dollars per year. In essence their environmentalism is more wasteful than the vast majority of the population.
Further, when it comes to global warming, they are by far the most thick headed, anti-intellectual people I’ve ever met. For instance, one user actually believed that when water freezes into ice, the ice stores energy. He feared that when the ice melted, it would release all of that energy stored up in the ice and further the effects of “global warming.”
I saved a screenshot of this because I have never seen someone confuse natural laws so poorly:
http://www.theclimateconspiracy.com/files/images/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-17-at-6.31.10-PM-Jan-17.png
The same user subsequently posted an image of global temperatures and was puzzled why Australia was showing such warm temperatures. He failed to understand that Australia was in the southern hemisphere and that their seasons are approximately opposite of ours.
With Prius drivers, if you don’t worship CO2, then you are, of course, a denier, a flat-earther, etc. I’ve since been banned by the moderators because I asked for that stuff that alarmists hate: evidence.
It’s enough to make we want to push my car off a cliff. 🙂
r:
Much as I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, I am inclined to agree with you. For the greens, there are no technological solutions to any problem that are acceptable. The only acceptable route is to lower our standards of living dramatically. We must reduce, reuse and recycle, even if, as in Toronto’s case, most of the diverted waste apparently ends up in the dump anyway. I’m an avid recycler, hoping that the recycled waste will end up being used, but realize that this is in truth a pipe dream. Toronto is willing to ship its waste to Michigan, but generating energy from waste via in incinerator – a nice technological solution – is impossible because it would generate too much carbon dioxide.
In the meantime we have Dalton McGuinty, our Premier, committing Ontario to a future of “green energy” including a wind farm 2 km away from where I live. A contact with Samsung will create “green jobs” but will allow Samsung to market green energy, which we will be obliged to buy, at very profitable margins. Ontario is about to go the way of Spain and Germany, but McGuinty is duping Ontarians with promises that we’ll develop “green leadership” and will be selling our technology to the U.S. because of Obama’s cap-and-trade legislation. The sooner that falls, the better for us all!
Incidentally, for two years now the government and Ontario hydro have been trying to get Ontarians to hand over control of their electric meters to Ontario Hydro, so that they can turn off our air-conditioners at peak energy use times so as to conserve electricity. The bribe amount is that consumers get a one-time $25 rebate. In the meantime, our energy generating capacity is at early 1980 levels and there is no real urgency on the part of government to increase capacity, since the greens are convinced that making us all conserve is the way to go (our population has tripled since then). Urban dupes go along with this rubbish, but I worry that the green gestapo will one day make this remote control of our energy consumption mandatory for our own good!
Go Green Team!
Are some posters on here Stupid?
This Advert puts the Greens in the place of the establishment, and Audi drivers as the rebels. Which way do Audi think the prevailing fashion is blowing?
Hint Green != Cool (hehe).
Apparently, Audi also put out a Green Police quiz so participants can see how green they score. This confirms the menace some of us detected in the Superbowl ad!
hotrod ( Larry L ) (08:35:54) :
Larry,
I think you hit the nail on the head.
Mike Ramsey
The Audi ads are a spoof TODAY. Next year they may not be funny at all. They could be reality. The book, 1984 has been cited already …
Part 1, Chapter 2
It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which The Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak — ‘child hero’ was the phrase generally used — had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police.
Just substitute “Thought Police” for “Green Police.”
You can read the whole book here:
http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/0.html
Clive
Hilarious ad! Well done. Nice to see Madison Avenue finally catching up with the great comedian that warned of this 18 years ago:
Respect to Audi for originality.
This is very clever advertisement. It matters to Audi not a jot whether it is frightening or laughable – just consider the number of people who, thanks to the internet, are now discussing it. Brilliant!
The AGW social movement brought us perilously close to the absurdity of that Audi commercial.
What’s Audi’s message then? Proud to team up with the Khmer Verts? Is that it.
It’s good because it works on several levels. It horrifies those who’ve had similar experiences with green police-type bureaucrats, it pokes fun at the greenie mentality and likens it to fascism, it makes people laugh, and it sells a good fast car that runs on a petroleum product but doesn’t foul the air so much. As ExxonMobil said in a statement recently, everyone wants to reduce emissions.
I particularly like the final scene with cops being busted and clearly outranked by the green police for using styrofoam cups.