The stupid, it burns. #iceclimb is probably the dumbest and most transparent ploy for donations ever by Greenpeace. They say:
This building – modelled on a shard of ice – sits slap bang in the middle of Shell’s three London headquarters. They don’t want us talking about their plan to drill in the Arctic.
Gosh, drilling in the Arctic? Who would have thought that had never been tried before? Yet somehow they’d convinced 25,000+ weak minded individuals to sign up for mind numbing spam and to be solicited for donations. Get a load of the screencap from the web page:
Greenpeace thinks it was designed to look like ice, but they can’t even get that right. Wikipedia says
The Shard, also referred to as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge and formerly London Bridge Tower, is a 72-storey skyscraper in London
…
The Shard was designed in 2000 by Renzo Piano, an Italian architect previously best known for creating Paris’s Pompidou Centre in collaboration with Britain’s Richard Rogers. That year, the London-based entrepreneur Irvine Sellar decided to redevelop Southwark Towers, a 1970s office block next to London Bridge station, and flew to Berlin in March 2000 to meet Piano for lunch. According to Sellar, the architect spoke of his contempt for conventional tall buildings during the meal, before flipping over the restaurant’s menu and sketching an iceberg-like sculpture emerging from the River Thames.[18] He was inspired by the railway lines next to the site, the London spires depicted by the 18th-century Venetian painter Canaletto, and the masts of sailing ships. Piano worked with Broadway Malyan to develop the Shard’s design.
The Shard in 2013 (image: Wikipedia)
Note the first part. It isn’t referred to as “the Berg” by Londoners, but “the Shard” and also “He was inspired by the railway lines next to the site, the London spires depicted by the 18th-century Venetian painter Canaletto, and the masts of sailing ships.”
Apparently the general public doesn’t see an iceberg there. But hey, whatever works for marketing to idiots.
If you want a laugh, watch here: http://iceclimb.savethearctic.org/
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Gordon Bennet.
“Greenpeace thinks it was designed to look like ice, but they can’t even get that right. ”
OK, even according to the Wikipedia piece you quote denouncing the claim of ice it states:
“The architect spoke of his contempt for conventional tall buildings during the meal, before flipping over the restaurant’s menu and sketching an iceberg-like sculpture emerging from the River Thames.”
Yeah, because something that is designed to be “iceberg like” cannot be anything like ice, can it?
I am normally a very loyal follower of this blog, and although I oppose the neo-terrorists of Greenpeace with every fibre of my being, in this one tiny aspect of their claim, they appear to be correct. and you cannot believe how much that annoys me!
REPLY: Feel free to be annoyed as you wish, but please note the first part, it isn’t referred to as “the Berg” by Londoners, but “the Shard”. I could also claim it looks like a missile-pop if I wanted to come up with a marketing scheme to get donations from the gullible. – Anthony
From the Telegraph coverage:
“Ambulance crews are on standby at the base of the tower, including a specially trained SWAH (safe working at height) team. ”
Good job they might not be needed urgently elsewhere in the capital city, eh? It’s not as if we only have just the one skyscraper, or elevated chances of someone needing an ambulance on such a hot day is it?
Honestly. You really couldn’t make this up.
As if they need the money with Soros et al supporting their effort.
Yet somehow they’d convinced 25,000+ weak minded individuals
As I keep saying, 97% of Brits are thick as two short planks and 47% of voting Americans.
The following is from the BBC web site
“One climber, Victoria Henry, 32, a Canadian living in Hackney, said: “We’ll try to hang a huge art installation 310m up that will make Shell think twice before sending their rigs into the Arctic.”
Words fail me!
REPLY: can’t wait to hear “deploy the art weapon!” over the radio. 😉 – Anthony
Tagline revision suggestion:
1 Skyscraper, 6 Women, No Clue. What would you do to raise money for charlatans under the pretense of saving the arctic?
The individuals who pulled off this amazing act are certainly dumb and subservient, but they have admirable wall-climbing skills. Give them credit for a show of human abilities. Sometimes we need a demo of what each of us (in theory) can do.
The ambulance parked below was certainly just a gesture of courtesy. Nobody falling from that height needs an ambulance.
Oh come on, everyone knows that skyscrapers are all massive cultural phallic symbols. That’s what they teach in all of the post-modern sociology courses, and anyone with a PhD in Wimmin’s Studies should know that without batting an eyelash.
Anthony, Thank you for your reply I do appreciate the time that you have taken to do so.
I am also very very grateful to you for the enormous time and effort that you put into this very excellent blog, it is a daily visit of mine and I have learned an enormous amount from it and I am sincerely very grateful to you and the other contributors and moderators for this.
However, the ususally very high quality of information in this blog is weakened when you are claiming that they are wrong to think that “the shard” looks like, or is inspired by, ice.
When the designer of the building himself claims it was inspired by ice, and when it can be thought of as looking just as much like shards of broken ice, as shards of broken glass, then yes, they do have a point and you are left looking foolish for laughing at the only correct bit of their, otherwise dubious, claim.
For all the mistakes that Greenpeace makes, why are you trying to attack them for being foolish about the one tiny bit of their protest, which is factually correct?.
I am definately not normally a defender of Greenpeace, as you probably know, which is why I am baffled and somewhat annoyed that something you have posted actually has me defending them.
REPLY: Ken I understand your point, but please see the comment from Anthony Scalzi about the evolution of the building.
“The tower was always likened to a shard of glass, not a shard of ice.”
A casual comparison in Wikipedia is trumped by lack of support in searches and further support in building forums for the glass comparison.
Even the OTT green Guardian doesn’t call it ice or an iceberg: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/11/greenpeace-activists-climb-london-shard
In that article, Greenpeace’s own statement doesn’t even mention ice or iceberg.
They are just spinning imagery for dollars. I stand by my position. – Anthony
“One climber, Victoria Henry, 32, a Canadian living in Hackney”
Oh dear – a recent stunt by an Australian got him deported. Does this numpty read the news?
Apparently they’re pro- Keystone or something.
Greenpeace climbed or tried to climb Sears Tower in Chicago several years ago. It’s a “classic” stunt. When they did it, it convinced me to remove any benefit of doubt about being well motivated because they were demonstrating against coal, oil gas and nuclear. All objection and myopia and no answers.
But for a few minor cosmetic differences it strongly resembles the Transamerica Building in San Francisco
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/pereira/top.jpg
Or from http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/transamerica-pyramid-building-office-san-francisco
http://s3-media3.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/kBX-UhuIWkckCnWhZSALZQ/l.jpg
I’m slightly envious of Greenpeace. I wish I could figure out how to milk money from morons they way they do.
Green Piece …..
Should they not be planting a wind turbine at the top of the phallus? After all, turbines will save the world.
Women climbing a phallic symbol. Andy Warhol would have been proud had he made this one up.
Stephen Richards says:
July 11, 2013 at 6:38 am
“As I keep saying, 97% of Brits are thick as two short planks and 47% of voting Americans.”
That should read “57% of voting Americans”, otherwise how else could you explain the clueless one as our President.
Arrest them, throw them in clink and throw away the key.
It should be pointed out that this is not a Shell building. It is an empty office building which is over a mile away from the Shell Centre.
It is true the people who took place in this protest are idiots. But honestly Anthony, I think you are in danger of jumping the shark on a couple of your posts here. This one and the one on the temperature records at death valley being recorded on different pieces of paper and having very slightly different numbers from each other. I have commented on the death valley post over there.
So on this, I don’t get it, the article says it was designed to look like an iceberg, apparently the designer also had other things in mind also, but so what it was designed to look like an iceberg. Even if it wasn’t why spend so much space on Greenpeace getting it wrong, if they did? Greenpeace gets so many things wrong, you can spend lots of time talking about the bigger issues that Greenpeace gets wrong, why bother with such trivial matters?
“screencap”. Didn’t you omit the “r” 🙂
Does anyone know how the EU commission funnels its money the way of Greenpeace? They’re the only group that is not directly funded by the EU.
http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/european-commission-using-taxpayers%E2%80%99-money-to-fund-groups-that-lobby-for-larger-eu-budgets-and-
Well, my youngest daughter has worked a few years as helicopter pilot at the Alaskan North Slope to bring crew and materials to the drilling/production islands before the Arctic Coast. Which are already there for decades. When I tell that to some Greenpeace member, they don’t believe me. Simply because it is only Shell they put under fire. Not for the first time…
The Brent Spar was 50% Exxon, 50% Shell. They only attacked Shell. Because Shell was so much under pressure, they decided to dismantle it on land. There was proven that Greenpeace was completely wrong and Shell was right about the remaining oil.
The same in Nigeria: every leak (mostly from drilling holes by the extremely poor people to take some oil for self-distilling…) is the fault of Shell. No mention of similar (or worse) leaks from Exxon.
Even at the worst accident in Alaska’s history, the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, Greenpeace was hardly protesting.
Too many coincidences to be just coincidence. Maybe something to do with who sponsors them and who not?
Disclaimer: I haven’t any share in any bussiness, including Shell…
to Ken Hall
I f you still believe what you are saying, it is arcane, but you could go to the original Bloomberg article. It appears as if “iceberg-like” was something added by the imagination of someone other than the architect. Maybe Sellar, as he looked at the thing drawn on the back of a menu. Or the author of the Bloomberg article.
You shouldn’t just make up stuff. eg posting “something that is designed to be “iceberg like”” ,when there is no evidence it was.
I suppose they had to get in quick before it melted.