Environmentally Virtuous

I saw one of these new “clean energy” ads last night on TV and I have to admit: I was very soothed by it. I felt cleaner just participating in the commercial and, since I nodded my head right along with the rest of the TV zombies out there, I consider myself a participant.

The commercial opens up with a bunch of tweet-tweet nerdy upbeat music, then they have a well-dressed paragon of environmental championship explain to you how clean this company’s revolutionary new energy product is. Then, they hit you with the bombshell revelation of this groundbreaking new technology. Know what it is?

Natural Gas.

Apparently – they’ve just discovered it.

Nevermind that Canada quite literally BURNS as oilwell waste enough of this stuff every day to heat Minnesota for 3 months – or that I already use it to run my grill and dryer; this company still felt the need to advertise it. I’ve known about it for years, mind you, but I reckon they’re just catching on. It’s like some idiot in marketing went “Wait! We sell NATURAL GAS?!?!?! I HAVE TO TELL SOMEONE ABOUT THIS.”

It makes me furious. I wasted 45 seconds of my life watching an advertisement for something I already buy!

But that’s not the worst part – I’m sitting there nodding my head in agreement with the ad’s virtuous greenie – he’s listing out head-throbbing statistics on how fast we’re all going straight to hell, but at the same time he’s teasing me with the promise of environmental salvation. I know some kind of solution MUST be on the horizon or he wouldn’t be talking his grinning head off on tv. So, in a rising crescendo of hope and virtue he lays his big selling point on me: “Natural gas!!! (tweet tweet tweeetttt, upbeat music, birds chirp, lions and lambs cavort in the background)…..NAAATURALL GASSSS!!!! Its 50% cleaner than…..."

COAL

SERIOUSLY?!?!?!??!?! 50% CLEANER THAN COAL?!?!?!?! AAACKKK!!!!

That’s C O A L - the single filthiest substance in the world. Who even measures that? HOW do you measure that? More importantly, WHY do you measure that?

If I ran the networks the next advertisement would just say in block print:

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE