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This post is written for young people of all countries, but particularly those from America and the industrialized nations, whose personal and lifestyle decisions can start to reshape our energy economy. It’s also targeted at those corporations that market their products and services to that younger generation—specifically American Express, which is currently running one of the most irresponsible ad campaigns I have ever seen. In content, in meaning, and in all specifics, the American Express ad sends the clear, deeply corrupt message to young people that thoughtlessly increasing their carbon footprint is just fine. They should pull the ad and apologize.
Laid up
recently by a dread disease, I have been watching a little more daytime TV than
is good for the average idiot (the proper amount is none). It was not long before I saw the American
Express ad. The protagonist is a good looking, redheaded, longhaired
20-something guy with no strings attached. His life seems to be about catching
the next big wave in Maui, snowboarding a blizzard on Mt. Fuji, globetrotting
from the Orient to Norway to the Rockies, always chasing the next extreme sport
thrill. Distance is not a factor. Live for the pleasure of the moment—that’s
what it’s all about.
Moving on relentlessly, with his gear and his laptop, our guy uses his American Express Card to make it all happen. The credit card becomes his genie, answering his every wish—his magic carpet, transporting him magically to any place he chooses. The ad traces his globetrotting; from place to place with conventional arrows like in travelogues. At each stop, he falls in with a similar group of young people, male and female, different nationalities. They don’t really know each other except through common participation in this enjoyable fantasy of freedom from restraint and responsibility.
To seek personal pleasure by flying around the globe on a credit card doesn’t take into account the real damage to the global climate done by aviation. Much of the carbon pollution from aviation is justified by the need for global commerce and trade, plus tourism and military. It’s going to be exquisitely difficult, at best, to slow down air travel’s contribution to global warming. Selling binge flying to young people is exactly what we don’t need right now, when global public opinion is actually showing a willingness by most people to begin to change their ways and the energy economy is slowly coming around to action.
What responsible companies should be selling is the good news that a young guy with spare dough and a sense of adventure can have a really cool lifestyle without increasing pressure on the global environment—without helping to cause the extreme weather events that may be fun for him, but disastrous for the victims who actually live in those countries, and who can’t just pack up their sports gear and credit card and move on.
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