Good Morning Lowcountry
Fossil fools
Alliance for Planet Earth, an environmental group at the College of Charleston, is asking like-minded souls to dress as a clown and come to Marion Square for Fossil Fools Day on April 1 (that's next Tuesday).
Fossil Fools Day is an international day of protest focused on climate change and targeting the fossil fuel industry.
Events being planned include Critical Mass bike rides, green job rallies, alternative energy fairs and expos, and protests and civil disobedience at power plants, energy companies and land developers' offices.
Why? Organizers say, in a North American press release: "Leading climate scientists warn that dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions must begin immediately to avoid catastrophic climatic shifts, yet most policy proposals consist primarily of goals that are decades off.
"Fossil Fools Day will bring about creative, and often confrontational, actions reflecting this urgency. Activists will be demanding a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and toward the localization of energy, food, and economic systems for a just, sustainable future."
The Lowcountry group organizing for Fossil Fools Day will protest Santee Cooper's proposal to build a $1 billion coal-fired power plant in the Pee Dee. They will meet in Marion Square on April Fool's Day from 1-3 p.m. ... dressed as clowns.
If you fear clowns, don't even drive by. If you agree that we on Planet Earth are all fossil fools, grab a mask, a wig or a pair of oversized shoes and join them.
The preceding was a serious environmental notice.
Fool me
April Fool's Day is not one of GMLc's favorite occasions. We've been fooled on April Fool's Day more times that we like to remember. We can't really decide why it is a designated occasion, since nobody appreciates being made a fool. Its origins were with the medieval French (and who wants to go there?). In France, the person fooled is known as poisson d'avril (April fish), probably a reference to the sun leaving the constellation Pisces, and the French celebrated by putting dead fish on their friends' backs. Fun, huh?
Among some of the top April 1 hoaxes are:
--In 1985, Sports Illustrated wrote about a rookie pitcher named Sidd Finch who could reportedly throw a baseball at 168 mph.
--In 1996, Taco Bell announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. When asked about it at a press conference, White House press secretary Mike McCurry said that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
--In 1977, the (U.K.) Guardian published a special supplement about San Serriffe, a small country made up of several semi- colon-shaped islands in the Indian Ocean. The two largest were Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse; the capital was Bodoni, and the leader of the country was General Pica. Readers called for more information on the travel spot, not the fonts.
--In 1998, a newsletter item in Alabama went viral on e-mail around the world with the report that the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.
--Also in 1998, Burger King announced a new "Left-Handed Whopper" designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. What a whopper.
--And in 2006, staff and readers of Esquire magazine (including GMLc) were taken in by a story about a rich, eccentric Texan named Irwin Leba who proposed that the government weigh and tax people on their body fat.
GMLc
Call 937-5564. Write gmlc@postandcourier.com. Find the blog at gmlc.typepad.com.
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Comments
This article has 3 comment(s)
Posted by hmcleod on March 27, 2008 at 10:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
tripsa, thanks for commenting. you are right -- there are scientists who say global warming is not from man-made causes.
here is a story on a conference they had recently:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...
but i think you are probably wrong that there are just as many of them as those who have studied and found much evidence man-made carbon emissions causing climate chage.
Harriet McLeod
Good Morning Lowcountry
Posted by rollo on March 27, 2008 at 11:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Clowns" is an excellent theme for this exhibition, man-made climate change is the greatest hoax ever purveyed on the public at large. And it will be the most expensive.
Posted by rollo on March 27, 2008 at 11:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If the "greenhouse gas" theory is correct, the upper troposphere would be warming. The global warming climate models rely on this phenomena. It has not happened! The models are a fraud, as is the theory.