The Ontario government is supporting a campaign aimed at getting young people to cut energy use with the gutter scrapping title of "Flick Off." The campaign was launched British billionaire Richard Branson who stops at nothing in order to get publicity. This stunt is even worse than his awful attempt at a reality show, anyone remember the 2004 turkey "The Rebel Billionaire"? The tongue-in-cheek campaign alludes to a four-letter word and the logo uses a typeface that makes the capital letters "L" and "I" look like a "U."
On the website homepage, a call to action says: "We need you to FLICK OFF, and tell everyone you know to FLICK OFF. The more you do it, the cooler it gets. Apparently they mean the planet. "The campaign's website uses such phrases as "Go flick yourself," and "Are we flicked?" to punch up their double meanings.
The answer to the second question if your the ad agency is yes their a bunch of flickin' idiots if they think this campaign is appropriate for viewing by children.
In another bonehead move by government officials, this time the City of Toronto who refused to pick up 12,000 spent batteries collected by 500 Grade 7 and 8 students in Scarborough during a clean up the environment collection drive.
The science teacher who runs the environment club, says she called Toxics Taxi – the city's free pick-up service for hazardous waste expecting praise for her young student efforts – only to be told by a staff person that the service is for residences only. Because they are considered an institution the city refused to pick up the batteries.
That left the teacher and students frustrated with a government headed by a mayor who erroneously claims Toronto to be the greenest city in the world. Their is very little green left in mudville. The teacher punctuated her frustration by pointing out the obvious to anyone except the brain drains at city hall. The batteries are from homes, to which the city staff person countered, "No, it's an institution."
A student wrote an insightful email to his local councillor, Brian Ashton, in March to air his concerns. "If we just threw the batteries in the garbage, they would be sent to landfills and over time, they would start leaking into rivers and oceans, which could cause major acid rain, which is very harmful to the world," he wrote. Ashton at first offered the lame excuse of not receiving the email. Then tried to cover his lie when pressured saying he would make sure the batteries are collected and that the club receives a $250 cheque from the city budget.
I hope these kids passion to save the environment continues and one of them takes the torch from David Suzuki some day and continues the fight to change the attitude of people who continue to destroy the planet all because it would mean loss of money for corporate and government misers if we made products that lasted forever instead of ending up in a landfill.
Later,
Kenaz
