Blogs / Discoblog

Need to orchestrate a media stunt to gather attention for your cause? Here’s what others have tried:

1. Glue yourself to the prime minister. On the positive side, it’s sure to get plenty of press coverage, like 24-year-old Dan Glass garnered today after slathering his left hand in adhesive and trying to glue himself to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (Glass was protesting a potential expansion of Heathrow Airport.) On the negative side, even Super Glue takes a moment to dry, and Brown was able to wrest himself free of Glass’s gooey grip. Glass later tried to glue himself to the gates of 10 Downing Street, and that didn’t work, either.

2. Try to bring sex dolls into the Philippines. Speaking of failure, this is a surefire recipe. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals tried it in December; their intention was to protest Kentucky Fried Chicken by putting the dolls under a banner reading “KFC Blows.” Only one thing stood in their way: Filipino customs officials confiscated their dolls.

3. Dress up. The Arctic Front sends out volunteers in polar bear costumes to protest oil drilling in Canada. They even have their own Facebook page and photo gallery.

4. Dress down. Upset at the number of trees felled to make Victoria’s Secret catalogs, ForestEthics protesters showed up at the company’s cross-country tour in 2004 wearing angel wings, lingerie, and wielding chainsaws.

5. Don’t bother dressing at all. Hundreds of nude cyclists rolled around the U.K. and mainland Europe last summer to promote biking as an eco-friendly form of transportation. Presumably they had no trouble staying cool, but what about the chafing?

(more…)

Maybe they should call it “soggy old England.”

Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry published a survey this week finding that U.K. residents used more water, and cared less about their water waste and pollution, than their Western European counterparts. Only 48 percent of British survey subjects said they showered for less than five minutes, as opposed to 59 percent for both the French and Spanish.

As always, it’s hard to know how accurately the survey statistics reflect real life. The French and Spanish appear to be the most water-conscious Western Europeans, but knowing that you’re wasting water isn’t the same as stopping your waste.

(more…)

Here’s another case from the “pitting one animal against another” file: Japanese conservationists want to use bees to protect terns from crows.

Seabirds called little terns nest near Tokyo’s airport after migrating north from Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. But National Geographic reports that are area’s crows are bad neighbors, prone to attacking and killing young terns.

(more…)