I was excited to attend the Lexus “Darker Side of Green” event with many other colleagues in the green movement including Randy (a climate change scientist), Anna (A scientist and plastic pollution ocean researcher) and a few journalist friends from green media. Lexus has such a great history in hosting green events, we thought this one would be great as well.
Here was the invite:
“You are invited to the Darker Side of Green, where you will be treated to an intriguing series of mind-numbingly thought provoking events. In this series Lexus brings you the “green issues” debates, where a skeptic and proponent of all things eco semantically duke it out for ultimate green, or dark green, supremacy. Each event will include a 30-minute debate, followed by a chic – music saturated – cocktail reception. This series is presented by Lexus, with libations provided compliments of Patrón Spirits for your responsible enjoyment.” www.lexusdebates.com
As we entered we were offered a drink by Patron in a big plastic cup with a two plastic straws! As you know, I am plastic free so I made my way up to the bar, again only serving plastic cups and straws.
The event didn’t get much better, as we waited to hear the presentations about climate change. I think my friend Randy summed it up best:
“The whole thing mostly just made you ask, “Why?,” and unfortunately, Samrin was the wrong choice for this venue. Had it been the Harvard Club in New York City she would have cleaned the floor with this lout. But it wasn’t. It was frickin’ Hollywood. I’ve been to 20 years of these celebrity/alcohol driven, hipster, issue-oriented events in Hollywood (btw, just to underscore the TOTAL hipness of it all, Ashton Kucher was there). If anyone decides to take part in one, please speak to me first. The people are rude. It’s a bar, they come to drink. There’s only one sort of speaker who can be effective in such a venue, and that’s a veteran stand-up comic who knows how to deal with hecklers and proceed with mostly one-liners. Which just reverts back to my advice a couple months ago about the idea of “debating” climate skeptics in public — leave it to the professional comedians like Bill Maher. Highly educated people are at a distinct handicap.
Overall, it was an utterly ridiculous event that at times seemed comparable to the Circus Circus scene in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” And also felt one step closer to Mike Judges’ visionary masterpiece, “Idiocracy.” Read more…
I don’t think this will help Lexus sell cars or get in with a younger demographic. Not sure they read the trades, someone should tell their agency that the young and hip and the ones who vote with their dollar and live a clean green life!
This event was produced by a well known climate change denier: Inform Ventures
http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/01/12/peer-to-peer-review-part-iii-how-climategate-marks-the-maturing-of-a-new-science-movement/
They used Lexus money and platform to create a debate where there is none. Lexus let them do it… in the name of a hybrid?! They roped all these stars into believing they were supporting ‘green’ but what they were supporting was ‘debate’… there is no debate… just fact.
Lexus should be ashamed and the green community should let them know.