Early this morning, nearly a million New Yorkers were stunned by the appearance of a “special edition” New York Post blaring headlines that their city could face deadly heat waves, extreme flooding, and other lethal effects of global warming within the next few decades. The most alarming thing about it: the news came from an official City report.
Distributed by over 2000 volunteers (including a SPACE Member or two) throughout New York City, the paper has been created by The Yes Men and a coalition of activists as a wake-up call to action on climate change. It appears one day before a UN summit where Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will push 100 world leaders to make serious commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Ban has said that the world has “less than 10 years to halt (the) global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet,” adding that Copenhagen is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
We’re pleased as punch to announce that SPACE will be screening the Yes Men’s latest film, The Yes Men Fix The World on October 27th and 28th, and will be joined after the screening on the 27th by one of the Yes Men (Andy or Mike, we’re not sure which) for what should prove to be an unforgettable Q&A (tickets go on sale today via our Brown Paper Tickets site and we recommend buying them in advance as we’re pretty sure they’re going to sell clean out).
The Yes Men are anti-corporate pranksters who create phony Web sites to get themselves invited to high-level corporate conferences and media events – where they give hilarious, Swiftian analyses that unmask global injustice and satirize human rights abuses. They are the 21st century’s answer to Timothy Leary’s proselytizing for acid and Ken Kesey’s busload of hipsters. The big difference is that they care less about changing minds than changing policy. But announcing, as spokespeople for Dow Chemical, that they will at last take full financial responsibility for the victims of Bhopal, they create a media sensation that embarrasses the real powers that be. And, outfitted in their wacky “survival ball” getups, the Yes Men address a room full of straight-laced suits who don’t think there’s anything funny about going to insane lengths to assure one’s personal safety in the event of any and all calamities. The Yes Men don’t exactly speak truth to power. But their hearts are in the right place — right next to their funny bones.