The Next Eco-Warriors (9 page)

I WAS PERUSING THE SUSTAINABLY GROWN BLUEBERRIES at the downtown Manhattan Whole Foods store when the signal was given to suit up. With the precision of a well-trained ninja, I threw my large blue IKEA bag to the floor and laid out one cumbersome costume, the SurvivaBall. Within five minutes, I was inside the suit and maximum inflation had been attained. I shuffled up and down the aisles, following the sounds of my fellow protesters, yet I only managed to accomplish knocking over displays of sustainable fish and recycled paper products. The groceries weren't the real targets, just innocent bystanders, but I forged ahead despite the guilt. Amid the chaos of singing theater-goers, scrambling security guards, and highly confused store customers, my suit malfunctions. Frustrated and unable to see, I wonder to myself,
how the hell did I get here?

The memories often pop in and out of my brain as if they were flashbacks from a war zone. But let me start at the beginning. I moved to New York to go to grad school and learn about how to help stop the impending doom of climate change. But I always felt a little different. I had grandiose ideas of using comedy and satire to help solve the world's problems. My prestigious and highly respected Columbia University climate science professors, although supportive, thought those ideas were just, well, “cute.” Who knew vindication would come in the form of a SurvivaBall?

Before I started terrorizing the world with satirical activism, I was donning a shiny white lab coat and goggles while discoursing about oceanic biogeochemical compounds by day and sashaying in a kickline across the local community theater stage by night. I don't know what was weirder: having a
dream
that I could possibly combine creative theatrical style with my fervent ambition to humorously enlighten the world about climate change or that I actually
found
a way to combine the two.

The SurvivaBall is a six-foot- (1.8-meter-) diameter spherical beige suit tattooed with corporate logos that looks like a bloated tick with a human face. It was first birthed for the Catastrophic Loss Conference, where two men posing as Halliburton representatives demonstrated the functionality of the large inflatable suits. Dubbed a “gated community for one,” the suit would protect the corporate elite from any number of future climate-induced calamities including drought, flood, extreme temperatures, sea-level rise, famine, hurricanes, and even impending ice age. Since such a technical phenomenon inevitably comes at an astronomical price, it would also conveniently protect one from the hundreds of thousands of future climate refugees who couldn't afford it.

The first time I came across a SurvivaBall, an email popped up in my inbox. “Worried about climate change? Don't be!” said the subject line. An absurd picture of a smiling beige blob popped up proclaiming to be a self-contained, completely sustainable climate-catastrophe-protection apparatus. The website read:

I covered myself in a layer of snot and tears after laughing so hard. The fact that there were others trying to work toward solving climate change and
actually had a sense of humor about it was artificially comforting to me. Not that my sigh of relief was because there was a suit out there claiming to be the be-all, end-all solution for catastrophic weather, it was just nice to know that there were others that had the same thought processes that I do.

Most of the campaigns and messaging in environmentalism encompassed the “doom and gloom” approach, that if you don't help us save the world
right now
, we're
all
going to die, and it will be
all your fault
. While this message accurately conveys urgency and severity, having studied people's perceptions and reactions to climate change during my graduate studies, I knew that it was also ineffective and overused. If the environmental movement wanted to educate the mainstream public in order to inspire, mobilize, and take action, it would have to step out of its comfort zone. Let's face it, people like to be entertained, and besides, who said saving the world couldn't be fun?

The SurvivaBall was the brainchild of a group called The Yes Men. In the activist world, they are well known for impersonating large corporations in order to publicly embarrass them and expose the truly disgusting world of corporate greed. One time they posed as Exxon executives and introduced a new fuel called Vivoleum made entirely out of climate change victims. Another time they posed as Dow Chemical on the BBC to announce complete remediation to the victims of the Bhopal tragedy. Naturally, these stunts garner lots of media attention, which then creates a level platform to talk about the real issues these companies hide behind expensive PR campaigns. Then, to further rub sand in the wound, The Yes Men make documentaries about all their exploits. But I had never actually heard of them until I read that email.

After grad school, I started working on a climate change documentary. I became fully enthralled with the documentary-film industry and soon was
looking for other possibilities when the project started coming to a close. My producer, a mutual friend of The Yes Men, suggested I go help with their documentary. Fast-forward a few emails, and I found myself entering a claustrophobic little office currently serving as Yes Men HQ. Taken aback by the mess before me, I pushed a pile of papers aside to place my laptop down as I noticed tapes and books lining the walls while reams of (fake) newspapers barricaded the corner. This was no well-oiled machine; instead, I found myself immersed in a ragtag team of activists. I was trying to figure out where they kept the pitchforks and torches hidden in the haphazardly cluttered office when I met Larken, the artist who had once provided gourmet service on a NYC subway car. There was Joseph, who would occasionally find himself flailing on the floor wondering why he didn't have a real career as a respectable journalist. Then there was Andy and Mike, the original Yes Men, who went together like peanut butter and jelly, except peanut butter was a bit high maintenance. It wasn't until I met Rocco, the undocumented nomadic homeless guy, that I started wondering what I had gotten myself into.

Somehow, one week later, I got promoted to SurvivaBall Commander, a title I'm sure my parents and Columbia University were proud of. But there I was, suddenly in control of an army of twenty-five to be unleashed upon the city and around the country. It became my duty to showcase the stupidest costume known to humankind. I wanted to announce my sudden rise to power, but in the absence of a podium and a cheering crowd, I opted to send out an email instead.

The great part about using SurvivaBalls is their amazing ability to disarm any situation. It's one of the best suits for actions, because security doesn't know how to handle them, and someone has yet to find a way to handcuff someone inside. That's how I found myself in Whole Foods—it was the first time I wore the suit. We had been taking audiences that had seen the documentary out on actions. That particular night, the target was Whole Foods, since the CEO, John Mackey, had just released a tirade against health care reform. The U.S. population was up in arms over health care, as many of us who needed it didn't have it or couldn't afford it, since we're all not CEOs of major corporations over here. If we couldn't get health care right, the climate bill would have no hope.

I felt a bit ridiculous walking into the store with a deflated SurvivaBall suit and pretending to decide what brand of crackers to buy. Part of what makes a flash mob work so well is the ability to be inconspicuous beforehand, and I was failing miserably. Luckily, it's New York, and considering I had just seen Elmo walking home from work the other day, I probably fit in better than I thought. After the signal, I scrambled to assemble myself, first finding the flip-flops glued into the bottom of the costume in order to put my feet in. Then I took the helmet, adjusted the straps, and flipped on the fans before clipping it onto my head. The dual fans fastened above the helmet suck in air from the outside, turning me into a bulbous ticklike creature, free to roam about the world. Forgoing peripheral vision, I soon found out the real trick is trying not to knock things (including people) over.

I heard the whole store break out in song. It was 10:30 at night, and the security guards had no idea how to handle a mob of one hundred with six inflatable blobs roaming about. This was definitely not in their training manual. I sang along, although I couldn't remember all the words, and it was too hard to hold the piece of paper with the lyrics in my hand nubs.

Then I started having other problems. Inflatable suits tend to hold in heat, which is great for cold nights, but otherwise meant I started to sweat after about five minutes. My neck started to tire from holding up the fans, and my shins began to ache from only being able to walk with a six-inch stride. With screaming muscles and soaked in sweat, I tried to shuffle my way out of the store with the rest of the crowd but could only move so fast with my legs being shorter than two feet. I caught a glimpse of one of the security guards trying to manhandle Rocco, who was also in a suit. I couldn't help but smile as the poor guard got bowled over in slow motion ten seconds later.

As I made my way outside, I couldn't wait to get out of my sweaty enclosure. If only I could find my damn helper. The biggest irony of the SurvivaBall is that you really can't “survive” alone since someone from the outside has to zip you up in order to complete the ensemble. That means even though I'm suffering from near heat exhaustion and lactic acid buildup, I am still at the mercy of whoever wants to lend a hand because the person who has zipped me into the costume also has to unzip me. Perhaps the zippers should have been sewn on the inside. But we're not all engineers, after all.

Mechanics aside, there were bigger and better targets to humiliate. I was feeling quite cozy with the team of misfits I was now a part of as we piled up in our tiny office hatching the next plan. New York City was hosting Climate Week in support of the international climate summit being held by the United Nations. All the world leaders would meet in one place to discuss climate change, and we were going to do our part to make sure those heads of state got down to business. We wanted to blockade the UN with SurvivaBalls until everyone came to a fair agreement, but with the massive amounts of security and whole streets being blocked off, we knew even the SurvivaBall couldn't break that stronghold.

So we would pretend to approach the UN building by water instead of land by “wading” up the East River shore in hopes to create some media buzz. Ironically, the SurvivaBall cannot actually float. In fact, the water seeps in quite quickly and fills up the ball, creating a potentially gruesome death trap either by drowning or electrocution from the fans' batteries. But I was sure the volunteers would still be lining up to participate anyway.

The morning of, I arrived at the bank of the East River slightly downwind of midtown, donning my corporate attire with a veil of anxiety as an accessory. After the last couple of actions, I found out that even though I love the theatrics, I don't seem to quite have the stomach yet to deal with whatever unknown consequences us Yes Men tend to find ourselves in.

The balled army of twenty-five was out in full force and ready to surge ahead. I was not in a suit but playing the part of corporate hack, ready to pass out informational brochures to any willing or unwilling passerby (and also to help volunteers into and out of the suits). But to first rally the troops, I played a rousing round of our anthem, Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive,” on the boom box. I marveled at the awe-inspiring spectacle: twenty-five six-foot- (1.8- meter-) diameter beige globoids adorned with corporate logos bouncing up and down as they try to navigate the shallow water and rocks along the bank.

Then I saw the police boats show up. All of a sudden, the coast guard appeared, with their sirens, probably bemused by the bizarre pageantry displayed before them. Then more police boats showed up. Then a helicopter. Then a man from inside the helicopter descended out of the aircraft and
hovered over the water as if ready to spring into action. Oh, crap. My stomach pit of nervous excitement just turned into an ulcer.

I knew the SurvivaBall had an innate ability to attract stupid amounts of attention, including the occasional police officer, but never before had boats and helicopters been called to the scene. I never would have guessed that dancing beach balls on coastal waters would be considered quite the security risk. As if the police actually believed we would take the water by storm. I was torn between laughing at the ludicrous overreaction and my instinct to save myself and run for the high hills.

As I watched the circus unfold before me, the next act entered the ring. If at first by air and sea, the last piece of the puzzle was put in place when the police finally showed up by car. So I tended to the balls while keeping an eye out as the Yes Men, Andy and Mike, coyly approached the policeman and asked the unsubtle question, “What seems to be the problem, officer?”

I am not an aficionado at dealing with the police at actions, as I get quite apprehensive. In school, I learned things like chemistry and math, how to calculate solar flux, and the difference between carbon taxing and cap and trade, not how to work your way out of getting arrested. I had this image in my head of trying to shove SurvivaBalls into the back of a cop car and sitting behind bars. I fought my nervousness with logic. I knew they couldn't arrest us all, and I didn't think there was a law against running amok with large inflatable costumes. In the end, I watched as Andy was lead off to the clink on the charge of a previously unpaid bicycle ticket. Good job, cops, keeping the streets of New York safe from those rogue bicyclists who don't pay their tickets for riding through Washington Square Park. Later we would learn that the officer also lied through his teeth when filing the report, in that he stated he saw people jump the fence and ignore signs forbidding entrance to the beach, all of which was completely untrue.