Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

The voice of dissent at Gothenburg’s motor show

Ian Fiddies | 05.03.2007 13:07 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Free Spaces | World

A successful action to offset the tanker loads of greenwash in Gothenburg, Sweden, the home of the Volvo.

60 meters by car = this much co2 (2).
60 meters by car = this much co2 (2).

60 meters by car= this much co2
60 meters by car= this much co2

a warning for visitors
a warning for visitors

before they asked us to move
before they asked us to move

handing out balloons on private ground
handing out balloons on private ground

ian with balloon
ian with balloon

the gang
the gang

the photgrapher
the photgrapher


The year is 2047 and visitors are queuing up to view an historical exhibition of automobiles. This exhibition is a stark reminder of our irresponsible past that very nearly destroyed the planet we live on. Looking at these monstrous lumps of shiny metal and glass it’s hard to believe that as recently as 40 years ago these deadly machines where sold openly to anybody who had the money. I overhear a grandfather telling his grandchild how when he was young he had to run for his life every time he needed to cross the street. How millions of cars choked almost every ally and boulevard in every city around the world. The child looks on, disbelieving.

The sound of a of a car roaring off at full throttle just to screech to a halt 20 meters down the road brought me out of my reverie and reminded me that this isn’t 2047 but 2007. This isn’t an historical exhibition this is a slap in the face to our beleaguered planet. I suddenly remembered what I was doing there.

Saturday afternoon in Gothenburg was meant to be the big day for the Gothenburg motor show. The public turn out was modest and people hardly needed to queue to pay their 130 kronor (15 Euros) to drool over the highly polished environmental time bombs ticking away inside. I must admit that people coughing up 15 Euros to look at cars struck me as totally insane. I mean don’t they get enough of the bloody things.

Amid this tide of insanity a handful of protesters acted responsibly and represented the voice of reason. The intention of this action taken by Gothenburg’s branch of Friends of the Earth and The 4X4 Network was to remind people that the state of our planet is something that needs be taken seriously.

After a half hour we were informed, by a most serious official, that we were standing on private ground and could we please move. Obligingly we moved. Standing two meters further away we continued our action. After further deliberation two colleagues of the serious official conceded that we had every right to stand on the property they protected and hand out flyers and balloons as long as our main display was outside. We made sure that, in the hands of children, two hundred yellow balloons found their way into the motor show.

Did you know that if you could catch the CO2 emissions from a standard car in a standard balloon you’d have to stop and change balloon every 60 meters or so. That was the message on the air filled balloons we gave out to the children visiting the exhibition. “60m by car = this much CO2!” not an entirely ineffective way of infiltrating the motor show’s every corner.

As for the adults we offered them a test in the form of a flyer to check whether or not they were autoholics. Our other flyer was more of a treatment and full of good advice on how to kick the driving habit. All in all the action was a definitive success; I don’t know how many people we persuaded to ditch their cars but hopefully our message didn’t go totally unappreciated. The important thing is that we didn’t let the motor industry get away with its day of reprehensible polished greenwash in peace. The voice of dissent was present.

Ian Fiddies
- e-mail: ian.fiddies(at)mjv.se

Comments

Hide the following comment

rock on

15.03.2007 10:59

thanks for your efforts, creativity, and time

jane
mail e-mail: voodikon@yahoo.com


Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech