Most stupid ad ever made

Posted at May 23, 2006

If you have a blog, MySpace, LiveJournal, whatever… DO link to the most stupid ad ever made. And feel free to call the link “most stupid ad ever made”.

Here are the slogans that ends the first of two 60-second “masterpieces” (you can see both of them on the page as both QT and WMV).

Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.

I can’t find words for how UTTERLY stupid this is. It’s like someone at Comedy Central or Saturday Night Live made a parody, but couldn’t make it funny enough. And just forgot about the whole thing. But these people mean it. Seriously.

Most stupid ad ever - by Competitive Enterprise Institute

(still from the most stupid ad ever made)

You should think that people in an educated country as USA should be smart enough to not produce plain stupid things like this. But no. Amazing.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is an end product in organisms that obtain energy from breaking down sugars or fats with oxygen as part of their metabolism, in a process known as cellular respiration. This includes all plants, animals, many fungi and some bacteria. In higher animals, the carbon dioxide travels in the blood from the body’s tissues to the lungs where it’s exhaled.

Carbon dioxide content in fresh air is approximately 0.04%, and in exhaled air approximately 4.5%. When inhaled in high concentrations (about 5% by volume), it is toxic to humans and other animals. This is sometimes known as choke damp, an old mining industry term, and was the cause of death at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, where an upwelling of CO2-laden lake water in 1986 covered a wide area in a blanket of the gas, killing nearly 2000.

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  • http://www.charlesarthur.com/blog/ Charles

    Well, it’s true that CO2 is essential to life: if you’re in 100% oxygen at atmospheric pressure, it’s harmful (http://science.howstuffworks.com/question493.htm).

    However these ads intentionally confuse the point. It’s the greenhouse effect that’s harmful if taken too far.

    I also love the fact that they point to one article in Science and imply there’s a big conspiracy of silence. Sure – if you’re looking to hide stuff, then do it in one of the two premier weekly science journals. Oh yes.

    It’s hard to know how to respond, except to say “Do you understand *anything* about science? Do you think the Da Vinci Code is real or something?”

  • http://www.charlesarthur.com/blog/ Charles

    Well, it’s true that CO2 is essential to life: if you’re in 100% oxygen at atmospheric pressure, it’s harmful (http://science.howstuffworks.com/question493.htm).

    However these ads intentionally confuse the point. It’s the greenhouse effect that’s harmful if taken too far.

    I also love the fact that they point to one article in Science and imply there’s a big conspiracy of silence. Sure – if you’re looking to hide stuff, then do it in one of the two premier weekly science journals. Oh yes.

    It’s hard to know how to respond, except to say “Do you understand *anything* about science? Do you think the Da Vinci Code is real or something?”

  • http://www.sindark.com/2006/05/22/unintentional-auto-satire/ a sibilant intake of breath

    Unintentional auto-satire…

    For a while, I was planning to simply ignore these videos, produced by the ‘Competitive Enterprise Institute,’ but they have now been sent to me enough times to indicate that this hopelessly disingenuous message is getting out. Let’s …

  • http://www.sindark.com Milan

    You’re right to be critical of these absurd commercials. I’ve written a little bit of analysis on them here

  • http://www.sindark.com Milan

    You’re right to be critical of these absurd commercials. I’ve written a little bit of analysis on them here

  • http://globalwarmingwatch.blogspot.com/ Wadard

    I wrote a counter ad to the CEI propaganda :::[They call it a spot, we call it a stain] It is my way of combating their lies so, if you like it, please link it, as quite a few have done already. Hey, and do you know some producer predisposed to saving the planet who will pick it up and throw it back at the CEI mob?

  • http://globalwarmingwatch.blogspot.com/ Wadard

    I wrote a counter ad to the CEI propaganda :::[They call it a spot, we call it a stain] It is my way of combating their lies so, if you like it, please link it, as quite a few have done already. Hey, and do you know some producer predisposed to saving the planet who will pick it up and throw it back at the CEI mob?

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