It's the end of the road for one of our campaign legends: Brian.
Only six months ago, Brian was working for the Dark Side - an anonymous Volkswagen employee only concerned with getting through his day job. He took orders from his superiors without questioning them. He did what he was told.
But then – suddenly - everything changed.
After questioning the wisdom of his bosses, Brian's life started to unravel. His newfound environmentalism left him passionate but confused, adrift in a world of contradictions and conflict. In short, he was depressed.
That's where Brian finds himself at the beginning of this final episode. (Catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't seen them already)
It’s been a lot of fun making these short films. For those of us working on our oil campaign every day, they’ve provided a bit of light relief from the harsh reality of where the fossil fuel industry is taking us.
In the BBC’s Frozen Planet (you can still watch it on iPlayer), David Attenborough reminds us in his matter-of-fact way that oil drillers are exploiting the melting Arctic ice to drill for more oil. It’s the darkest of feedback loops: global warming melts the ice and oil companies drill for more oil in these newly uncovered waters. That oil then goes to fuel our cars, which pump more emissions into the atmosphere, driving up temperatures and speeding up the Arctic ice melt.
We want to break that feedback loop.
That’s why our oil campaign is not only taking direct action on oil rigs (this summer for the second year running we interrupted Cairn Energy’s drilling in Arctic waters) but also targeting our oil consumption back home. By making our cars more efficient we use less oil.
Our cars can be cleaner, use less fuel and emit less CO2. The science says it’s easy but the car lobby – led by Volkswagen – is using its political muscle to resist the change. Car companies don’t want to be constrained in the cars they can sell. Which means VW and the other car manufacturers will only change if we make them.
Over the past six months, your campaigning has been doing exactly that. The inability of ACEA – the lobby group that VW dominates – to announce a position on future car efficiency this month was because of your pressure. The industry knows the spotlight is on them, they’re just hoping we’re going to go away.
Needless to say, that’s not happening. With close to half a million of us around the world – including 90,000 VW drivers – in our campaign, we’ll only stop when Volkswagen stops threatening the Arctic – and us. And as you can see with the rapidly melting ice, this isn’t something we can hang around for.
These past six months, we’ve asked you to do an incredible amount of actions – both online and offline – to help the campaign. A sincere thank you to the thousands of you, everywhere, who’ve been a part of it so far.
But today, all I’m asking you to do is watch the end of Brian’s tale, while remembering his parting message: to change this world we need action.
Here are a few of the highlights from our VW campaign over the past six months, let us know in the comments which you've enjoyed most!
- Action at secretive car lobby meeting in Brussels (video / slideshow)
Film competition to spoof VW's ads, watch the winners
Action at VW's international training meeting in Ibiza
VW starts protesting against us at Frankfurt motor show
Action at VW dealerships across Europe
Massive projection at eco car show in London, and cool Facebook mosaic tool
YouTube reinstates our video, after previously censoring us and forcing us to launch GreenpeaceTube ;)
Campaign launch action at Old Street roundabout
And of course ... Brian films 1, 2 and now 3
There’ll be plenty more action in 2012 – thanks for campaigning with us.
