World’s Stupidest, Most Wasteful Consumer Products

As if plastic banana guards, leaf blowers and mechanized egg crackers weren’t enough, the brilliant inventors of the world just keep on creating unbelievably stupid, wasteful products for the masses to enjoy. The Huffington Post is pretty great at sniffing them out – the Top 10 Most Useless Items of Crapola, the 9 Stupidest Products Of All Time (including the ‘Tiddy Bear’) and now, in honor of No Impact Week, the world’s most wasteful consumer products.

Here’s a preview:

Spinning Ice Cream Cone (pictured above)

In the mood for ice cream but too lazy to move your tongue to lick? We’re not kidding – there is actually a product that “solves” this “problem.”

The Noseaid

For 30 dollars, avoid a nosebleed mess by applying this clothespin to your child’s nose. Pinching things with our fingers is apparently out — or just using an actual clothespin and some cloth.

Because there’s simply not enough random, useless plastic crap in the world. We need it to keep on coming as fast as it can. How did humans ever get by without this stuff?

Check out the rest – including demonstration videos – at The Huffington Post.

Link [The Huffington Post]

Mother Nature? Eerie Crying Face Seen in Melting Glacier

It’s like the treehugger equivalent to Christians seeing Jesus or the Virgin Mary in everything from concrete walls to grilled cheese sandwiches: an eerie feminine face in a melting glacier that appears to be crying a river of tears.

The image was captured on the Austfonna ice cap in Norway by marine photographer and environmental lecturer Michael Nolan while on an annual trip to observe the glacier and the wildlife that live in the area.

From The Daily Mail:

A glacier expert has confirmed the ice cap carrying an image of Mother Nature ‘crying’ has been continually shrinking by as much as 160 feet every year for several decades.

Jon Ove Hagen, a member of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) and professor in geosciences at Oslo University, Norway, has been studying the Austfonna ice-shelf since 1988.

Mr Hagen, 59, said: ‘Austfonna, at over 3,000 square miles, is by far the largest ice cap in Svalbard and one of the largest in the Arctic.

‘Retreat of glacier fronts at Austfonna over a 12-year period average a frontal retreat of about 160 feet-per-year.

‘The geometry of the ice cap is changing. The fronts are retreating, the lower parts are getting thinner, with a thinning rate of about three feet-per-year while the interior of the ice cap is thickening with about 1.6 feet-per-year.

‘The ice cap is losing about 1.6 cubic miles of ice every year.’

It’s rather eerie, no doubt about it, and it probably will end up on global warming protest posters within days. But let’s not turn this into a quasi-religious thing, eh? The general public thinks we’re quacky enough as it is.

Link [The Daily Mail]

‘Ronald McDonald’ Opens Up About Cruel Slaughtering Practices

“Who cares about those PETA pricks, and who cares about the chickens? They’re just animals!” That’s what ‘Ronald McDonald’ (Andy Dick) had to say about McDonalds’ slaughtering practices to famed celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick (Martin Short) in a new video from FunnyorDie.com.

Dick makes for quite a frightening, deranged-looking Ronald McDonald as they discuss boiling chickens alive. “What I say to the chickens is, ‘You deserve a break today. In your legs.”

Check it out:

The video is hilarious, but they’re actually calling attention to a real problem. As Ecorazzi reports,

“McDonald’s U.S. and Canadian chicken suppliers abuse birds using a cruel and outdated method of slaughter. Birds often have their bones broken and their throats cut while they are still conscious, and many birds are immersed in tanks of scalding-hot water while they are still alive and able to feel pain.”

And, yes, you can learn more about it at PETA.org.

Link [Ecorazzi]

5 More Awesomely Funny, Smart & Effective Green Ads

Who says global warming isn’t a laughing matter? Last summer, Green Homes put together a collection of cool green advertisements that don’t just push an important message on everyone who sees them, but are also eye-catching and funny. Yes, funny. From putting billboards of giant naked asses above polluted waterways to selling natural cleaning products with sex, those 10 ads were classics – but we’ve found another five to tack on to the list.

“Until the sun shines out of your ass, use an energy-efficient lightbulb instead.” Who says Greenpeace doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Taking a page from the guerrilla marketing handbook, this ad campaign by the Global Environment Centre is certainly an attention-getter. The outdoor installation was constructed ahead of the Arts & Earth Festival 2006 in Malaysia.

Atmospheric pollution affects everyone – even the Wicked Witch of the West and Cupid. The Singapore Environment Council created these ads to raise awareness about the problem of pollution in our skies.

This ad was never actually created – it’s just a Photoshopped proof of concept – but it’s a clever idea. The shape and text of the ad were to be powerblasted onto dirty sidewalks using a large stencil form to gain support in an effort to reduce the pollution released by particular powerplants in Chicago.

“Look how much carbon monoxide you’ll keep out of the air we breathe by not driving for just one day.” That’s the message that was displayed on the giant black cloud attached to a car’s tailpipe after being inflated with a day’s worth of exhaust. This guerrilla ad by WWF appeared in China in 2007.

Is it Green? Louis Vuitton Solar-Powered Suitcase

‘High-tech suitcase’. ‘Sustainable Louis Vuitton’. The words in each of those phrases don’t seem to jive, yet put them all together and you’ve got this monstrosity, reportedly commissioned by a Chinese millionaire.

From the Alternative Consumer:

This luxury suitcase contains an assortment of gadgets and unnecessary tripe like a TV, DVD player, coffee maker and a handy solar panel to keep it all percolating.  Just the array of stuff you’ll need if your private jet should go down in the jungle or that third world country you’re visiting to exploit just doesn’t have enough juice out at the diamond mine.  Plenty of storage for you fancy underoos and such.

It’s hard to imagine the sort of people who would pay out the ass for Louis Vuitton in the first place even sitting in the sun. I suppose Mr. Mystery Chinese Millionaire makes his servant take the solar panel out to get some rays while he sips tea in the parlor.

Although, it would probably come in handy when you’re hankering to surf the internet sustainably while lounging on a luxury yacht. Hmm, I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m in the market for some ridiculously overpriced, ugly luggage and solar-powered gadgets.

Link [Alternative Consumer]

An Inconvenient Proposal: A Love Song for Laurie David

Laurie David, if you’re out there, Josh Rachlis has a message for you: hybrid cars make him misty, he eats tofu, likes reusable cups, and his light bulbs are twisty. He’s even a neurotic bald Jew, which seems to be just your type. So, what are you waiting for? Watch his ‘inconvenient proposal’, a music video dedicated to your green goddess awesomeness. And if you want to get in touch with him, just let us know.

By the way, for all of you EarthFirsters reading: If you live under a rock and don’t know who Laurie David is, check out our Who’s Who in Green profile of this super-green activist and producer of An Inconvenient Truth.

Link [YouTube]

I’m Fuc- I Mean, Flicking the Lights Off

Earlier this year, Sarah Silverman took the internet by storm with her hilarious music video, “I’m Fucking Matt Damon”. It was only a matter of time before parodies and copies began showing up, but this one’s got a green twist: it was made to promote Earth Hour, Saturday March 28th at 8:30pm, when millions of people around the world will turn off their lights for one hour.

“You know, we had a great run, lamp. And, uh, I hope there’s no hard feelings… I hope we can be friends… I’m friends with all my old appliances.”

For comparison and just because it’s funny, here’s the original:

Don’t forget to turn the lights off for Earth Hour! Get more info at EarthHour.org.

Link [YouTube] + [EarthHour.org]

Greenwashing at its Best: “Even Our Store Bags are Disposable”

The Good Human spotted quite an amazing example of greenwashing this week in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. It seems that a pet store called Zoe & Guido’s Pet Boutique thought they’d jump on the ‘going green’ bandwagon in an attempt to drum up sales… and failed miserably.

From The Good Human:

The ad is kind of grainy, so if you cannot read it, here is what it says – “We are Going Green! Hemp and organic collars, toys, beds, disposable doggie bags…even our store bags are disposable!“. This is a great example of a company proclaiming to “go green” to sell products while not even bothering to find out what it actually means. Greenwashing at its best! This is what we all have to be on the lookout for as companies try to jump on the bandwagon without actually doing anything green at all.

The people who created this ad are clearly totally oblivious, and as ridiculous as it is to think that disposable bags are eco-friendly, the worst part is all the Sante Fe consumers who will just trust the ‘We’re going green’ and not take a critical look at what the store is actually offering. That’s why calling out greenwashers is important – ads like this totally dilute the message and people get screwed over.

The Good Human recently started up a new series called ‘Greenwash of the Week’, and they’ve found some real gems. Check out past examples including ‘biodegradable’ plastic water bottles, MTV attacking greenwashers (ironically) and plasma TVs instead of posters.

Link [The Good Human]

Chewable Pampers Spoof – Smells Like Dinner Time!

Do you ever wish the products you use were so green, you could eat them? Be careful what you wish for… In this wacky SNL spoof, an “eco” mom uses diapers so biodegrable that they’re actually edible – for dinner!

Will Global Warming Effect Santa This Year?

With all this talk of climate change and ice caps melting, we wonder how Santa is doing up in the North Pole…

WWF Lets Out Its Inner Professional Wrestler: Panda Bear Mayhem Ensues

OMFGFSMBBQ, I love this on so many levels.

Stumbled Upon at [Apina.biz]

Greening Up War: A Round Table Discussion on Environmentally Friendly Killin’

The Onion nails it just right- if we’re going to torture, wage war, and ethnically cleanse, it should be in a environmentally friendly way.

H/T to the big guy Jordan for dropping this link on me.

An Insult to Sewage Plants Everywhere: Renaming the San Fran Zoo Sewage Plant after George Bush

How fitting, someone is trying to rename a sewage plant in San Francisco after President George Bush.

SFist has it:

Looking to honor the forty-third President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, the recently formed Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is looking to change the name of the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility. It seems the group would like to rename the SF Zoo adjacent facility to the “George W Bush Sewage Plant.”

Links [SFist] & [Presidential Memorial Commission]