A new web series pokes fun at Canada’s “Big Oil Alliance” through a series of scenes where top fossil fuel executives dismiss climate concerns, mislead the public, and literally drain the life of their chief sustainability officer.
“Climate change: Relax Canada, we got it.” So says a group of oddball CEOs closing out a series of comedy shorts by ARCA Productions (Artists for Real Climate Action), parodying an alliance of Canada’s top five oil sands companies who have “all come together to do the right thing.”
The top executives are introduced as Frank Hightower of Imperious Oil, Vlad the Vampire of Suncorpse, Marjorie Storm of Novapus, Jim Straight of Rancor Oil, and Doug Fretson of Smegoil.
We also meet Amanda Green, the alliance’s chief sustainability officer. “I just want to say how exciting it is to be here!” Green says in a giddy introduction. “To be in the room when Canada’s top oil companies choose a different way of doing business.” But then she missteps and, prompted to get to “the brass tacks” of how to deal with climate change, tells the alliance they “need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.”
That cues the executives to promptly lose their…composure.
That is, until Green redirects their attention by shouting “PROFITS” and “MONEY,” to calm the room as the CEOs break for lunch. Green is left with Vampire Vlad and the scene cuts just before Vlad takes a first vampirical bite.
Throughout the series, Green attempts to guide the group toward a more conscientious business model, but her optimism withers on each encounter with Vlad. One episode follows her promotion of solar energy, which elicits a near striptease by Hightower and underscores fossil companies’ supposed “wild, perverse, dangerous” sex appeal compared to cheap, efficient renewables.
In another episode, the group berates Smegoil’s Fretson for publicly committing to net-zero—that is, until he clarifies that he made the pledge because “it’s what everyone has to say if they want to keep their subsidies!”
The alliance just needs to parrot the words “promise” to “take care of it” at every opportunity, he adds. Meanwhile the companies can rake in billions of taxpayer dollars for developing unproven, expensive technologies like carbon capture.
“So, when you say net-zero…” starts Hightower, “we mean not-zero!”, Vlad finishes.
The scene ends with Vlad and Green alone again—and the opportunity for another bite as Green’s faith in the future wanes. She finally breaks down in a scene where the alliance members—having been concerned about a report on Canadians’ concern about climate change—rejoice upon hearing that their disinformation and misinformation campaigns have worked.
“What about the world?” she says. “Is it all about profits and winning?”
Hightower briefly feigns a conscience before the group cheers over drinks “to us”, and “to money”—and Green slumps forward on the table in despair.
