FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 13, 2009
4:43 PM

CONTACT: The Yes Men

LONDON – July 13 – A new, beautifully-designed line of bottled water – this time not from the melting Alps, nor from faraway, clean-water-deprived Fiji, but rather from the contaminated ground near the site of the 1984 Bhopal catastrophe – scared Dow Chemical’s London management team into hiding today.

Twenty Bhopal activists, including  Sathyu Sarangi of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, showed up at Dow headquarters near London to find that the entire building had been vacated.

Had they not fled, Dow employees could have read on the bottles’ elegant labels:

B’eau-Pal: Our Story
The unique qualities of our water come from 25 years of slow- leaching toxins at the site of the world’s  largest industrial accident. To this day, Dow Chemical (who bought Union Carbide) has refused to clean up, and whole new generations have been poisoned. For more information, please visit http://www.bhopal.org.

The launch of “B’eau-Pal” water came as Bhopal prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal catastrophe, and coincides with the release of an official report by the Sambhavna Trust showing that local groundwater, vegetables, and breast milk are contaminated by toxic quantities of nickel, chromium, mercury, lead, and volatile organic compounds. The report describes how a majority of children in one nearby community are born with serious medical problems traceable to the contamination.

The attractive yet toxic product, developed by the Bhopal Medical Appeal and the Yes Men with pro-bono help from top London creative design firm Kennedy Monk, highlights Dow’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the disaster. (Five years ago, the Yes Men impersonated Dow Chemical live on BBC World Television and announced that after 20 years, the company was finally going to clean up its mess in Bhopal. That hoax, which temporarily knocked two billion dollars off Dow’s share price, is featured in the Yes Men’s new movie, The Yes Men Fix The World, which opens in UK cinemas on August 11.)

Though Dow has consistently refused to clean up the mess in Bhopal, they have taken numerous steps to clean up their image. In a recent press release, for example, Andrew Liveris, Dow’s Chairman and CEO, noted that “lack of clean water is the single largest cause of disease in the world and more than 4,500 children die each day because of it.” He went on to assert that “Dow is committed to creating safer, more sustainable water supplies for communities around the world.”

The Yes Men met Liveris’ attempt to greenwash Dow’s environmental record with a challenge.

“Since Liveris earns $16,182,544 per year, he could give each of the children who die worldwide for lack of clean water $10 per day to buy Evian, Fiji Water, or Perrier,” said Mike Bonanno of the Yes Men. “Or, for vastly less money, he could build them clean-water pipelines, like the ones that Bhopal so badly needs.”

Dow’s greenwashing comes while Bhopal is experiencing an extremely rare drought (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/12/india-water-supply-bhopal), just three years after facing its greatest floods ever. “Even though people are already dying by the hundreds of thousands, and we know that climate change will kill many more, companies like Dow are not being forced to cut back on emissions,” said the Sambhavna Clinic’s Sathyu Sarangi. “Bhopal should be a lesson to the world – one we must learn before it’s too late for all of us.”

The Yes Men have elaborate plans to contribute to the movement for meaningful action on climate change, beginning in early September and culminating at the December climate talks in Copenhagen. To contribute financially to these efforts (which of course we can’t tell you about), please visit http://theyesmen.org/donate/now. And if you live in New York and know how to sew, swim, get arrested, or pretty much anything else, please write to us.

 * B’eau-Pal water: http://www.bhopalwater.com 
* Information on Bhopal water study:
Bhopal Medical Appeal Contact: Colin Toogood  colintoogood@bhopal.org
T: +44 7798 845074 http://www.bhopal.org/ 

* The Yes Men in the UK:
Contact: Mike Bonanno T: +44 7940739950 E: mike@theyesmen.org http://www.theyesmen.org/ 

* August 11 UK release of The Yes Men Fix the World:
McAinsh Consulting Ian Thomson T: +44 7909 685077 E: ian@mcainshconsulting.com
Isabelle Knight T: +44 7717 152006 E: isabelle@mcainshconsulting.com        

The Yes Men Fix The World will be shown across the UK in participating cinemas on Tuesday, 11 August, via a nationwide satellite link-up. Directed by The Yes Men (Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno) in collaboration with Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 editor Kurt Engfehr, who co-directs, The Yes Men Fix The World leads us through the daring political pranks of two gonzo activists as they take on the fake identity of corporate executives in a bid to highlight the brutal selfishness of some of the worldÕs biggest multi-national     corporations.  The film received the Berlin Film Festival’s prestigious Audience Award earlier this year.
  http://www.theyesmenfixtheworld.com/

Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina [Weather]

By Sean Fallon on Patent

Not content with being the world’s richest man, Bill Gates is planning on extending his power to control the weather. More specifically, he has filed a patent for a system that he hopes will prevent the next Katrina.

Along with ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, Gates has applied for five patents that call for a fleet of specially equipped vessels to be deployed in a hurricane’s path—vessels that are capable of reducing the surface temperature of the ocean by mixing in colder water from greater depths. This would reduce the heat-driven condensation that fuels hurricanes.

Of course, significantly altering the surface temperature of a large body of water is going to require many, many ships…a reality that is not lost on Gates. In the patent filings, there are a few proposals on how an endeavor like this one could be financed—including selling insurance policies in areas that are prone to major storms. While I seriously doubt the plausibility of such a scheme, if anyone can pull it off it would be Bill Gates. Besides, even if this doesn’t work out he always has his important work with high tech kegs to fall back on. [Patent via Tech Flash via

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