Gaiman Tops Greenpeace’s Top 10 Polluting Artists List

Jake PurcellFriday, November 30, 2007

This post is part of Push the Third Button Twice, a ~2 month adventure where I would write parody articles based on the news as it happened — in 15 minutes or less. The posts are credited to my a fictional "staff", but they're actually all me. I apologize in advance.

Environmental crusaders Greenpeace released a new round in their series of “Top 10 Polluters”, this time outlining the most dangerous artists worldwide, with fantasy author Neil Gaiman topping the list.

“While we really enjoyed Stardust this summer, it does not excuse Mr Gaiman from his sorted past as one of the world’s worst polluting artists,” said Rainbow Damacy, spokeswoman for Greenpeace at an overly-large rally in San Francisco. “If you look at this chart, you will see that he regularly employs highly toxic chemicals like determol tatamane, bi-chloric substrata and even butanic ratatolic dioximine. And that’s just before breakfast.”

Critics argue that the list, which also includes such names as James Blunt, Dorothy Parker and Michael Bay, has no basis in reality, and is merely a publicity stunt to garner headlines for the once-powerful activist group.

“I mean honestly, I don’t think Michael Bay can be considered an artist,” said Jeff Rubin of analyst firm Rubin & Dooby. “And Dorothy Parker’s not even alive anymore. I think they’re just trying to make a press release with as many famous people as they can think up. If it were real, why aren’t Oasis on there? They cause brain cancer after only two songs.”

Greenpeace denied the accusation, telling PTTBT in an email that “the science behind the list is irrefutable”, and is based on a stringent process of research and verification.

“First, we write an email that starts off ‘DEAR SCUMBAG POLLUTER’,” said a source inside Greenpeace who declined to be named, “And we demand they turn over all records of deadly chemicals they use in their day-to-day life. And like, if they don’t reply within two days, we make up a list of all the things they might be using… cause, y’know, if they’re not telling us, it must be bad, right? And then we put out a press release and see what they admit to. Some of those lists can get really scary, man. Especially if the veggie burgers in the conference room are stale.”

Environmental experts question the validity of the science behind the study, suggesting that perhaps “bi-dingolust triphate tetraoxi-dillidootyphol” is not a real chemical at all. But a Greenpeace spokesman strongly disagreed, saying: “Have you read Anansi Boys? I think it’s pretty obvious there was some kind of chemical influence there. And I want to know what it was. For… uh… science.”