FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2011

ENBRIDGE HAIR HOAX EXPOSED
Group responsible offers free haircuts at Enbridge HQ at noon

Earlier today, the world learned of oil transport giant Enbridge’s strategy for handling inevitable oil spills along its proposed pipeline through pristine British Columbian wilderness: mop it up with human hair.

The cockamamie “MyHairCares” hoax, dreamed up by former oil workers and involving outreach to over 1000 hair salons, was promoted in a slick Video News Release and involved a flurry of conflicting press releases. The original story ran in a number of major news outlets (archive will be posted shortly here), but was pulled with no retraction or explanation after a terse denial by Enbridge that seemed to miss the point entirely. (For a longer, better denial click here.)

March 15, 2011. I knew of the Alberta Tar Sands, and of the grave environmental dangers associated with extracting the oil and then transporting it, first through a pipeline that violates pristine forests in First Nation lands, and hence by tanker, through the vulnerable archipelago of northern British Columbia. I also knew the situation was already subject to the concerted resistance of various environmental and Native American activists, and that it had been targeted by the Yes Men for one of their inimitable interventions.

But it was not until receiving an email today, supposedly from Enbridge, that I realized I was witnessing a beautifully orchestrated campaign in which the Yes Men have doubly pranked Enbridge, first by generating a bogus "MyHairCares" campaign to sop up the expected oil spills - part of their "dummy" Enbridge website http://northern-gateway.ca/ (the real one is http://www.northerngateway.ca/) - then by posing as the affronted oil giant to toss off an angry letter of complaint.