Attack of the Chicken People

John reporting from the ASPO conference.

The Chicken People.jpg

I first saw one of them when I was having an early dinner on the first day of the conference. A man in a yellow chicken suit was riding up one of the escalators. He didn't have the head on.

My wife came to town the second day to do some sightseeing at the Capitol while I remained entombed in the bowels of the hotel all day. When I first had a chance to talk to her, she told me how two people in chicken suits were handing out flyers outside of the hotel, one of which she took. Its title was "Oil Production: Is the Sky Falling? Or has the world just let the Post Office take over the oil industry?" The flyer blames nationalization of the oil industry by governments for the high prices and shortfalls in production that we are seeing. The flyer promotes, should we say, a number of superfluously plausible, but inaccurate ideas.

I went in search of the chicken people and found them on a corner of the sideway outside the hotel. They were two very nice minority teenagers hired from the neighborhood. I took one of their flyers after confirming that I was from the conference. They told me that the chicken costumes were to satirize the idea of the sky falling. I asked them what they were told to say to people. They vaguely answered that they were handing out something about energy production; seemingly their handlers had not prepped them extensively. I asked if they were being well paid. They said they were. They asked me if the conference was to end today. I said it was. I suggested evilly that they tell their handlers that I told them the conference would end tomorrow.

I ended the conversation by telling them that many in our conference wished that what was in flyer would be indeed correct. But we don't think so. As I walked away I thought, "Yes, if by being correct we didn't also blow our atmospheric back to the conditions found in the Triassic era or worse." After all, the dinosaurs are already dead.

More like this

Can you scan the flyer?

Wow, somebody would hire a couple of kids to dress up like that and hand flyers out - kids that are that disinvested and unschooled in the whole debate? I would LOVE to know who is behind that.

I also vote for a scan of the flyer if that's possible.

By Stephen B. (not verified) on 10 Oct 2010 #permalink

The Chicken People: the take-home message from the conference to hundreds of casual passersby.

There were no dinosaurs at the beginning of the Triassic Period. The Triassic was when dinosaurs first evolved from archosauran precursors. If we manage to "..blow our atmospheric back to the conditions found in the Triassic era or worse," (why "worse"?) perhaps something like them may return. I have long considered the Cenozoic to be boring & depauperate (with a few exceptions such as bats & colubrid snakes) compared to the Mesozoic. I, personally, would be jazzed to have Triassic conditions reestablished on Earth. "Better" vs. "worse" is a subjective value judgement.

By darwinsdog (not verified) on 11 Oct 2010 #permalink