Posted on 06/05/2004 8:16:19 AM PDT by EggsAckley
SANTA CRUZ — Miss Santa during the summer months? Well, he will be in town June 12, but this time he is a man with a mission.
As part of a global warming demonstration, Santa will hold a press conference on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk at 11 a.m.
Santa’s unusual visit to Santa Cruz is because global warming causes the North Pole to melt during the summer months, environmentalists say.
Organized by the environmental groups Duyure Adelante, Green House Network and Campaign Earth, "Save Santa’s Home" demonstrations will take place June 12 in cities across the country. Duyure Adelante is based in Santa Cruz.
The first Santa demonstration was in Portland, Ore., near where Green House Network is based. Now, the three organizations are working together to take it to the next level and make it a national, and hopefully annual, event, said Sarah Lachance, Campaign Earth executive director.
"Santa is just a great spokesperson for this issue" since global warming affects the North Pole, said Eban Goodstein, the executive director of Green House Network.
"Save Santa’s Home" is a "fun loving, easy way" to get the global warming message across and raise awareness, Lachance said.
The idea to use Santa came from a brainstorming session between Lachance, Goodstein and Max Boykoff, the director of Duyure Adelante.
Starting with the summer of 2000 and in each summer since, the North Pole has partially melted, Lachance said. This is why Santa is addressing the issue of global warming, saying he is homeless now because of it.
While at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Santa will wear goggles and flippers to "emphasize the fact that the North Pole is melting," Lachance said.
Santa needs the flippers and goggles "because he had to swim for it" from the North Pole, Goodstein said.
By using Santa as their spokesperson for the event, the organizers hope it will involve everyone, including children, an audience often left out of environmental issues, she said.
Volunteers in at least nine cities have registered to demonstrate June 12 on the "Save Santa’s Home" Web site. Along with the demonstration on the Boardwalk, a Santa will appear in San Rafael, as well as two in both Colorado and Massachusetts, and one each in Florida, Oregon and Maryland.
June 12 was chosen for the event because it is summer and because the organizers are trying to ride the wave of "The Day After Tomorrow," a movie about climate change, Lachance said.
Other people argue, however, that global warming is not at fault for the North Pole melting, but it is simply because of the summer sun, including an August 2000 article in The Wall Street Journal by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer titled "Sure, the North Pole is Melting. So What?"
For information, visit the "Save Santa’s Home" Web site at www.savesanta.com.
Contact Rachel Gallegos at rgallegos@santacruzsentinel.com.
Figures Santa Claus would be in Santa Cruz: He's a bearded hippy who only works one day a year.
It's time for Santa to trade in that out-dated sleigh for a Hummer 2!
LOL!!
I think this deserves a just damn ping.
Thanks! And don't get me started on the Easter Bunny...
Fight fire with fire. Get a bunch of kids to yell out "Your not Santa! Your a lying smelly drunk!"
He's a vertically integrated manufacturer and supplier of goods. The guy has a total monopoly on half of the retail economy.
Don't mess with Santa.
Oh Lord.
BTTT!!!!!!!!
Santa shouldn't be hanging around with a bunch of dirty hippies.
Homeless, eh? Send him up here to King County, Washington and we'll give him a tent in a little encampment loaded with criminals and sex offenders next to two elementary schools...
be careful - we tried this at an Eagles game once, and haven't heard the end of it since. =)
This whole Global Warming crap is only using those hippies. It's the wealthiest families on earth who are really looking to cash in on Kyoto, at your expense.
Let's see. We have a fictional character, Santa Claus, coming to tell us about a fictional crisis, global warming. Sounds about right.
That explains this picture of him without the beard:
That ought to go over well in the People's Republic of Santa Cruz - the basic principle of the communist economies was "As long as they pretend to pay us we will pretend to work."
We both know Kyoto is meant only to cripple the U.S. That won't happen. Those old hippies might be fun to watch if we have a bored momoen:)
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