31 July 2012

Shell's Let's Go! Mercy Poll

From: Shell's Arctic Ready <alerts[at]arcticready.com>
Subject: Announcing Shell's Let's Go! Mercy Poll
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2012 17:26:10 +0200 (CEST)


 
  Help us play by the rules­your rules!
 



To our fellow human stewards of the globe:

Following our immensely successful ad contest­with 12,000 ads, many thousands of tweets, 4 million page views, and widespread attention in the traditional media sector­we at Shell are proud to announce our newest social-media venture: the Let's Go! Mercy Poll! It's an innovative, humane way for you to help us help a few of our new Arctic neighbors­and, in the process, make sure your friends and neighbors remain firmly in favor of Arctic drilling.

Here's how it works.

The US government has granted Shell "incidental harassment authorization" permits for a number of Arctic seals, whales, and other mammals, including several with widespread popularity, and some considered "endangered." While our permits do not encourage "harassment" (defined as the disturbance of animals' feeding, breeding, nursing, migration, shelter, and breathing activities), they do recognize that several thousand such individuals may unavoidably be affected in the course of normal oil exploration activities.

While we at Shell are grateful the US Government will tolerate the necessary disruption of the marine ecosystem in the pursuit of vital resources, we also recognize that many of our customers experience knee-jerk reactions to the news that so many mammals will be affected. It is to address these concerns that we at Shell are launching the Let's Go! Mercy Poll, which allows you­the public­to openly and democratically determine which Arctic mammal could have its Level B Harassment "take" reduced by half during Shell's upcoming Arctic drilling activities. For whichever animal first reaches 10,000 votes, our crew will keep a special lookout that will make their harassment less likely.

Please do not vote more than once, or for more than one mammal. Whichever species wins this poll, we at Shell will opt to willingly self-impose meaningful voluntary restrictions above and beyond the limits imposed by our permits, and will make every effort to reduce the number of individuals of that species affected by drilling operations in both our Beaufort and Chukchi seas operations. Of course, we can't completely eliminate the harassment of even one species­prosperity has a price!­but with your encouragement we will consider reducing it very substantially.

Helping you help us help them. Let's go!
Your friends at ArcticReady.com