Well, here’s a brand that’s making the most of a dire situation.
Just last week, climate change scientists announced that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have passed 400 parts per million, which is an irreversible new baseline, with destructive consequences for the global climate. While this has sent distressing shockwaves across the globe, John Deere sees it as an opportunity: The lawn-care company just released an 800-horsepower “OmniBlast” leaf blower, citing that it truly does not matter now if people want to use an inordinately overpowered leaf blower because the planet is as good as fried to hell.
Wow! You have to hand it to John Deere for being able to pivot this dreary news into a new product launch.
“The environment is pretty much fucked now, so we might as well release our OmniBlast leaf blower that produces wildly excessive 500-mph blasts with its V8 engine,” said John Deere CEO Sam Allen at the product’s unveiling this morning. “Normally we would never release any product that burns through gasoline faster than a starved dog tears through a juicy steak, but it seriously does not matter anymore.”
The OmniBlast features a 50-gallon fuel tank on wheels that connects to the fuel supply in the backpack, to ensure users can keep all six of the overpowered leaf blowers going full blast for up to eight hours. During his presentation, Allen started to go into the sheer amount of fluorocarbons the OmniBlast creates, but stopped himself after noting that the atmosphere is already filled with so much pollution that it’s impossible to go back to the way things were, so the exact numbers of dangerous sediment strewn into the air do not matter at all.
“This thing will make it much harder to blow leaves, but if you want to strap into this fucker and let her rip, or just turn it on and leave it skittering around your driveway, go nuts,” continued Allen. “Whether you do it or not, all U.S. coastal cities will be under a few feet of water in 50 years, so might as well. You should not feel guilt using the OmniBlast. You should not feel anything at all.”
Incredible. Most companies try to avoid releasing wasteful, destructive products, but John Deere is openly embracing it, because who fucking cares, all this shit is fucked anyway.
At John Deere, all bets are off now that CO2 levels have passed the tipping point. Marketing execs knew they would get bad PR from environmentalists if they had released the 105-pound, carbon-belching behemoth earlier, but at the dawn of this new age of pollution, it’s anything goes. It’s a safe bet that we’ll be seeing more products like this in the future from a wide range of companies, and consumers can take some comfort in knowing none of that matters either.
