In a new disturbing ad from Greenpeace, the global environmental advocacy group, a not-so-jolly Santa Clause is enlisted to implore the children of the world to save his Arctic home from the effects of climate change. Using found footage in the style of “Blair Witch Project,” creepy flickering lights, a dank bunker that resembles a set piece from the nightmarish “Silent Hill” video game series, and a disheveled-looking Jim Carter (of “Downtown Abbey”), Greenpeace effectively makes the case that climate change could conceivably bring an end to all that we hold dear, including treasured traditions such as Christmas.

As most of us know, the character of Santa has been employed to promote everything from parental obedience to consumerism to Coca-Cola. We can now add to that list climate change awareness. In the ad, a desperate Kris Kringle, appearing more ragged than we have ever seen him, bemoans the progressive deterioration of his Arctic home:

For some time now, melting ice here in the North Pole has made our operations and our day-to-day life intolerable and impossible. And there may be no alternative but to cancel Christmas.

In the character of Santa Clause, the decidedly manipulative and radical Greenpeace may have found a subject more poignant, more dire, than even images of polar bears marooned on floating chunks of ice.

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What makes Santa such an effective spokesperson for the terrifying effects of climate change is the nature of what the jolly old elf symbolizes, at least secularly: consumption and economic stability. In July of this year, a paper?published in the journal Nature reported that global warming could potentially cost the world economy an unfathomable $60 trillion dollars. The idea of Santa has always been a driver of consumption and spending during the holidays. But as the Greenpeace ad points out, global warming could very well change all of that. Instead of buying crap manufactured in China, we might one day struggle to procure even the most basic of necessities, such as potable water, food, and shelter.

My home in the Arctic is fast disappearing,

Santa regretfully says

[…] and unless we?all act urgently, then I have to warn you of the possibility of an empty stocking… forevermore.

If Presidents Obama and Putin, as well as other world leaders at the “top of [Santa’s] naughty list,” fail to act on the warnings Greenpeace, other such organizations, and climate scientists have expressed for years, we’ll surely lose so much more than our paltry stocking stuffers.

Watch the video here:

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