“Allowing car advertising is like allowing tobacco advertising. What we need is an effective system of free public transport that serves people’s needs.”
Yesterday and today, to mark International Anti-Advertising Day, supporters of the Climáximo collective replaced advertisements with works of art denouncing the impact of car advertising.
The aim of the action was to “draw attention to the negative consequences of car advertising, as recently demonstrated in the French report by Résistance à l’Agression Publicitaire (RAP), “Stop à la Pub Automobile – La voiture à l’assaut de notre imaginaire” (Car advertising attacks our imagination)”. According to the group, “these advertisements perpetuate stereotypes and encourage individualistic automotive excesses that are incompatible with an ecological and fair energy transition that prioritises public transport”.
The posters highlighting the contradictions and damage caused by car advertising were placed this morning in various advertising spaces in locations such as Cais do Sodré and Santa Apolónia, where hundreds of people pass by on their way to work.
Lisbon-based artist Michelle Tylicki, who designed one of the posters, said, “Like a Van Eyck altarpiece for the age of collapse, this piece presents The Last Judgement. It condemns advertisers and car manufacturers who sell speed and excess as salvation. Tesla and the electric vehicle industry disguise destruction with a green halo, but more cars – electric or otherwise – will not save us.”
Climáximo states that “the transport sector, largely powered by fossil fuels, is responsible for a large part of greenhouse gas emissions. But the solution does not lie in the electric car industry, with its extractive practices and individualistic solutions for the richest 1%. We need a free, efficient and accessible public transport system for all people and across the whole territory, including international connections”.
In Climáximo’s “Disarmament and Peace Plan”, illustrated by Nuno Saraiva and launched last month, the collective outlines “a realistic, fair plan, compatible with the deadlines of the climate crisis, to make this energy transition and create a public transport system for all people, among other measures necessary for large-scale social, labour and production transformation”.
The collective also points out that “the car and aviation sectors are a direct obstacle to investment in railways and public transport systems”, and calls on everyone “to join the “Stop the Planes” sit-in on 1 June at Lisbon airport to halt aviation expansion projects and demand more transport for the people”.