Over the weekend, a group of environmental advocates was removed from the Balloon Fiesta grounds by event officials — and told not to return for the rest of this year’s festivities — after staging a protest aimed at the event’s title sponsor, Exxon Mobil.
New Mexico environmental activists draped banners reading “Exxon profits, NM pays,” outside the New Mexico Roundhouse Tuesday evening, protesting the oil and gas conglomerate’s sponsorship of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.
Satirical protestors supported by WildEarth Guardians and the The Yes Men dressed as sales representatives of a fake oil and gas company, Exxtreme Energy, and offered samples of the company’s “new hydration and drought solution” to Fiesta visitors and guests in the ExxonMobil sponsor tent on Sunday.
Love it or hate it, this weekend, balloons will start to fill the skies of Albuquerque. But a conservation group and pair of parody purveyors are hoping to draw some eyes with a series of satirical billboards and stunts to push back on the recent efforts to expand the use of oil and gas water off of New Mexico’s oilfields.
Activist groups The Yes Men and WildEarth Guardians are looking to raise awareness in the state about produced water, a little-known form of pollution. They have created a fictitious company called Exxtreme Energy seeking to protest against what they call environmental damage.
