Going green with spray paint?

You know what really makes me want to plunge? Spray painting mountains green in order to answer calls for more attention to environmental protection.

Wait, an actual mountain was spray painted green?!?

Yup. It’s actually quite impressive. Not because they managed to paint an entire mountain green, but because this was an approved government project. Take a moment to consider what something like this involves…

• Pressure is put on China to be more environmentally friendly. Someone mistakenly says, “Hey, you guys need to go green!”.
• A meeting is called, people gather to discuss the problem. The question is asked, “How do we go green? Any good ideas?”
• Someone jumps up from the crowd and suggests, “Let’s cover some barren land with green toxic paint, that will solve the problem! It will show the world we can go green!”
• The idea is discussed and debated. It’s even improved. “Let’s do this on a mountain, so the world can really see our renewed efforts to go green!”.
• Against all odds, the project is approved.
• $60,600 is spent on putting the plan into action.

Requirements gathering – Important in all areas of life…

This isn’t the case of a crazy person running around with a can of spray paint. Somewhere along the way, this plan could have been trashed, but no – it lived on, was approved, and financed. In my software engineering world, this is a clear case of the implementation not satisfying the requirements. Sure they went green, but the objective of improving the environment was not met, not by a long shot.

Even Evil Overlords want to Protect the Environment

$60,600 worth of toxic paint could have been used to purchase 13,060 pounds of Perenniall Ryegrass seeds, enough to cover 1,632,343 square feet. The end result would also have been a green hillside, with plenty of seeds leftover to feed an entire fleet of remote controlled pigeons.

If you’re ever stuck choosing between grass and spray paint, go with the grass – it’s a renewable resource. If you want to achieve world domination, you have to invest wisely. Spray painted mountains are unsustainable, but grass just keeps on growing. It’s also a good idea to avoid upsetting environmentalists if you want to keep your evil schemes out of the media spotlight…

For a Quick Fix Always Go with Cardboard or Duct Tape

$60,600 could also have been used to plant a fake forest with green cardboard trees. Sure, this is also a waste of money, but it’s recyclable. Cardboard can be made to look like anything. If you don’t believe me, check-out the sets of your favorite movies and TV shows. If you need a quick solution to a problem, cardboard can help you fool anyone. If you want to make a fake forest on the side of a mountain, cardboard trees will be a lot more realistic than spray painting the ground neon green.

In fact, when in need of a quick fix, cardboard and duct tape can be used to solve most of your problems. It’s not a good long-term solution, but when fleeing your secret moon base, cardboard henchmen duct-taped to your self-destruct timer will distract Austin Powers long enough for you to escape.

Feng shui not an Excuse for Poor Management

Locals speculate that “officials of the surrounding Fumin county, whose office building faces the mountain, were trying to change the area’s feng shui – the ancient Chinese belief of harmonizing one’s physical environment for maximum health and financial benefit”.

This means that government officials came to the conclusion that the best way to harmonize the environment for maximum health and financial benefit was by wasting money on destroying the environment even though the environment is necessary for good health and investing money wisely is necessary for financial benefit.

Nobody is this stupid.

As an evil overlord, whenever it comes to your attention that minions are blaming extremely poor decisions on feng shui, this can only mean one thing – you have a mole.

Let me put it to you this way. It’s a hard knock life, but that molé molé has got to lick your nine.

Killing the Environment is bad for Morale, even in an Evil Organization

For some reason people think evil overlords couldn’t care less about the environment. This is crazy. When I retire from overlording, I want to spend my days sipping mojitos on a beautiful tropical beach, not drinking recycled sewage in an overcrowded landfill with an oxygen tank strapped to my back causing terrible tan lines.

I want to take over the world, not destroy it.

Protecting the environment and spray paint don’t go together. In fact, anytime you see a skull and crossbones image on a product, don’t go dump that product on a hillside, chances are its a bad idea.

Guess What? Nuclear Power Plants Suck too. Ask David Suzuki.

Don’t let politicians fool you. Protecting the environment and nuclear power don’t go together.
A nuclear power plant creates less air pollutants than a coal burning power plant, but that doesn’t make it the best alternative.

The fact is simple, a nuclear power plant is a giant spray-paint can with millions of skulls and crossbones drawn all over it. As of 2000, Canada has 35,000 tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear waste, with nowhere to put it. With a radioactive half-life of 25,000 years, nuclear waste remains dangerous for 250,000 years (And these are just the problems faced when a nuclear power plant is working properly!).

The damage from spray painting a mountain green will be gone long before the damage from nuclear power plants.

And I like my mojitos.

The Evil Overlord Guide to World Dominiation - Featuring deceth, notorious supervillain of the internet