If you come out and find your tires deflated, along with a threatening note left on your vehicle, fear not — it’s not you that the tire...
If you come out and find your tires deflated, along with a threatening note left on your vehicle, fear not — it’s not you that the tire deflaters are after. Just your car. Don’t take it so personally!
They’re called Tyre Extinguishers — a British-based group of eco-extremists who think the best way to stop climate change is to go around letting the air out of the tires of SUVs. And before you ask, this includes electric SUVs, too. If deflating perfectly good tires in a vain attempt to conserve the environment is cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face due to the negative press, deflating EV tires feels a bit like hacking off the whole face, while one is at it.
Now, according to the U.K. Daily Mail, Tyre Extinguishers have moved their act stateside. They’ve dropped the British spelling for the American “Tire Extinguishers” — but the rigamarole is the same. Go around New York City, deflate some rubber, leave a nasty note, then bask in the infamy.
The first strike on American soil took place on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where 40 SUVs had their tires deflated.
This is what you’ll expect to see on your SUV if the Tire Extinguishers decide to strike, courtesy of a photo from their Twitter account. Because, you know, with New York City’s crime rates you might be hard-pressed to realize your car was targeted for a reason, not just randomly, if you didn’t have a note:
“ATTENTION — your gas guzzler kills,” the header reads.
“We have defiled one or more of your tires. You’ll be angry, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car,” it reads.
“We did this because driving around urban areas in your massive vehicle has huge consequences for others,” it continues, arguing that “SUVs are the second-largest cause of the global rise in carbon dioxide emissions over the past decade — more than the entire aviation industry.”
“According to the UN, millions of people are already dying from climate change-related causes — drought, hurricanes, floods, forced migration, starvation,” it continues.
“So far, the impacts on you have probably been minimal. We need emergency action to reduce emissions immediately. We’re taking actions into our own hands because our governments and politicians will not.”
The group assures the motorists whose tires have been deflated that they “will have no difficulty getting around without your gas guzzler, with walking, cycling or public transit.”
As an aside, I’d like to note that a group dedicated to the celebration of criminal vandalism that encourages others to join them has an extant and active Twitter account. As of Saturday morning, psychologist and author Jordan Peterson — Canada’s most notable public intellectual, is suspended from Twitter for “deadnaming” transgender actress Eliot Page by using her previous female name, “Ellen Page,” according to the New York Post. That Twitter, they do have their priorities.
To be (very, very slightly) fair, Tire/Tyre Extinguishers tells the hooligans in the loosely organized group that they should “avoid cars used for people with disabilities, traders’ cars, minibuses and normal-sized cars – but electric SUVs are considered fair game,” according to the U.K. Daily Mail. And they don’t seem to endorse slashing tires, just deflating them — although they’re perfectly happy with keying “death machines, enraging their owners and sending a message that these vehicles will never be safe.”
In a statement to Fox News, the group said they were looking to franchise across the fruited plain, as well.
“We are rapidly expanding across the United States and are in touch with people in major cities across the USA,” a spokesperson for the group said. “We expect this to expand massively.”
One social media user quoted by the Mail nailed just how impotent this strategy is at achieving anything but media attention, however: “So to fight global warming etc you deflated the tires on 40 vehicles. And now 40 tow trucks will be heading out to reinflate/replace these tires. I’m not a carbon footprint genius but seems you increased it exponentially based on the size and fuel consumption of the tow trucks.”
But that’s not what this is about. This is so a bunch of trust-fund adventurists from NYU can get their eco-terrorist ya-ya’s out with some soy-milk “Fight Club” antics before they have to move on to a spreadsheet-pushing job in ESG compliance at some feckless mega-corporation.
Until then, this group of organized hooligans will remain footloose and fancy-free, both on the streets and on social media. If only they’d just deadname Caitlyn Jenner. By golly, we’d have them then.
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