Although it’s often pooh-poohed by more "serious" social disciplines as the purview of the frippery, what’s interesting about fashion is that it provides a chic peek into the collective unconscience. Rather than focusing on the clothes themselves, many insights can be gained by analyzing how they are being marketed. Fashion advertisers spend countless hours (and beaucoup bucks) catching the eye of fickle fashionistas, so they understand their market. Diesel is a prime example of a savvy fashion marketer. Until recently, their intentionally odd & off-kilter ads generally dripped with sex; however this year, they've tapped into the same Al-Gore-climate-effect chic that inspired the clothes, depicting ordinary scenes in a surreal, post-global warming world: New York is almost completely submerged. The half-submerged stone carvings look out on pristine beach. Parrots, rather than pigeons, populate St. Mark's Square in Venice. The Eiffel Tower is surrounded by lizards, and Finland is now a palm tree-studded desert. "The problem with the idea of global warming is that it's usually lectured to people," Dan Barton, vice president of communications for Diesel USA, recently told WWD. The ads, shot by fashion photog/hipster Terry Richardson, will appear in Vogue, GQ and Esquire, and they’ve even teamed up Larry David's wife, Laurie, on Stop Global Warming Virtual March – her online petition to get the government to do something about issues affecting the environment. "It isn't that we want to make a social or political statement. We're taking a serious issue and putting it into Diesel's world, a surreal avant-garde world. We don't want to make light of the subject. We want to raise it in a way that people can digest."

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