Around midnight on Dec. 3, 1984, a pesticide plant owned by chemical company Union Carbide leaked more than 40 tons of toxic methyl isocyanate gas in Bhopal, India. An estimated 3,000 people were killed almost immediately, and thousands more were left with lifelong illnesses and injuries. The incident was a nightmare, widely considered the worst industrial disaster in history, but Union Carbide refused to accept responsibility for it.

In 2001, Dow Chemicals acquired Union Carbide for $9.3 billion, and three years later, on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal catastrophe, a spokesman for Dow went on BBC World News to announce that the corporation would finally take full responsibility for the disaster. He added that Union Carbide would be liquidated and its money used to help survivors and residents of Bhopal. The value of Dow’s common shares promptly sunk by $2 billion.

This story would be a frustrating yet promising capitalist tale that suggests there could be accountability in the corporate world, but for one small problem: The last bit isn’t true. Someone did apologize on behalf of Dow and say the company would help cover medical costs in Bhopal, but it wasn’t a Dow spokesperson. It was a man calling himself Jude Finisterra, who these days more often calls himself Andy Bichlbaum. But that’s not his real name either. It may be easier just to identify him as one half of the activist, culture-jamming duo the Yes Men.

The other half goes by the pseudonym of Mike Bonanno, and together the two have made a habit of fibbing their way into fairly important situations: a spot on BBC World News; a 2006 post-Katrina New Orleans housing summit with Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco; GO-EXPO, Canada’s largest oil conference; and various business conventions and meetings. Once there, decked in thrift store suits, they impersonate spokesmen for various big-name companies or government officials and either present outrageous “corporate” solutions to problems like climate change (one example: the SurvivaBall, a ridiculous, massive, ball-shaped suit designed to protect its wearer from all types of climate catastrophes — “truly, a gated community for one,” according to faux promotional literature) or make official announcements, as in the Dow/Bhopal disaster, that they feel corporations or government agencies should be making themselves. They also create fake Web sites for real companies, which tend to confuse people into thinking they’re the real thing and gets them the invitations to the conferences they crash.

Having been at it for roughly a decade, the Yes Men have a fairly established routine by now —role playing, if you will, with a strong comedic bent — and yet “we are changing what we do all the time,” Bichlbaum told ARTINFO over the phone last week. “There are all different kinds of things to do. We’re not wedded to continuing to crash conferences.”

Indeed, in the past year they have ventured from fake Web to fake print, putting out a quite convincing-looking dream edition of the New York Times last November (top headline: “Iraq War Ends,” plus others like “Nationalized Oil to Fund Climate Change Efforts” and “All Public Universities to Be Free”) and, just two weeks ago, an environmentally focused edition of the conservative New York Post that covered real, previously unreported stories about the threats of climate change (top headline: “We’re Screwed”).

In fact, the New York-based Yes Men seem to be popping up just about everywhere in their hometown these days. Bichlbaum, Bonanno, and a cadre of volunteers distributed the faux Post around town on Sept. 21, the day before the U.N. Summit on Climate Change. The next morning they took to the East River at 21st Street to promote the SurvivaBall and launch “Balls Across America,” their civil disobedience campaign in which they plan to get arrested all over the country (and call on others to do the same) to raise awareness about environmental issues. Bichlbaum unwittingly kick-started the campaign that morning: The NYPD arrested him on an outstanding bicycle ticket (received for riding through Washington Square Park, which is illegal), while officers handed out tickets and summonses to other participants because the group didn’t have a parade permit.