Marketing campaigns influence your future

Initializing.... Synchronizing... *Synch*... Opening display...

Graham Readfearn provided us with a fairly succinct review of the PR campaign mounted by people who care more about profit than about pretty much anything else... the so called "Climate Deniers".



I dislike the term "Climate Denier" simply because the "Denier" part implies that there is some sort of debate, an Approve versus Denied false dichotomy. The use of the term promotes the idea that the changes that we see, that we record, that are wreaking havoc around the world might not be real. It's pretty much real as the massive destruction, the body blows to our economy, and the body counts continue to climb. These soulless spawn keep on pushing their positions in the face of verifiable facts, their eyes glazed over with the need to grab all that wonderful money before someone else gets it.

The people who succumb to the "denier" bullshit are the ideological descendants of people who wanted to stay aboard the Titanic because they believed the "unsinkable" hype from the newspapers and White Star Line mouthpieces. (For more of this discussion to chew over, have a look at "How an ‘Unsinkable’ Marketing Campaign Led to the Titanic to Disaster")








What's interesting to me here is how the Fossil Fuel Industry has adopted the same tactics that the tobacco companies used over a generation ago. Some sharp marketeer figured out that they didn't have to disprove anything, they just had to raise doubts and keep raising the doubts, no matter how clear the evidence was. If you keep doing this, you paralyze effective effort to change the status quo. Which in the case of the cigarette folks meant that people kept buying their products, and kept becoming sick and dying, all the while hanging on to the "reasonable doubt" that said they "might not" die from their habit. Here's an old commercial I remember seeing quite clearly, have a look.



Surely Peabody Coal and Exxon/Mobil aren't anything like R. J. Reynolds was back before we stopped them from marketing cancer to our kids.... wait... uh...



Well, so what color is your lifeboat going to be?

Read the article... it starts here:

The Campaigns That Tried To Break The Climate Science Consensus (via Desmogblog)

So just in case anyone wasn’t sure, a major study of almost 12,000 scientific papers on global warming between 1991 and 2011 finds less than one per cent disagree that humans are the main cause. Published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the study led by John Cook, the Australia-based…

---

Despair? Hopelessness? Uh Oh.

I distributed the Miller-McCune article: "Why Isn't Climate Change on More Lips?"-  http://bit.ly/vl17wI  - to several very intelligent, very rational people who don't spend much time in the Climate Science world. I asked for feedback about the article and whether it reflected their views.

I'm quoting one of the responses as representative of the general feeling below.

"read it...i think it is right on point. it describes alot of what i personally feel.                            
not so much denial...but the hopelessness. after you know you are going to die, then you
just wait for it. the sense of powerlessness is overwhelming."

Time to work on messaging, doncha think?

Related articles

• PHOTOS: How Do The World's Farmers Adapt To Climate Change? (huffingtonpost.com)
• How To Discuss Climate Change With Your Uncle During The Holidays (huffingtonpost.com)
• Steve Fleischli: Top Water-related Impacts of Climate Change (huffingtonpost.com)
• Rush Limbaugh Named Climate Change Misinformer of the Year (Video) (treehugger.com)

A Call To Arms on Climate Change

I found this in Forbes, to my personal surprise. Perhaps I've become too jaundiced from the insanity that now passes for "reality" inside Washington D.C.'s Beltway these days. I no longer expected a prestigious magazine like Forbes to permit a truly balanced comment. I must thank William Pentland for posting this in such an elite publication, and thank Senator Whitehouse for taking a strong and informed stand, where so many have lacked the moral substance, or just the plain backbone to say what needed to be said.  I hope he does not end up retreating or recanting, and I hope the people of Rhode Island see fit to re-elect someone who is so clearly a leader.

Enough of my babble, first the comments from Mr. Pentland, and then the Senator's statement. Ooooorah! Senator!

---

I  explain my allegiance with Al Gore the way John F. Kennedy explained his relationship with the Vatican. “I don’t speak for Al Gore and Al Gore doesn’t speak for me.”

I would not say the same about Rhode Island’s Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

In a speech delivered before the U.S. Congress a few days ago, Sheldon argued that America has a duty to respond to the risks posed by global warming.  Sheldon concluded:

Right now I must come before the Chamber and remind this body that we are failing in that duty. The men and women in this Chamber are indeed catastrophically failing in that duty. We are earning the scorn and condemnation of history — not this week, perhaps, and not next week. The spin doctors can see to that. But ultimately and assuredly, the harsh judgment that it is history’s power to inflict on wrong will fall upon us . . . 

It is magical thinking to imagine that somehow we will be spared the plain and foreseeable consequences of our failure of duty. There is no wizard’s hat and wand with which to wish this away. These laws of nature are known; the Earth’s message to us is clear; our failure is blameworthy; its consequences are profound; and the costs will be very high.

I have posted the entire transcript of Sheldon’s speech below. Thank you, Senator. Semper Fi.

Crosspost: Top Gear's electric car shows pour petrol over the BBC's standards | updated 15 Aug 2011

Being the pain I usually am, I've provided some "emphasis" for some of the text. George has stopped short of making some comments that he's almost GOT to be thinking, so I'm going to provide a few of my own in the stream of the article. You'll know it when you see it. lwo   :)

Why is Top Gear apparently exempt from the BBC's editorial guidelines and the duty not to fake the facts?

• Tesla sues Top Gear over 'faked' electric car race
• The Nissan Leaf electric car – review

Jeremy "Lying sack of bantha poodoo" Clarkson sabotages 
a test drive of the Leaf electric car  Photograph: BBC

What distinguishes the BBC from the rest of this country's media? There's the lack of advertising, and the lack of a proprietor with specific business interests to defend.

(lwo Note: I now watch Top Gear on BBC America, which does indeed produce revenue for BBC Worldwide; perhaps I should now assume that BBC has no standards for the BBC America services?)

But perhaps the most important factor is its editorial guidelines, which are supposed to ensure that the corporation achieves "the highest standards of due accuracy and impartiality and strive[s] to avoid knowingly and materially misleading our audiences."

Here's a few of the things they say:

"Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest."

"We will be rigorous in establishing the truth of the story and well informed when explaining it. Our specialist expertise will bring authority and analysis to the complex world in which we live."

"We will be open in acknowledging mistakes when they are made and encourage a culture of willingness to learn from them."

Top Gear Paradise?
Image via Wikipedia

Woe betide the producer or presenter who breaches these guidelines. Unless, that is, they work for Top Gear. If so, they are permitted to drive a coach and horses – or a Hummer H3 - through them whenever they please.

Take, for example, Top Gear's line on electric cars. Casting aside any pretence of impartiality or rigour, it has set out to show that electric cars are useless. If the facts don't fit, it bends them until they do.

Tesla Roadster
Image via Wikipedia

It's currently being sued by electric car maker Tesla after claiming, among other allegations, that the Roadster's true range is only 55 miles per charge (rather than 211), and that it unexpectedly ran out of charge. Tesla says "the breakdowns were staged and the statements are untrue". But the BBC keeps syndicating the episode to other networks. So much for "acknowledging mistakes when they are made".

Now it's been caught red-handed faking another trial, in this case of the Nissan LEAF.

Nissan Leaf
Image via Wikipedia

Last Sunday, an episode of Top Gear showed Jeremy "We're only entertainment so our recommendations are as full of exrement as I am" Clarkson and James "time for me to drink my way across the UK"  May setting off for Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, 60 miles away. The car "unexpectedly" ran out of charge when they got to Lincoln, and had to be pushed. They concluded that "electric cars are not the future".

(lwo Note: But it's clear from Clarkson's Lists that he will whore out his reputation just to get a self serving edge with whomever he fancies at the moment. Here's a recent and from what I can tell, fairly accurate review of Clarkson's abilities found out on the "Ultimate Car" forum:

People enjoy Clarkson's hard opinions and dry sense of humour. However, they seem to forget that he knows nothing about how cars handle, nor has after 20 years of driving supercars has any skills behind the wheel. A good example is when he put the current ZR1 against an Audi R8 and constantly said that the ZR1 was impossible to drive faster than the R8. Then in the hands of the stig it blitzed the R8.
I also remember him slagging off the Carrera GT calling it bland and uninteresting, reviewing it against the Enzo Ferrari.

and

AND Clarkson's comments are about getting readers/viewers attention and to sell his column, mag, book, video, tv show.

and

This guy has driven every major badass ultimately exotic supercar on this planet and he puts a Mazda CX7 on his top 25? Nothing against the CX7, is a nice SUV or crossover, or whatever, I drove it myself when I was checking them out a few months ago while considering one for my wife, but come on... Jeremy Clarkson's top 25?

In short, Jeremy Clarkson seems to emerge as the combined Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh of the automotive

Too subtle?

I don't think most of the Texans agree with the "End of Days" schtick. They've been roughed up pretty thoroughly by drought already, enough to get their dander up. A real Texan is one tough hombre. A guy calling himself a preacher, sipping from his coffee mug and shouting into a camera on You Tube isn't enough to make them quit struggling, give up hope, drop to their knees and pray.

Texas Lake Turns Blood-Red - Texas - Fox Nation http://bit.ly/o68IlO

---

That doesn't seem to extend to Indiana however.

---

And now for the not so 'subtle' part.

---

The Deluge - Image via Wikipedia

There once was an old man who had great faith. He lived in a flood-plain. One day after a particularly hard rain, a Ranger pulls up in front of the house in a 4x4. The Ranger tells the old man that a great flood is coming, that he needs to evacuate. The old man insists on staying saying, "I have faith! God will save me from the flood!" The Ranger argues, but to no avail, and finally leaves to save more sensible people.

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

The next day, the floodwaters have covered the old man's yard, and are lapping at his porch. The same Ranger pulls up in a john-boat and begs the old man once more to evacuate. The old man remains firm, saying, "I have faith! God will save me from the flood!" The Ranger argues to no avail, and finally leaves.

Helicopter Rescue - Image by SixFourG via Flickr

The next day, the floodwaters have covered the 1st and 2nd stories, and a helicopter flies in to hover over the old man perched upon the roof. The Ranger yells to the old man, "Climb up! We need to get you out of here!" Once again, the old man replies, "I have faith! God will save me from the flood!" As they argue, a wave sweeps the old man off the roof and he drowns.

The old man arrives at the gates of Heaven, and is greeted by the Angel Gabriel. The old man says, "I want to speak with God." Gabriel smiles and says that God wants to talk to him, too. The old man is ushered into the presence of God, and says, "Lord, I don't understand! I had faith that you would save me! What happened?"

God looks at him, sighs, and says, "I sent you a 4x4, a boat, and a helicopter, what more did you want???"

---

Could it be that the messages for the last 30 years were sent to save us? 


This story is usually paired with something crisp like, "The Lord helps those who help themselves." Life isn't about passively standing around, waiting for the big guy in the sky to take care of you. You've got to participate.

"I sent you a scientist, a group of scientists, and an international coalition of scientists to tell you how to avoid this, what more did you want???"

Image by UNclimatechange via Flickr

Related articles

• Winners and losers in the Mississippi floods (guardian.co.uk)
• East Dubuque flood victims blast city (thegazette.com)
• Thousands remain isolated as floodwaters ease (theage.com.au)
• Floodwaters Devastate Mississippi Delta (newser.com)
• Flash floods force evacuations (mirror.co.uk)
• Flood-hit residents start clean-up (autonetinsurance.co.uk)

Taiji Dolphin Season Opens | Mother Jones

Speaking of history, activists have been so (understandably) blindsided by the cruelty and atrociousness of dolphin and whale slaughter that they've forgotten it was only after WWII that Japanese consumption of whale and dolphin meat increased. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was the one who helped Japan set up whaling fleets so Japan could feed people who were facing starvation during the American occupation.

via motherjones.com

Don't you love it when good intentions turn out to be horrible ideas?

Posted via email from TweetingDonal's Temporary Insanities

What Sustainable Seafood? | Mother Jones

The world's foremost certifier of safe and sustainable fisheries has just been slapped down in a new op-ed by a top-shelf collection of scientists in the latest issue of Nature. The problem is that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is ignoring science in favor of bureaucracy, write the authors, researchers from the University of British Columbia, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and elsewhere.
The idea behind the MSC, which was established in 1997 by the World Wildlife Fund and Unilever (one of the world's largest fish retailers), was to help consumers eat fish "guilt-free" by certifying fisheries. Today, major grocery chains—Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and Europe's Waitrose—carry the MSC's blue check-mark label as a sign of seafood sustainability.

via motherjones.com

Julia Whitty has done a great job of boiling this down for us... follow the link to see more specifics from the scientific community's concerns.

Posted via email from TweetingDonal's Temporary Insanities