Post
Climate change as the new religion. A lesson in advertising.
If you can't win the debate, brand it as religion.
That's how climate change deniers operate.
Let me unravel how this cheap marketing tactic of branding exists and is propagated.I should know, I work in advertising and very well know how companies spin a web of nonsense to get their point across. I will try to explain it in layman terms here.
Let's follow the money first.
Who exactly in their right minds would want to deny climate change? What does one get out of it?
Corporates involved in producing and propagating polluting technologies.
To accept and act upon climate change would mean they would have to clean up their acts.
Not good for investment, is it?
So, spend money in fighting science.
Which brings us to religion.
Religion has held its own, sometimes alongside and sometimes against science. it's undeniably powerful.
Viola!
The marketing and advertising brains of the companies come upon a strategy. Call scientists and environmentalists 'religious fanatics' and climate change - the new religion.
What happens next is a blitzkrieg of confusion. Funded and fuelled by the companies with vested interests. The world starts the blame game. People start questioning the motive of scientists and environmentalists and forget one very simple truth.That we are facing the biggest challenge of our existence as a species. We need to think of new ways and devise new sustainable ways of living to be able to survive.
It's also called evolution.
We must evolve as a species. From a world based on the economics of 'infinite resources', we must understand that in fact, our resources are finite*. And Keynes may have been wrong all along. He said, fair is foul and foul is fair. No Mr. Keynes it isn't. There is no place for foul in the new world order.
A world we must build from the learnings of the one we have lived in and are rapidly losing.
Evolution, anyone?
* Our finite resources. From visinomics.com. Click on the image to enlarge.
A case study: Just to illustrate my point about marketing. We all know that there is nothing called clean coal. It was a result of a multi-million dollar advertising campaign funded by the coal lobby. The result, the entire debate about coal has got confusing and people seriously talk of clean coal as an alternative. I would leave you with a link to ponder on. Will write about the clean coal in detail later. Here are the links:
It’s a scientific fact that there is nothing clean about coal. It is just an advertising con job that took more than $40 million in the making.
Here’s why ‘clean coal’ isn’t. And yet it will be traded to the Southern countries in the name of clean technologies in Copenhagen this December.
(Post 7 of 38) A part of my 38 posts as a countdown to Copenhagen
Comments
Taste your own medicine, man! It was you the LGM (Little Green Men), who started branding climate sceptics as irrational “flat-earthers” and “holocaust deniers”. Even Mr. Jorgensen did it in Copenhagen, do your remember?
You people did it to avoid discussion with us sceptics. To avoid discussion, because you believers have no arguments to win the discussion. The facts speak against you.
1) Warming stopped 10 years ago, though CO2 levels are rising
2) Solar activity in 20th century was unprecedented. Which - along with thermal intertia of oceans - explains the increase in CO2 and tempeatures.
3) Green measures are so expensive and inefficient, that we cannot afford this luxury amidst economic crisis. It is bad for the people.
This makes no sense Viezslav.
Let me explain the corporate ‘branding’ to you.
When you call me xyz, that is not corporate branding.
But when companies spend millions of dollars in an exercise to propagate their product THAT is corporate branding.
It has money behind it.
Marketing behind it.
And advertising brains behind it.
Which is why it is so effective. It makes gullible people like you - believe in it.
The LGM example, is like me calling you a climate denier. It is true, but I don’t have the money to spend on the branding exercise. And so you will never believe it.
And that is what this is about. You have been fooled Vitezslav. Don’t believe the propaganda. Follow the money and you will know the truth!
It’s only advertising.
Climate change is for real. And hey, to your last point - have you studied economics? Or, have you NOT been following the economic crisis?
The cris happened because we followed ‘unsustainable development’. And that was a failure.
When you say green measures are expensive etc - it is pure rhetoric. You don’t have a proof that they are inefficient. Because I can’t see green economic practices around. If there were, we would not have landed in this trouble in the first place.
Use logic Vitezslav. Not rhetoric.
Hemant, your rambling ends here.
The Greenhouse Effect
This is why rising CO2 can’t possibly cause global warming/climate change.
Mike, you missed the debate here:
http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think2/post/there_is_no_point_in_denying_it_were_losing_the_climate_debate/
read the comments
I have explained, quoting from scientists, how an increase in CO2 (due to human activities) is causing global warming.
Warning: It’s science. And it is long. But it may clear some confusion in your head.
Really, even if you are an sceptic… even if you don’t believe in global warming… how can anyone let forests being burned for irresponsible farming, the oceans being polluted by plastic, animals being hunt to their extinction, etc, etc?
This is a good principle to consider:
The Precautionary Principle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle )
“Better safe than sorry”.
Ainara, a pink dragon will come to your house and eat you at the end of the year unless you give me all your money. You wouldn’t want that to happen now would you?
“Better safe than sorry”.
Deforestation, pollution and hunting; what on earth do these have to do with being a skeptic of antropogenic global warming?
A pink dragon? Hahahaha… that sounds awesome. I’ll keep my money and look forward for it!
As for the rest… every little bit counts. What I meant is that we really have to change the way we’ve been doing things until now. Because the current way of doing things is just not sustainable. And I’m sure there are better ways, more nature friendly ways, of going about our lifes. So even if you are an skeptic about global warming… I think that changing things and trying to make base our economy on sustainability, will be better for everyone in the end. And that would affect positively global warming too (because I do think it’s true, based on the facts I’ve read and the people I’ve talked to).
I can tell you that the climate is changing where I live. The climate now has nothing to do with what it was like 50 years ago. But beyond that, to me, the scientific evidence is enough to at least, consider the option of doing something about it.
now seriously… I look forward that pink dragon.
Well if you think being a skeptic of AGW means one doesn’t care about real issues, you’d be wrong. I do not believe that the ends justify the means either. Climate always changes, regardless of our behaviour.
And so we have the latest example. To answer questions like whose money is behind the sabotage of climate talks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/exposed-the-worldwide-eff_n_346110.html
In this post you forget “the intelligence of crowd”.
This phenomenon is very known and is always checked.
I also wrote a post on the dogmatism of the IPCC which does not want to understand how it is necessary to make.
http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think2/post/why_the_ipcc_position_is_understood_so_dogmatically