Climate skeptics
Britain, until recently a world leader in its response to climate change, now suffers a global reputation as a hotbed of skepticism. The front page of Tuesday’s International Herald Tribune cites a BBC poll which suggests belief among Britons in manmade climate change has declined dramatically. The report is right to blame exaggerated media coverage of climate scientists’ errors, as well as the furore over leaked emails at the University of East Anglia. It could also have pointed to the controversy over a UK public information campaign that made ‘misleading’ claims about the certainty of climate change damage.
What all of this masks, though, is a more fundamental failure in communications on the part of numerous governments and NGOs who wish to encourage low carbon behaviours. Every successful advertising executive understands that effective campaigns offer the promise of a better, more attractive life. Yet climate change communications remain stuck in the dark ages, attempting to scare and shock the public into action.
While minor inaccuracies have landed the UK government’s campaign in trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority, its strategy of alarmism is the true cause for concern. In the ‘Bedtime Story’ television commercial a young girl is confronted with the ‘horrible consequences’ of climate change as her puppy drowns in a flood. Beyond enraging skeptics, such apocalyptic scenes seem to negate any possibility that ordinary citizens might be able to prevent disaster. As misguided is this month’s UN press ad which imagines our grandchildren inheriting ‘one apartment, an established business and an irreversible climate catastrophe’.
Elsewhere, there have even been distasteful attempts to invoke 9/11. Brazilian agency DDB used computer imaging to show a swarm of aircraft attacking Manhattan, the tagline suggesting climate disasters will make terror attacks look insignificant. Plane Stupid’s movie theatre ad, in which polar bears tumble from skyscrapers to their gruesome deaths, conjures equally uncomfortable memories of New York’s darkest hour.
Experts from the worlds of psychology, sociology and public policy find the failure of these advertisements unsurprising. People understandably react badly when they are made to feel guilty. Indignant denial is a more natural response than behaviour change. Back in 2001, Professor Susan Owens of Cambridge University acknowledged the ‘persistent refusal of the public to have their allegedly irrational conceptions of risk “corrected” by providing them with more information’. And psychologists’ concept of the ‘finite pool of worry’ explains why threats to our children and planet can fall on deaf ears: put simply, life’s everyday challenges take priority over an issue which is long-term, intangible and constantly disputed.
It is only in this context of flawed communications that the skeptics have been able to achieve such a remarkable volte-face in public opinion. While their campaigns have been well-orchestrated and ruthless their task is not difficult. People are only too happy to accept a message of denial: you do not need to change, it will all be fine. It certainly beats the unpalatable alternative currently on offer from environmentalists and governments around the world.
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