In one of his articles in the WorldChanging blog, Alex Steffen raises the question: ‘Who Will Tell the People? And How?‘
There’s enormous pressure here in the U.S. on environmental groups, scientists and public officials; pressure to play ball, to support targets that are politically safe, to be moderate. But this is not a situation where such gamesmanship will help our cause. Incremental and limited gains in this situation are in fact disastrous losses.
At the same time, we need to talk with people where they’re at on the issue, not where we wish they were. Somehow we need, in the next couple years, to guide millions of Americans through the progress of emotions — awareness, horror, despair, resignation, engagement, chosen optimism — that most of the people reading this site have gone through… and we have to do it in the next few years.
People are not really ready for this, but we’re not in a position to let that stop us. I’m not sure it’s too much of an overstatement to say that what’s needed is not just some issue education but a national mind-blowing.
I share Alex Steffen’s frustration and his sense of urgency also. The media and the powers in charge have been tiptoeing around the reality at hand. I keep reading reports about 20 or 30% reduction goals for greenhouse gases in the next decades. Theses reports lead us to believe that things are not so bad after all, and smart technology alone should be able to get us out of our mess. Whose responsibility is it then to deliver the bitter pill of 90% reduction? And what are the strategies to make sure it has the desired effect on Americans’ behaviors?
To the question of who?, one obvious answer involves the media. Andrew Revkin’s post on DotEarth yesterday, ‘Do the Media Fail to Give Climate its Due?‘, generated quite a lively discussion with the usual cast of characters: naysayers still, moderates, and radicals also. The reason the media have such an important role to play is as educators, and influencers of the crowds, so that the people will be ready to support the drastic emissions reduction policies that are to become an inevitable part of the political future. The objective is for the Most Inconvenient Truth I brought up earlier, to no longer hold.
Alex Steffen alludes to the time element of the process involved in bringing the public around. From personal experience, I can attest to the time lag, between initial exposure to the facts, and actual conversion. From the time when I attended Al Gore’s presentation of An Inconvenient Truth, back in December 2005 – the first schock to my oblivious brain -, to the time when I finally became willing to make changes in my lifestyle, a good two years passed. Steven Running’s Climate Grief model is most useful in that respect.
We then need to look at what is meant by the media. Sure, the New York Times, and other national publications, and TV stations have to play their part, but the advertising media should be considered as well. I have been pushing for a large scale, climate fight awareness advertising campaign. Al Gore, of all people should be the one spearheading such an effort. I hear his new book, ‘The Path to Survival‘ will be released next month. That’s good, and it’s not enough. Any good marketer will tell you that PR and the press can only generate so much awareness and persuasion. At some point, one needs to consider taking out the big guns, in this case, advertising. Ask all the presidential candidates!
Great question, Marguerite.
Just a few misc. observations . . .
1. Who was that little child who told the Emperor that he had no clothes?
2. Where is John Lennon when you need him?
3. Since John is gone, what celebrity couple will be willing to do a green sleep-in in the international and national media?
4. Where are the Stanford students on all this? Given that time is passing, I’m about ready to suggest a community “wake up” parade through the middle of Stanford. (One of the Stanford and Hoover folks is on the Board of ExxonMobil, for what that’s worth.)
5. Jennifer Granholm, the first female governor of Michigan, said of Rosa Parks: “Her greatness lay in doing what everybody could do but doesn’t.”
6. Although I’m supposed to keep this a secret, I feel compelled to tell someone given the stakes involved with global warming: I’ve heard that women have more power than they sometimes seem to think they have.
Part of the task, of course, is just getting a group of people together who (given their various backgrounds) understand the problem, understand the media, have good advertising experience, and are highly creative.
The first meeting might be creatively messy. But, the first oil well and coal mine were undoubtedly messy too. Gotta start somewhere.
suffering from a case of battle fatigue, i feel as though warming was a war, a war against willful ignorance, against spoiled children of affluence, of illusionary credit.
and when we must pay, everyone and everything will indeed suffer.
advertising drove us into this ditch, it must now help to pull us out. are there sites which connect the public to the major firms responsible for promoting the gluttony?
it is as easy to do right as to do wrong, i wish to send out mass messages of positive alternatives.
signed winter worn with eco-grief
Great quotes on Rosa Park!
Jeff, as you know, I have been thinking about a national climate fight awareness initiative. Before I set the wheels in motion, however, I prefer to leverage existing resources such as Al Gore’s site, and also the Ad Council. In both cases, we need to have a clear proposal. I keep meaning to write one, and each time get called by more mundane tasks, as in having to make money . . . Maybe I ought to write to Andrew Revkin as well, and get him to bring this up for discussion on DotEarth.
Nadine, I am with you. This war is wearing me down, very much like the current elections, but the lack of alternative keeps me going and engaged.
I think this is an unnecessarily pessimistic look at things. Okay, so they’re talking about (say) 20% reduction by 2020, and that’s not enough. But there’s a thing they call the “wedge effect”, that once you get the tip in there you can hammer the rest in and split the wood.
For example, when Lincoln emancipated the slaves in the unoccupied Confederacy, he did not mean to emancipate all the slaves in the whole country – but in the end, that’s what happened. And his emancipation wasn’t meant to give them the vote – but within a few years, that happened, too. When Nixon withdrew troops from Vietnam, he did not mean to withdraw all of them – but that’s what happened.
And so on. There exists in politics and history a positive feedback effect, that you do something, it feeds back and amplifies and grows. This works with bad things – usually called a “slippery slope” – but it works with good things, too.
The important thing is that people accept that there must be reductions, and they be willing to set a concrete target. Once that is accepted and embarked on, it’ll be relatively easy to change the target. It’s the Wedge Effect.
Again you present a convincing argument. I like this Wedge Effect idea. Still, I think people need to be informed of the magnitude of the changes to be expected. Those changes may not be implemented in policies all at once. But at least, from a communication standpoint, the expectations should be set. This way, the public will get a sense of reprieve when they are asked to contribute to ‘only’ 20% in emission reductions.
Wedges, Machiavelli, and Emerson
I agree that there’s much truth to the “wedge effect” mentioned above. That’s why, perhaps, some emphasis should be given to California efforts and media. I may be focused a bit too much on national stuff, and perhaps I should shift some of my energies to California. At least, after the election. If California moves wisely, and more quickly, then others may be more likely to move.
Two quotes that touch, in various ways, on this dynamic:
Machiavelli (of all people) apparently wrote,
“A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man [he could have written ‘person’ here, of course!]. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.”
The next quote comes from Emerson. It’s a bit hard to quote Emerson, because nearly every sentence of his is worth quoting! But, here are just two of many:
“Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “History”
To me, these quotes, along with the one about Rosa Parks, are very energizing. Indeed, the three remaining presidential candidates (although one would be better than the others) all say, at least, that global warming is a vital issue that they will help address. So, there is hope.
Cheers.
Note though that Machiavelli was talking about a personal good example, not just warm fuzzies.
I’ve said this before, but – Al Gore has had a powerful message, but imagine the power of his message if he’d taken a sailboat to the Bali conference, and biked from his hotel every day to the meetings.
Would Gandhi’s meetings with the British negotiating Indian independence have been as effective in mobilising public opinion to support him if he’d been wearing a suit?
Personal example is very powerful.
Kiashu, thanks for your point, and I agree with you.
I agree that personal example is very powerful. It adds deeper credibility and punctuation to the message. It’s motivating. And yes, it seems like that was what Machiavelli was talking about, although I haven’t read the context surrounding that particular quote.
That said, I think the role of personal example varies with the topic, at least a bit. Sometimes, the whole thing can become a distraction and an unwarranted excuse. For example, I don’t think it’s a valid argument, at all, that “I shouldn’t change my ways” or “global warming must not really exist” because “look, the messenger flew to the meeting.” So, in a way, personal example can certainly enhance and power a message, but gaps or lapses in personal example shouldn’t be used (by wise people anyhow) as reasons to ignore a problem or avoid improvements in their own behaviors. Given the nature of global warming, some change-agents and messengers have to get around and deliver the message, face-to-face, or drum up support, and it would take them forever to jog or bike or float from the U.S. to Paris and then to Tokyo and back. And, as we all know, humans can only do and “take” so much: If you stand up in front of 1,000 people and give an “inconvenient” speech, and some of them criticize you, and then you get back to the hotel late at night, I think you probably deserve a warm bath, even though that will use some energy.
So, for example, even though Al Gore travels a lot, I don’t think that changes the equation (i.e., my own considerations) one bit. Now, if he sold his land to allow a coal company to build a coal mine, or if he bought a private jumbo jet, that would be different, of course. Even then, though, I wouldn’t conclude that global warming must not exist, or that I shouldn’t become more eco-friendly myself. I’d just conclude that such a person isn’t really a credible leader.
Thanks again. Cheers.
You’re speaking in terms of an entirely rational assessment of things. Of course the truth or not of Gore’s message is unaffected by his personal behaviour. But if we were all entirely rational then we wouldn’t be having these conversations on Marguerite’s blog, because everyone would have looked at the facts and decided on action already. Plainly people are human, and irrational.
If my father tells that it’s good to be faithful to my wife, I take something different from his message if he,
a) was unfaithful to his wife, never caught and is happy about it all,
b) was unfaithful, was caught and is now divorced and miserable,
c) was faithful, had a happy and loving marriage,
d) was faithful, but had a terrible marriage anyway
Purely rationally, the truth or falsity of the wisdom of fidelity is separate from any results any particular individual may have got from it; but it doesn’t feel the same.
Certainly Gore and his mates wouldn’t be able to speak to so many people in person without profligate fossil fuel use, but those they did speak to would be more profoundly affected. So the net effect would not necessarily be less. And of course they need not speak in person; we live in a telecommunications age. That you mention the need to speak in person to persuade effectively shows you understand that we are human and not purely rational, since people’s words are true or untrue regardless of their being delivered in person, by email, or whatever; don’t forget that human irrationality for some points and remember it for others.
Certainly Gore flying to the meeting does not disprove global warming; but had he sailed and cycled to it, it would show he was convinced of it, and made a remarkable impression. The world press would have shown up to see him stride ashore from his ship, and would follow him every day on his bicycle, while other delegates in tinted window limousines cruised past, being ignored by the press.
He’d have upstaged them all, and the only way they could regain publicity would be by their own grand gestures – for example, by setting actual targets, rather than discussing to agree on more discussion. “Thanks, Al, for the grand gesture. But we’re saying 60% reduction by 2030! So there!”
Again, keep in mind that we’re talking about human beings, not purely rational machines. Example matters.
How about Prince Charles’ hologram presence in Abu Dhabi?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf5esT95Glw
That’s pretty good. They need more of that and less jetting about.