The Painful Truth
I’m poaching this comment from yesterday’s Dot Earth post on Randy Olson. What’s striking to me is that it comes from a graduate student enrolled in a sustainability program at a top university:
I love the ‘woe is me’ and ‘shame on you’ summation. It perfectly characterizes the scope of most environmental communication. The hysterical end-of-the-world types encapsulate both modes. Like the awful Lester Brown fright fest on PBS a few weeks ago. I am committed to the global warming cause but couldn’t watch more than a few minutes of it. It had all the subtley and wit of a Stalinist propaganda movie. I was surprised they didn’t use clips from The Road Warrior or Waterworld to make their point.
I’m in the graduate sustainability program at Harvard and had to endure a class that was basically organized around how the mean, nasty corporate media are in cahoots with oilmen and are keeping environmentalists from converting all of America to the side of the righteous.
Total _ _. The media is a tool. If your home improvement project falls apart, do you blame the drill or the hammer? Of course not, same with the media. How many global warming TV spots have you ever seen? I’ve seen one, it was fantastic. In 60 seconds it clearly outlined the problem, the stakes and what to do about it. And who made it? Sierra Club? Greenpeace? NRDC? Some other big-time environmental group? Nope. VoteforVets.
Environmentalists need to confront the painful truth that they are Horrible communicators.
Kieth,
Thought I’d point this post out since it seems to mesh with this comment
I think environmentalists are pretty good communications.
Climate activists are not.
I hate to go all conspiracy theory, but there is grand tradition spanning from eugenics to spengler to population control to zero growth to climate activists. I’d throw vegans and anti-smoking in there to piss people off. And that message isn’t’ very popular, for very obvious reasons.
IMHO The problem with the messaging is that it focuses on reasons why the ‘activists’ might do something.
They really need to learn from the various churches that hold picnics after services. Whether or not one agrees with whatever the preacher is talking about is irrelevant. The food at the picnic is always good.
I think they’re excellent communicators. I can’t fault their propaganda machine one bit. If there’s a flaw in their communications it’s really just that the substance of their pitch is utter horse shit.
Eli loves this stuff. Scientists can’t communicate, environmentalists can’t communicate. Well, you know the question bucky, where are the churnalists?
Eli, you are approaching national treasure status in the climate debate.
Keith,
Eli is in denial about the communication problem. I’m sorry, he is rejecting the existence of a communication problem, he is a rejectionist.
I wonder how much messaging is required to hide the message.
It seems to me that climate science is more than adequately communicated. Though opinions can be found all over the map, I think an ‘average’ US voter take is that continuing to emit CO2 carries risk. But, for now, that risk can’t be quantified. Estimates for really key things like climate sensitve have wide error bars. The models don’t work so great yet. And they see a lot of politicing and messaging and simple silliness, so are (correctly) applying a climate science exageration factor. And the cure is pretty darn painful and nobody has anything resembling a realistic plan to implement a global cure.
We’ve come to the perfectly rational conclusion that we should wait and see – do nothing, for now.
The need to message stems from the frustration of those who want do convince us to *do something*. Which is very different than communicating truth. And people see that. And it doesn’t help.
There is a communications problem. The (science) churnalists are not communicating. They are sitting there and tisking that the scientists are not doing the job of the journalists. It’s the let’s you and him fight strategy. Put it this way, if Randy Olsen is such a great communicator, why is there a problem? He has it covered, right?
kdk33 #8 really nailed it.
The perceived “need” to take action even before we are sure action is required, because if we wait until we are sure action is necessary, it will be “to late” is the problem.
And of course, since the people urging action are on the side of “right” and “truth”, all actions necessary to create the appropriate action are justified, from their point of view.
Advocating rather than communicating truth is what has caused the lessening of support for attempting to fix global warming.
“”˜woe is me’ and “˜shame on you'”
“all the subtley and wit of a Stalinist propaganda movie”
… giggle… a canvasser about a year ago… might even have been greenpeace… started his pitch with “I know it must be surprising for you to find someone who is interested in environmental problems in a [redneck] town like this”… this redneck wasn’t exactly impressed
WTF is the “graduate sustainability program” ?
Is this the new feng shui ?
“”˜woe is me’ and “˜shame on you'”
Is not healthy. Part of the routine talk about sustainability amongst environmentalists or activists is how to sustain ones self. ‘Burn out’ is a term that gets used sometimes- happens when one has taken on too much negativity without a balance of perspective. I’ve seen it way too often. This is I think why the ‘doom and gloom’ message is used so frequently by activists. It’s a message that works on them. Negativity, or feeling like crap- can almost work like a badge of honour. The worse you feel, the more you worry, the more weighed down by responsibility and right action and concern for every little thing, the more you feel you are being a true environmentalist. Maybe this was one of the reasons for the extreme over-reactions to something like Lomborg’s book- the idea that things could be getting ‘better’ in some areas goes against woe is me and shame on you. It’s a direct attack on that. NO! Things are getting worse. And faster too. All science that says otherwise is suspicious and most likely industry funded disinfo. More worry. More guilt. More unhealth. More certainty. More negativity.
When people call CAGW an apocalyptic or religious cult- I don’t flinch anymore. Working the fear message works- but seemingly only on environmentalists. Which is hugely sad. The people who care the most, who want to help the most, are getting hurt the most. At a personal level, this is often hard to take.
Environmentalism has become a movement of self destruction.
Eco-journalists and “Climate Scientists” constantly arguing back and forth on what shade of lipstick would be more widely accepted for the pig does not really change the fac
t that in the end you still have a pig.
Keith, how about you get all the “Climate Scientists” to present their ideal global average temperature of the earth that would maximize productivity for humanity?
Then tell us why.
KK – “What’s striking to me is that it comes from a graduate student enrolled in a sustainability program at a top university”
Maybe there’s hope yet. Maybe kids today really can think. Hummmmm… interesting! Very interesting indeed. I hope this Gradie isn’t too atypical.
Shorter Eli #9
Wah wah wah it’s all those mean stupid people’s fault.
Somehow, “It’s all YOUR OWN FAULT for being such a horrible communicator!” strikes me as being a trifle simplistic. I, too, am bored with the clashing, overwrought symphonic background to collapsing ice sheets and giant forest fires and I wish documentary makers would drop all that dreck right now, and try to be imaginative and factual.
But being paranoid does not mean they may not be out to get you. Climate misinformation funded by the Koch brothers is as real as the changing climate, and it means a battle on two fronts. One to expose the machinations of the denialists (which people like John Mashey are doing very well), and also to improve how the science is communicated.
Richard Alley’s PBS documentary is certainly a brilliant start to communicating the science.
http://www.earththeoperatorsmanual.com/broadcast_info
I saw Mashey on a park bench. He had a paper bag, and was on the phone. Gavin was on the grassy knoll. The Koch brothers were nearby; I could feel them.
Later, Mashey left his phone on the bench and walked off with the bag. Alley flew by in helicoptor. Gavin picked up the phone before it rang.
I smelled CO2. I lit a cigarette.
[…] whole bunch of blog discussions from Keith Kloor’s communications oriented discussion titled, “The Painful Truth,” to the climate skeptic blog, Climate Audit, where their title is, “The Smug Loop.” […]