How do you get adults to care about the environment? How about scaring their kids shitless with the specter of a ‘carbon monster’ in the sky that’s going to get them if their parents don’t act against global warming? That’s the tact the British government has chosen to take with an ad that seeks to change skeptics’ minds about climate change, but has only angered viewers who saw it during prime-time television broadcasts.
The intentions behind the ad are understandable. It’s a response to a recent survey in Britain showing that 52% of people don’t think they’ll be personally affected by climate change, but 74% would change their lifestyles if they knew that climate change would have a serious affect on the lives of their children.
From the Times Online:
Ministers sanctioned the campaign because of concern that scepticism about climate change was making it harder to introduce carbon-reducing policies such as higher energy bills.
The advertisement attempts to make adults feel guilty about their legacy to their children. It features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story of “a very very strange” world with “horrible consequences” for today’s children.
The storybook shows a British town deep under water, with people and animals drowning.
Carbon dioxide is depicted as rising in clouds of black soot from cars and homes, including from a woman’s hairdryer. The soot gathers into a jagged-toothed monster menacing the town.
Watch the ad over at the Times Online.
Predictably, global warming skeptics are having a field day with this one, calling it propaganda. People in Britain who saw it on TV were so angry about it that the ad has been pulled and is currently being investigated.
But one fumbled ad doesn’t mean that people should forget or ignore the harsh reality. Children will, indeed, be the victims of climate change if we don’t act – in fact, the Telegraph reports that 250,000 children could die due to climate change next year and that number could rise to more than 400,000 annually by 2030.
Climate change is a real and pressing problem, and far too many people across the world are covering their eyes and plugging up their ears so they don’t have to deal with it.
Link [Times Online]
