Th UK Government has lost all sense of realism and decency. As a father of two young children myself, I’d like to smack the person(s) responsible for this upside the head and say “what were you thinking!”.
Even normally pro AGW Nature calls it the Worst. Climate. Campaign. Ever. Watch this.
Link to transcript
Nature writes:
The UK government has decided to convince us all that climate change is real. To this end it is spending £6 million on a prime time advertising campaign featuring a father reading a bedtime story about the evil carbon dioxide monster created by grown ups which is making rabbits cry.
…
In perhaps the worst advert for stopping climate change I’ve ever seen, the cringe worthy short has the father telling his child how scientists found that global warming “was being caused by too much CO2, and it was the children of the land who’d have to live with the horrible consequences”
In an article in the Register, Andrew Orlowski points out that even the UK Met office doesn’t go this far:
Met Office climate modeller Vicky Pope has said apocalyptic predictions are misleading – “distorting” the perception of climate change. She cited shock-horror press releases about recent Arctic ice melt, which she said could equally be explained by natural variation.
…
Taxpayers are paying £6m so their children can be scared out of their wits. It’s not Halloween, but a new climate change TV advertising campaign that begins tonight, which features a young girl watching a dog drown.
See the new center of climate porn here:
http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home.html
They do have a contact form. The question is: will they listen or just brand everyone who thinks maybe the campaign is “over the top” as paid shills of Exxon ?
http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home/about-us/Contact-us.html
I’m telling you, the parallels with McCarthyism are staggering….
Regular readers of this site know that the government is lying in this case because they have personal knowledge of the subject. The next time the government makes a case that the readers are unfamiliar with they can fairly assume the same level of honesty as shown in this bit of propaganda.
So who loses? Once credibility is lost there are no words that can get it back.
Hey little girl! Look outside your window. Do you see a big, black smoke monster that’s been formed out little black clouds that came out of people’s cars and houses? No. Okay, problem solved then.
UK citizens please complain at:-
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form
I said:-
The advert is an emotionally charged and deliberately misleading piece of scaremongering propaganda which seeks to demonise carbon dioxide, a harmless trace gas which as plant food is essential to life on Earth. Claims are made that the “weather is very very strange” (which it is not – unless they mean that it has been getting colder for all this century) and it is stated that “scientists say this is caused by too much CO2”. Whilst some scientists claim this is the case, many other eminent scientists say that the effect of CO2 on climate is trivial and largely beneficial. No reputable scientist, (even those promoting alarmism and the IPCC themselves) claims that “weather” events (as opposed to climate) are caused by CO2 emissions. There is absolutely no evidence whatever that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have, are, or are likely to call flooding, sea level rise or threaten childrens’ future. There is also absolutely no evidence, if the UK’s anthropogenic CO2 emissions stopped completely, that there would be any measurable effect on the global climate.
It is claimed that “the grown ups discovered that over 40% of the ‘CO2’ was caused by ordinary things like keeping houses warm”. This is completely wrong. It is claimed that CO2 levels were approx. 285ppmv before the industrial revolution as opposed to 385ppmv now. If these figures (ex. IPCC) are correct, there has been no more than 35% increase in CO2 from every (including completely natural, as well as transport and industry) sources. Many scientists estimate that a more likely figure is around 5%. There is ample evidence that CO2 levels and global temperature has been much higher many times in the past with few if any disbenefits.
Who are they trying to fool eh! We all know rabbits can’t cry.
What happened to my previous post?
In any case, you can see other “subliminal” messages in there: like the Noah’s ark curtains and the panda. But if they wanted to cut their carbon footprint maybe they should have put less pillows on the girl’s bed. Another one is when the little girl shut the light off, before she is all worried and after she is all smiling.
Another one for the ASA I think.
My comment on the previous thread beat this post by about ten minutes! so I’m guessing that you were aware of this ahead of me.
I would just like to reiterate in this more appropriate thread that this is a tv adertisement, and as such is governed by strict regulations on truthfulness. The impression is clearly made that more than 40% of CO2 is due to heating houses and driving cars etc, in fact I believe only an estimated 3-4% of CO2 is due to all fossil fuel combustion combined, the rest being natural sources.
Apart from the nauseating tone of the whole thing, this serious factual innaccuracy is a legitimate cause for a complaint to the regulator (I think the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK). It would be great if a correction could be broadcast.
MattN (13:30:22) McCarthy may have been a bombastic bully but unlike the AGW crowd he was right.
2 weeks before this makes it to US TV?
What’s next….puppies and kittens?
This people are profoundly sick.
IMHO it still doesn’t top this one:
The UK gov’t doesn’t even have the theory correct.
“The term ‘greenhouse effect’ was coined to describe the way some gases in the atmosphere (such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) trap some of the light energy from the sun after it is reflected from the Earth’s surface, and before it can escape out into space, so warming our atmosphere.”
http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home/climate-change-the-facts/Rising-temperatures-and-the-greenhouse-effect.html
But the “trapping” of reflected solar shortwave isn’t part of the theory, rather the trapping of infrared (longwave) emitted by the earth’s heated surface.
The child in the video is going to need years of therapy to recover from this mental programming.
Please express your opinion to:
Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald
The British Embassy
Washington D.C.
3100 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington D.C. 20008-3600 USA
Or email britishembassyenquiries@gmail.com
Re: Mike (13:22:45) :
“OK. What is the deal with the UK? Why are they trash-talking about climate change? Can someone from the UK please repond? I mean….seriously what is going on?”
Mike, I believe that at least part of the driver for this is the total hash our government here has made of our future energy requirement.
Much power generation has used natural gas from under the North Sea, but this is now running out. They can’t go back to coal because of EU pollution directives, and they have reversed their anti-nuclear position too late to fill the gap. All they are left with is sourcing natural gas from unreliable overseas sources like Russia, covering half the country in wind turbines – and desperately trying to do everything they can to get consumers to reduce demand – hence (at least in part) the convenient ‘fig leaf’ of CO2 reduction.
On a positive note, they have made such a mess of the economy that we won’t be able to afford much power consumption anyway – hope it doesn’t get too cold!
LOL! “40% of the CO2 comes from everyday things like keeping houses warm and driving cars”
So the “solution” which will bring a “happy ending” I suppose is to freeze your children in your home at night and refuse to drive them to school, or to the doctor.
(little blond girl smiles, hugs her dad and says “what a wonderful environmentally responsible world it is”.)
Pass the bucket please, I have to …
According to a study released in August: Having Children Brings High Carbon Impact.
So the commercial should end with Daddy smothering his little girl and telling her he’s doing it for the bunny and the doggy.
Somewhere Jonathon Swift is smiling.
No TV at tallbloke towers anymore. Sold on ebay months ago. Looks like it was a good move.
Stop paying the TV license fee as a protest against this crap.
REPLY: Better yet, have a protest where citizens dump their TV’s on the office doorstep of these fools.
Jim Turner (13:55:19) :
…………..
“On a positive note, they have made such a mess of the economy that we won’t be able to afford much power consumption anyway – hope it doesn’t get too cold!”
And when is the next election?
That was a very lame story, the kid was not impressed.
The father’s expression at 0:26 is absolutely classic, his face says it all: [snip] … He’s definitely a skeptic.
I sent my response, starting out nicely so they would at least start reading it.
I don’t think they uise the expression “jump the shark” in the UK; how about hoping this is just “… Too Far”.
To add to all the gloom coming out of the UK at the moment E-ON have decided to abandon plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth, a victory for Greensleaze and Fiends of the Earth and our old friend James Hansen. Readers may remember a court case where he stuck his nose into UK politics and persuaded a jury that it was OK for the Little Green Men to invade private property to stop the evil electricity suppliers from building a new (and in about 5 years vitally needed) power station at Kingsnorth.
Thanks, James. Brown-outs, or even blackouts, will be knows as hansens in future.
Six months ago I complained to the ASA (advertising standards authority) about the ‘Change 4 Life’ health campaign. My complaint, along with others, resulted in the advertisement being dropped.
I intend to complain about this advertisement also. I am a father of young children and I find this advertisement to be dishonest and offensive.
I suggest that if anyone feels the same that they do the same.
Here is the web site … just follow the instruction.
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/