From The Times
Ed Miliband’s adverts banned for overstating climate change
by Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor
TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm.
The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control.
The ASA has ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and has told the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that they should not be published again.
It has also referred a television commercial to the broadcast regulator, Ofcom, for potentially breaching a prohibition on political advertising.
The rulings will be an embarrassment for Miliband, who has tried to portray his policies as firmly science-based. He had commissioned two posters, four press advertisements and a short film for television and cinema, which started appearing in October last year in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks.
They attracted 939 complaints — more than the ASA received for any advertisement last year. The deluge posed problems for the ASA, which is not a scientific body, so it decided to compare the text of Miliband’s adverts with the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Based on that comparison, it ruled that two of the DECC’s adverts had broken the advertising code on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims.
Of the two banned adverts, one depicted three men floating in a bathtub over a flooded British landscape, and the text read: “Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub — a necessary course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change.”
It then explained: “Climate change is happening. Temperature and sea levels are rising. Extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heat waves will become more frequent and intense. If we carry on at this rate, life in 25 years could be very different.”
The second showed two children peering into a stone well amid an arid, post-climate-change landscape. It read: “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. There was none as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought.”
It then added: “Extreme weather conditions such as flooding, heat waves and storms will become more frequent and intense.”
It was these additional claims, rather than the nursery rhymes or illustrations, that fell foul of the ASA, which ruled it was not scientifically possible to make such definitive statements about Britain’s future climate.
The ASA said: “All statements about future climate were based on modelled predictions, which the IPCC report itself stated still involved uncertainties in the magnitude and timing, as well as regional details, of predicted climate change.” It added that both predictions should have been phrased more tentatively.
The ASA did, however, reject other complaints, including one suggesting the DECC adverts were misleading because they presented human-induced climate change as a fact.
Miliband said: “On the one issue where the ASA did not find in our favour, around one word in our print advertising, the science tells us that it is more than 90% likely that there will be more extreme weather events if we don’t act.”
Greg Barker, shadow minister for climate change, said: “It is so unnecessary to exaggerate the risks of global warming, and also counterproductive.”
Read the complete article here
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Here’s the website where the ads originate from ActOnCO2
Here are some of the advertisements in question:
I believe that Old Mother Hubbard knows what to do with the current crop of climate bureaucrats.
Also the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe….
This seems a very appropriate time to link again to my article carried here and at Air vent
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/crossing-the-rubicon-an-advert-to-change-hearts-and-minds/
The series of scare adverts carried on British TV referered to, caused me to look into the politics behind the AGW scare. The politicisation of the thin science is clear for all to see as The British Govt -the leaders in climate change science and scare mongering for a decade-steadily manipulated and funded data to prove their case.
They then used it to change ‘hearts and minds’ on social issues which seems to have a resonance with Obamas America.
The result is taxation on an increasingly grand scale, a non existent energy policy and attempts to scare the Britsh population into changing their habits in order to meet the Govts political agenda.
Fully referenced, with extracts from various Parliamentary committees, the adverts were the tip of a truly frightening Orwellian construct.
tonyb
It has to be deliberately over the top. No one is that stupid, are they?!
I much prefer
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jill came down with half a crown and it wasn’t for fetching water.
Analagous of course with self named climate scientists paid for scientific endeavour but actually sharing a bed with all and sundry so called green organisations.
“…within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is” (Dr David Viner of the CRU, Independent 20 March 2000)”
Mary had a little lamb
It’s fleece was white as snow…
Just for the record; this is a brief snapshot of the UK’s Ed Milliband. Source: Wikipedia.
He is a typical member of the populist muppetry, which currently ‘governs’ the UK, having done nothing useful in his life, nor had any experience in the real world outside politics. He has no scientific background nor experience and therefore is the perfect choice to be the minister responsible for ‘climate change’.
Edward “Ed” Samuel Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Doncaster North since 2005 and is the current Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Before that, he served as the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He is the younger brother of David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and together the two are the first siblings to sit in the Cabinet simultaneously since Edward, Lord Stanley and his brother Oliver in 1938.
After graduating from university with a BA in Economics, Miliband became a Labour Party researcher and rose to become one of then-Chancellor Gordon Brown’s confidants, being appointed Chairman of HM Treasury’s Council of Economic Advisers. Miliband was elected Labour Member of Parliament for the South Yorkshire constituency of Doncaster North in the 2005 general election. Brown appointed him Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office in his first Cabinet in June 2007. On 3 October 2008, Miliband was promoted to Secretary of State at the newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change in a reshuffle.
The ASA in thier final adjudication relied purely on the IPCC report (2007) as the justiifcation for rejecting all the complaints made about the science that were made by thousands of people. There is one complaint that they did not consider, that the ads were political, which is being considered by OFCOM. Their adjudication came with a letter saying it was secret until March 17th. The campaign cost GBP 6million of taxpayer’s money. It’s a disgrace, but typical of the current government.
A miracle has happened-again. God save The Queen.
Everyone here in the UK knows that Miliband is a complete idiot, yet he’s angling to be our next prime minister! And he could well be yet! In the coming weeks we’ll have an election here – which will almost certainly result in a ‘hung paliament’, which means no overall control. A vote of no confidence will bring the new government down – Labour will finally realise that Gordon Brown is a liability and elect a new leader…Miliband.
Baa Humbug, that’s a shame how you feel (we don’t feel the same way about you). Why such distaste for the English?
Vilmos
I believe the recent series of ads cost in the region of six million pounds.
They didn’t even stop the ads during the investigation. I’m sure if it had been a sexy beer ad or something with less than half the complaints it would have been suspended straight away! or am i just being cynical?
I was a complainant, the ASA adjudication was a dreary tosh filled, cop out.
As for Miliband, he should hang his head in shame (but then they have no concept of shame – must be our failed education system and lack of moral fibre and guidance), these propaganda ad’s are precisely that, government produced scare-mongering, hyperbole and utter lies, no surprise again, that Nu-labour is responsible.
Baa Humbug (23:02:02) :
Your summation is correct, get rid of one lot, the Blue Tories take over from Nu-labs, plus ca change?
What do you expect from a [snip] which father was convinced marxist?
Reply: The US interpretation of the that word is different from the UK version. ~ ctm.
.
What hope for the UK when you have muppets like Milliband et al running departments titled with Orwellian glee “Department for Energy and Climate Change”?
Fourth rate no-hopers, soon to be ejected from Parliament.
Well, regarding the TV advert my letter from the ASA didn’t read that way. I’ll have to re-read it to see what I missed as to my eyes the letter seemed to say that the advert was OK.
Eany-meanie Vice President Gore
Catch a liar by the claw
If he squeals let him go
To spread his tales of fear and woe
Apparently, the above was used in the selection process that resulted in Choo Choo being appointed.
There’s a series of ads running in Australia called ‘100 places’ – it goes through a variety of differnet places around the world, usually of natural beauty, that you should visit before climate change destroys them forever. I think they only run on SBS.
The other night I was watching and they had a 30 second spot about how you should go to the himalayas, as all of the glaciers and snow will melt by 2035.
Obviously they didn’t get the memo, or decided they’d spent the money and would run it anyway. I thought about complaining to the national adveritising standards but couldnt’ be bothered.
Remember that there was a quarrel between Department of Energy and Department of Climate Change?
(Dept. of Climate Change? Are they mad? )
Quarrel solved by merging the two departments……
Now my guess is; ASA will be merged with these departments.
“The deluge posed problems for the ASA, which is not a scientific body, so it decided to compare the text of Miliband’s adverts with the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”
Which isn’t a scientific body either!
It’s too little too late but this is basically good news – the TV ads make my blood boil and I’m talking about danger to health here… I don’t suppose I’m the only one who gets so annoyed!
But this also needs following through – we are bombarded with advertising from the public, voluntary, and private sectors carrying lies about the state, scope, and effects of climate. Most of these ads should be banned on the basis of veracity but that means people have to jump through hoops to familiarise themselves with the classes of unnacceptable content and then they have to spend time putting in a complaint to the ASA.
Heatwaves? What heatwaves? Oh they mean those glorious barbecue summers we haven’t been having…
Morons!
Jack be stoopid,
Jack be thick.
Jack fell for the hockey stick!
I thought that seemed familiar. El Reg has tracked a similar event. Or perhaps this one is part of the lot mentioned above, although I cannot see offhand why it wouldn’t likewise be banned.
From Oct 9 2009:
From Oct 21 2009:
Terrify them early and often, as that is what it’ll take to save the world. Yeah, right.
Let’s see them have Lucy berate Charlie Brown for letting Snoopy drown by not using curly light bulbs. That should be a wildly successful ad campaign, for sure.
Just tried reading the ASA Final Adjudication document reproduced at The Guardian.
Basically, the ASA seems fine referring to the IPCC as the authority.
The ads just stretched things a little further than even the IPCC does.
For example, the ASA noted that the assurances of certainty by the IPCC included not just quantitative but also qualitative assessments.
The IPCC is the authority and nobody will question them. We used to have this problem in the Dark Ages, didn’t we?
“kwik (02:00:32) :
Remember that there was a quarrel between Department of Energy and Department of Climate Change?(Dept. of Climate Change? Are they mad? )”
Ministry of Silly Walks was a sketch satirising exactly how government creates wasteful departments and quangos.