Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Business Insider, renowned marketing expert Seth Godin suggested in an interview that “atmosphere cancer” would be a far more engaging term to promote climate action, than “global warming” or “climate change”.
‘Call it atmosphere cancer’ – How the world’s best-known marketer would tackle global warming
Tom Turula 26 Jan 2018 6:03 PM
…
Much of Seth Godin’s work – his famous blog; his books and TED talks – convey the following: No product or idea will spread just because of a brilliant technology or rock solid facts. In essence, people will respond to stories that stand out, which creates culture, changes behaviors, and leads to change.
…
“Just look at what happened with gay marriage in the US in the last 10 years. It went from being safe and respectable to be against, to something that no one speaks up against anymore.”
“Did everybody change their mind? Of course not.”
“What changed was the culture, and the culture was changed because of the story,” Godin says. “People like us do things like this. That’s it, that’s all we got.”
…
“For starters, global is a good thing and warming is a good thing. If [the scientists] had called it ‘Atmosphere Cancer’, they probably would have started on a better footing: because atmosphere is scientific and cancer is a bad thing. There are no cancer deniers. Everyone knows that cancer is a chronic and degenerative disease, and you need to stop it soon. ”
…
This has got to be one of the most insensitive climate ideas ever proposed. A few days ago I attended a “living wake” for a friend who has terminal cancer – a final sendoff for someone who probably only has a few weeks to live. To suggest harnessing the pain and loss of a disease like cancer to promote their pathetic political cause is execrable.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
These people are sick .
And dangerous ……
You left out ‘disgusting’.
They are like a cancer on society
You forgot “Globull Cooling” .
They are a malignant tumor on the science community … and like all tumors, they need to be FED … in their case lots of $$$$ from the FED’s has caused exponential growth, overwhelming the healthy cells of science.
Climate shigellosis sounds better to me:)
Chees Roger
Wensleydale please.
“Climate Sc@m” is still the best.
Adapted from the original
“What utter climate (_i_)kissing Tripe.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/01/blowout-213.html#comment-1150888
It has been suggested that “!” might be more fitting than “i”
Stratospheric syphylis? global gonnorrhoea? Planetary plague? Capitalist chancre? Meteorological leprosy? I may be biased but I work in infectious diseases. Perhaps my colleagues in gastroenterology can come up with something more fecaliscious.
Well I don’t think that Capitalism is the cause of all this. To me AGW is part of a movement to gradually restrict freedom and private property by regulation until such time we are completely controlled by a elite left. AGW provides an excuse for regulation and taxation etc. Certainly not the only excuse but a useful and so far effective one. Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
I’m going with Sky AIDS.
As the atmosphere is a gas that is nonbiological and cancer is pure biology, “atmosphere cancer” just highlights how stupid and/or desperate the global warming crowd is. I say they should go for it and prove to the world how absurd, ignorant, and insulting they can be (insulting because they assume the people will buy this hype).
I think I’ve just seen the definition of a new layer of the atmosphere called the Coprosphere, the layer where the shit gets so thick, you can no longer breathe.
Just more compelling evidence that all this whole ‘climate’ scare campaign has only ever been a marketing exercise. It is little wonder that the ‘science’ is little more than ‘sciency’ flavoured gibberish.
SHeesh. I hadn’t even looked up who Seth Godin was or what he did but then I saw Latitude’s pic posted below (which says an awful lot about Mr Godin by itself) and lo and behold … he is a marketing man.
Well I never….
PS
Only a complete narcissist in this age of instant images could have a pic like that with him looking to one side. In the old days he would have to look at himself in the missor or in the still waters of some pond.
It’s been a marketing/advertising/PR/lobbying exercise from the get-go. Spend vast amounts of money on an army of cronies and media over extended time frames – and perception becomes reality.
It has been proven over and over that if you use big-sciency-sounding words and speak very earnestly that many people will be convinced that you must be right.
Seth Godin’s next idea will probably be ‘every time you don’t believe in Global Warming a Fairy and a Unicorn dies’!
LOL
Choosing the most horrendous descriptor seems a bit less than scientific, no? How about using “global suicide,” instead of beating around the bush? [Some cancers are curable; some take long times to kill.] When truth is not a value, anything goes!
Who was it that said “Cancer is the only socially-accepted form of suicide”?
Try pathologically stupid, or execrable, or heinously insensitive to reality.
Seth Godin is trying to turn this into an advertising campaign? i sincerely hope that he has an epic failure in any/all of his future pursuits. He is drek personified.
Lest I forget, please give your friend my deepest sympathies, Eric, and my wishes for his peaceful ending.
As a long term developer of marketing messages, I agree with what appears to be Mr. Godin’s principal point: the use of positive or negative messaging to ‘sell’ concepts, ideas or products is powerful. As a case in point, the question surrounding abortion has been boiled down to picking a side where as the messaging is bilaterally positive (pro-life or pro-choice / pro-women). On the surface, neither marketing message connotes a perceived negative position juxtaposed to Mr. Godin’s approach, which connotes extreme and indefensible negativism.
This form of messaging is a double edged sword. While it induces fear and loathing by it assuming all living organisms will be subjected to a disease that is universally feared and detested, it also sparks an intellectual and emotional outrage among individuals (and their loved ones) diagnosed with cancer where as the AGW marketing message superciliously compares a cancer patient’s real and debilitating trials with a seemingly minor adjustment to the earth’s atmospheric chemistry.
My personal experience includes a diagnosis of glioblastoma (brain cancer), which like most forms of cancer is considered terminal. That’s not to say that I don’t have hope for the future. As an example, technology and science may evolve with better treatment methods or, dare I say it, a cure, which is inarguably less certain than the earth and its inhabitants adjusting to altering minor climate patterns.
While I may agree with Mr. Godin’s passionless marketing rhetoric, I must question whether it is morally or ethically advisable to compare life draining cancerous cells with possible atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that may or may not exist a century from now.
As a challenge, I suggest that Mr. Godin merely spend an afternoon with a cancer patient to fully understand the life changing fear and pain associated with daily existence and afterwards pose two questions of the cancer patient:
1) Is it remotely rational or even morally reasonable to fuel an ember of climate catastrophe hypothesis by comparing its least likely outcome with the pain and suffering that you are living with?
2) Do you give a flying f**k at the moon if the inestimable global mean surface temperature exceeds pre-industrial levels long after you are dead?
On second thought, never mind, Mr. Godin, I doubt that you would have the intestinal fortitude to subjectively expose yourself to a front row seat in a theater of actual and realistic anxiety as opposed to the manufactured type that your messaging promotes Unsurprisingly, I believe both questions are answered for you.
Brian Abate
https://gliobandme.wordpress.com/
If it’s all about spin and negative is bad, maybe we should start calling it “atmospheric fertilization.” CO2 is just an atmospheric supplement, like taking vitamin C.
There’s a psychology at play here – the belief that there is no empirical reality, but only ‘spin’.
No substance – just propaganda.
That’s why progressives put such stock in consolidating and controlling the message.
Unfortunately, reality always catches up.
More unfortunately, it doesn’t always catch up to the con man, who is usually long gone by the time that whole reality-thing circles back to bite the sucker on the a$$.
it’s not possible to get the full effect without a visual…
He’s got a permant look to the left. Walking into telephone poles will make you think like he does.
Failing that he could always be ‘walked’ into a telephone pole
Leftist worm.
There doesn’t appear to be glass within his frames. Are they an affe[]tation[] {Spilled []offee on my keyboard and some keys don’t work; therefore the [].
They looked fake to me, too, but I wasn’t sure. Thanks for confirming what I suspected.
Glass or plastic lenses do not photograph very well because of reflection etc. so photographers prefer to use frames only, unless they want to have a certain dramatic look. Would you prefer mirrored sunglasses? That would look cool.
“Would you prefer mirrored sunglasses?”
I think clown makeup would be more appropriate.
looks like Carl Crushellnutsky.
A Goebbels acolyte.
Well, there certainly is a cancer in the political atmosphere, just as there was a change in the political climate.
As my dad used to say, advertising is about making the negative aspects of a product seem positive. The blood-sucking leeches will always be looking for a new way to spin it so their evil seems like it’s for the good of society. (Just like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et cetera, etc…)
You’ve omitted Dr. Josef Goebbels, PhD, a philology graduate of Heidelberg University. Goebbels used his expertise to create a propaganda machine of unparalleled effectiveness. Godin’s oh-so-clever suggestion is akin to giving a hand grenade to a rather nasty child: the consequences will not be pleasant.
This guy needs to answer some polite questions from normal people: seth@sethgodin.com
Given the poor state of the science involved “scientific cancer” may be more appropriate.
Gee Eric, you’re finding some pretty depressing topics. But still enlightening. From the article:
“Godin thinks action on global warming… depends on effective storytelling, which sparks a culture of change.”
“effective storytelling.” What a nice way of saying relentless full spectrum propaganda.
The unicorn named “global warming” cannot be compared to cancer except for the impact of those who seek to ‘save’ us from it. Even then they would be better compared to a tapeworm or some similar parasite because they don’ want to kill their host entirely. There’s no money or power in that.
“…we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have…” -Dr. Stephen Schneider
PROPAGANDA (Find a Wheel and Spin it Round, Round Round.) And
Don’t forget about the dogma.
Don’t forget about the dogma.
Don’t forget about the dogma.
The dogma’s all there is..
(To the tune of “Tomorrow Never Comes.”)
Progressive.
Like Rust.
Dry rot?
Humans are more closely related to dung beetles than primates. Dung beetles are the only other creatures that appear to be able to swallow whatever bullshit is served up to them.
This is garbage ready to be ridiculed, hopefully at the State of the Union address coming up in 47 hours.
The fear of climate change caused by CO2 emissions is more like a cancer on science itself.
I believe the notion that Western public “education” is a “science education” is the problem. “Science education” consists essentially in a bunch of vaguely related sciency factoids that the children can hardly connect to each others. No presentation of the world of “Science” is ever given.
Then people are doused in “Science says blah” claims that they cannot process as they know exactly nothing about the Method.
What’s new here, story-telling has been going on all along. I, however, prefer to call it lying. I shall try to remember to call carbon dioxide by the more appropriate name,the ‘gas of life’.
greetings from New Zealand………’I call it ‘climate control’, because in this beautiful of NZ…..the greenies and Labour are getting into our lives in a BIG WAY!! regards to you all…..Trevor.
Yup Trevor you are right there – even considering taxing the volcanos sheesh
?w=640
Applying this principle to the other side of the climate scam, solar panels should be given cute and affectionate names. If Solyndra had been named Cuddle Bunny Solar instead, how could it possibly have failed? Similar, wind farms and solar towers should be named for the beautiful birds they exterminate.
Welcome to the California Condor Memorial windfarm!
Condolences from the Arizona Solar Crematorium for swallows.
I refer to the wind plants as “The Church of the Windy Spires” on my wind blog. Considering the entire exercise is semi-religious (definately fleecing the congregation part), it seemed appropriate.
Accompanied by the song “If the swallows could come back to capistrano” or at solar tower farms, “come on baby light me on fire”.
Accompanied by the song “If the swallows could come back to capistrano” or at solar tower farms, “come on baby light me on fire”.
The scary part of this is they’ve been given a pass and platform to present their views. Someone is paying for this whether you believe it or not.
“Everyone knows that cancer is a chronic and degenerative disease, and you need to stop it soon”
Actually, no, it is not. It is a state of cells that is an anomaly and that may or may not lead to a real disease (as in being sick).
Everyone has cancer, in the sense that cancerous cells crop up all the time in the body. Most of the time the immune system disposes of them before they cause trouble. And of the ones that survive long enough to reproduce and form tumors, only a fraction of those remain malignant, ie. unchecked by the body, causing the myriad diseases of varying severity that we collectively refer to as “cancer”.
I am not a medical doctor not a biologist, but I intuitively believe that convincing women at risk of breast cancer to have their breasts squeezed and sometimes poked is not without drawbacks, notably the risk of waking up very quite cancerous cells, like a bull.
(And unlike many critics of systematic breast X-ray imaging, I don’t think ionisation is the major risk here, although the possibility of genetic vulnerability to ionisation is a serious hypothesis.)
Absolutely correct. Cancer is just uncontrolled regeneration of cells. And the cause is genetic damage, the primary cause is free radical oxygen.
To make the analogy to life, increasing carbon dioxide levels increase respiration rate. Which is exactly how the earth is responding, by greening.
Actually, my oncologist said “We don’t know what causes this”. I agree. Again, like the atmosphere, there are way to many factors involved. Yet I see people believe in chaos theory with global warming and toss it out with nutrition and medicine. “We don’t know”. It’s not an evil statement, it’s just how it is.
Maybe we should help them out by providing a list of scary labels they can use after this one falls flat. May I suggest, “Climate Cardiac Arrest!” for their next one, or maybe “Atmospheric Arrhythmea!” Just trying to be helpful.
Climate Colic. Climate Coronary Convulsion. Charlatans Cavalcade. Anything with Cs will be catchy.
Climate Herpes.
Atmospheric Arrhythmea is good. Climate Cardiac Arrest is going to lead people to believe we’re already toast and to just party till the last breath. Probably not good, since the “arrest” isn’t really coming. Never oversell.
Why not give it a James Bond feel and call it “Skyfall”?
No matter what your call it it still does not change the face that according to the paleoclimete record and the work done with models, the change in global climate that we have been experienceing is caused by the sun and the oveans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero.
Why don’t they just call it “Sky Screwing” and be done with it?
They can turn it over to the #MeToo nags and claim the world is being sexually assaulted.
After all, don’t women buy more CO2-spewing cars than men?
Oh, wait….
So precise, so technically accurate! How did science thrive, even survive, without such marketing genius? We must be at the dawn of a new Golen Age, basking in the rising warmth (oops!) of such genius.
Call it Faulty Al Gore Rhythm.
“No product or idea will spread just because of a brilliant technology or rock solid facts”
There is something here for skeptics – we argue from facts …. but perhaps that is a mistake. Perhaps to win the war, a different tactic is required – not arguing from facts but from emotions (even though we know what the facts are)…. ends justifying the means? Clearly the other side is engaging that avenue…. can we win the debate if we don’ engage the same tactics? Food for thought …
Jeff L – I think you have a point. Fact- and science-based Skeptics cannot win an argument with folk that are not using the rational part of their brain (belief vs objectivity). Have you even seen an atheist convince a religious believer to abandon his faith, or vice-versa? All that this marketing person is doing is suggesting a new ‘meme’ that CAGW proponents can use when the latest ‘global warming’ meme runs out of steam, which may or may not work in a marketing sense. But there is an ethical issue here – should skeptics lower themselves to the abysmal moral depths that the CAGW crowd has adopted? Personally, I think no, because given time the whole UN/IPCC -led CAGW campaign will founder on its crappy economics, rather than because of the underlying science. The next recession will obliterate the ‘believers’ with a dose of cold, hard economic reality – un-affordable subsidies, cheap coal-fired power, real jobs vs ‘green’ jobs, etc. I can’t wait.
The underlying science says that so-called renewable “energy” is a sad, sick joke that is being planed on taxpayers and ratepayers.
If one engages in the same tactics, it just becomes an eternal game of “King of the Hill” with who can scare the most people into submission. Do skeptics want to win or do they want to be right? There’s a saying among the mentally feeble of society that “It is better to be happy than to be right”. What it means is happiness is submitting your dignity, your soul, your life, to the crowd and they will like you. Never do what is right, only what is popular. That will end science as we know it. It will also usher in the loss of freedom in all areas of life. It is not good to be a Delta, no matter what the story says.
Alarmed by this latest CAGW pronouncement, I checked the sky outside is Sydney to look for signs of ‘Atmospheric Cancer’ The sky was, however, its usual clear dark blue and the temperature was a below normal 27C at 4pm. I was greatly relieved. Atmospheric cancer was nowhere to be seen. Australia is safe from this latest catastrophe, just as it has been from all the previous ones.
Ha ha. I think that the Skeptics most powerful weapon is ridicule. Maybe we should call fear of CAGW ‘mental cancer’ – it has a nice ring to it!
“BoyfromTottenham January 28, 2018 at 9:48 pm”
I don’t think so. They wander around with their “wedding tackle” flapping about in the wind. They know no shame.
Skeptics of CAGW need to turn this fellow’s idea around.
As Johnny Carson’s skit said “lets call it what it really is.”
It being the scam of CAGW.
An initial but unsatisfactory attempt: climate pimps for Gore; . . . or Soros, . . . or the U.N.
Maybe, “climate garbage,” or “As–ole climate science,” or “Climate Science Puke,”
There can be a “Godin’s Law”: In the first 3 minutes of listening to a “climate scientist” you will hear at least one outright lie. or, . . .
In the first 5 minutes of listening to a “climate scientist” you will hear at least one serious insult.
Marketing is the last refuge of those forsaken by reality.
Not only is “atmospheric cancer” cruel and manipulative, it is bizarre, nonsensical and creepy. It is such a stupid metaphor for climate change / AGW that it reminds me of a joke about “Ishtar”, one of the great Hollywood flops, starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty:
The studio brought in a marketing genius to try and salvage Ishtar. The genius asked to see the entire movie and then asked for a couple of hours after the movie to brainstorm and ponder a way to sell the movie-after all Beatty and Hoffman don’t work cheap.
So the studio execs waited for the marketing genius to come give his report.
The genius comes in, stands at the head of the huge table and says,”I know how to make people really understand Ishtar.!”
“The ad’s gonna read, “Ishtar! Rat Shit Spelled Sideways!”