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
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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.
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“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.”
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“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. ”
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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.
Although the author’s choice of words are beyond reprehensible, his idea is sound. It’s all about the naming, phrasing, sound bite, etc.
I think we should capitalize on his concept and turn it against the CAGW crowd. When someone calls it climate change respond by calling it atmospheric fertilization, or biosphere enhancement.
Perhaps this approach will redirect some scientifically illiterate , well meaning people from pessimism to optimism.
Regardless of how one feels about a particular idea, there is something disturbing about frightening and bullying people into accepting or “supporting” it.
Godin is a bit behind the curve, though. CAGW marketing has always been synonymous with bullying.
This sounds to me like an open admission that the whole scare is based on nonsense. If they had the facts on their side there would be no need for such silly and factually empty slogans. The comparison with the gay marriage issue doesn’t help him, the reason for the shift in attitudes on it was due to the fact that those in favour were right, and those not in favour were wrong. When asked for rational reasons to be against it, those opposed to gay marriage came up blank. The climate alarmists, on the other hand, are dead wrong, and this is becoming more and more obvious with each passing day. They have had to resort to making their hopeless predictions about the year 2100 now so that they don’t get disproved until eighty years hence.
Stonyground,
The real reason for the acceptance of gay marriage is that the rationale for having marriage at all has been very much diminished with the introduction of birth control and the welfare state. Prior to this, the survival chances for the children of single mothers were not very good, so marriage was a basic necessity for a stable society, and anything that would weaken it as an institution was fiercely resisted. Now that marriage is little more than a social convenience, there is no reason not to extend it to anyone and anything. Gay marriage is not a matter of being right, or redressing a social injustice, it is simply a recognition that marriage per se is no longer one of the pillars of society, so there is no reason not to permit gay marriage.
Now apply this reasoning to global warming/climate change. Until historically recent times we lived in an energy-constrained society. Suggesting to people in a cold climate, for example, that they should stop burning coal to keep warm would have been regarded as the ravings of a lunatic. However, in the last fifty years or so, Western society has ceased to be energy-constrained, and most people under fifty are unable to conceive of an energy-constrained existence. You want electric power – just flip a switch. You want to be warmer – just turn up the thermostat. You want transport – just fill up at the nearest gas station. Consequently, adopting measures which have been skilfully sold to us but which will result in a more energy-constrained society, such as relying on wind and solar power, are not immediately rejected as a threat to society.
The CAGW meme can only survive in relatively pampered societies such as North America and Western Europe. It would be, and is, laughed out of court in other parts of the world.
I think you have it bass-ackwards. All I ever saw from the pro side was emotionally-charged narratives, faulty analogies, venue shopping for activist judges, and bullycotting any small business with religious owners that dared raise an objection. How quickly they seek to rewrite history.
It must be nice to live in a world where you can dismiss those who disagree you as “just wrong”, and never need to come up with anything better.
ok so effective storytelling sells does it?
Here is a story. Jesus creates the Earth and everything in it including mankind who have been left in charge. Lucifer/Satan somehow compels Adam & Eve to rebel. Jesus comes to earth to live life as a man to reclaim earth back from Lucifer/Satan. In conjunction through Jesus sacrificing himself as a man he is also able to forgive the rebellion in mankind but they need to follow Jesus. Only 5% to 10% follow Jesus.
According to Seth then the gospel story is not an effective story – it doesn’t seem to work very well.
PS yes I left some bits out.
Posted to early. It seems Jesus needs an effective marketing guy.
In a year’s time we will call it by its real name: damp squib.
It is surely only because Seth needs the consultancy fees that he is suggesting this new marketing ploy , because from the viewpoint of public acceptance of climate change , “atmospheric cancer” or global warming , the game has already been won .
The evidence is there in Australia to judge from the reports at Jonova and Notalot on the recent blackouts.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/melbourne-black-outs-due-to-unreported-air-cons/
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/01/melbourne-42000-homes-in-dark-no-fans-left-at-kmart-power-outages-due-to-secret-air-conditioners/
Nowhere and at no time do the public , the media or the politicians blame the fallibility of “renewables” and the premature demolition of coal power stations. In the upcoming elections it is almost certain , from what I glean from sites such as Jonova, that the public will overwhelmingly choose a Labour-Green coalition which will impose even stricter controls on any activity which risks CO2 emission .
In the UK and the EU we are following close on Australi’s heels and Canada I believe is also determined on the same course . So the Warmists and the Greens do not need to throw millions in the direction of Seth and his marketing teams , the game is over , the ref has blown his/her whistle and we are all trudging off the field for a bath ( cold one of course – no heating).
“mikewaite January 29, 2018 at 1:22 am
In the upcoming elections it is almost certain , from what I glean from sites such as Jonova, that the public will overwhelmingly choose a Labour-Green coalition which will impose even stricter controls on any activity which risks CO2 emission .”
The majority of the public won’t but the voters who benefit from Govn’t subsidies most will vote Labour/Green. And that is pretty much anyone in a city in Australia.
There will be no rebellion and the sheep will continue to stand in the meadow until slaughtered. What happened to human beings that they are nothing but stupid sheep?
Once you have convinced a majority of the population that all good things come from government, the only thing left to do is to start preparing for the inevitable collapse.
Wustralians.
The new title is a bit tame. How about ‘Death air’?
tonyb
A 10 years old story is hardly new. Here is an opus from 2008-02-18, Andrew Revkin, NYT.
Global Heating, Atmosphere Cancer, Pollution Death. What’s in a Name?
I am just glad that they didnt make us pay billions for each gay marriage and keep switching the lights and air con off
Atmosphere Dancers? Has a nice ring to it to describe their modus operandi-
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW924Bv8HErVW1mt6yutUbw/videos
Seth Godin is the modern face of Saul Alinsky.
I have always said that success in pushing the AGW agenda or opposing it will depend on who is better at implementing Sales 101 techniques. In this light, Godin is correct, if you want to scare people refer to things that will actually scare them.
It’s just another sign of their complete desperation. Let them really try to use that term. The American people will be smart enough to dismiss it for what it is.
Heh, “Atmosphere Cancer”. Sounds great, less filling.
The Great Climate Flimflam stumbles along, not knowing that it is already dead.
In other words, better propaganda to control how people think of the climate. I think everyone needs to be trained or at least made aware of propaganda techniques used by people when they are using them. This is a great example to point out. The association of pollution as a cancer to the climate. This is meant to control how we view pollution on the climate. I look out side. It is cold. There is snow on the ground. It is January. Nothing has changed. Until Chicago is a winter tundra 12 months a year or I can swim in Lake Michigan in January without getting hypothermia, the climate has not changed.
The correct analogy is of course that the CAGW ideology is a cancer of human society. It has responded well, however to the radiation therapy of truth, common sense, and plain old gumption.
Why not just go the whole hog and call it atmospheric nuclear annihilation?
May I suggest:
Thin air syndrome ?
About the same level of disgusting as labelling those who question their religious belief as akin to Holocaust deniers. Anyone who observes the left in action should know by now that no form of reprehensible behaviour is beneath them
Funny how now that Klimate Kommunication has failed, these marketing geniuses come out of the woodwork with their bril marketing ploys. Shoulda woulda coulda. Sorry guys, that ship has sailed, and hit an iceberg called Truth and Reality. Deal with it.
Marketing science is all it ever was.
It’s Lew and Cook’s specialty. Psychology to guilt, shame, coerce, etc. And they are the heros of the movement, along with Gore, Oreskes, etc. No scientists other than Mann and Hansen were involved in the actual science and they were willing to sell out for fame and glory. I truly believe they would tell ANY lie, no matter how big, to stay famous and noticed.
This will backfire. Cancer is not something one turns into a marketing theme. People who have had relatives die of cancer, go through rounds of chemo (consider the treatment for the disease is often as bad or worse than the disease itself—which AGW people have denied to be true in their treatment of the “disease” of AGW), relapse——marketing with a truly nasty illness as one’s theme is a bad choice. It will show how dark and evil these people are, which is the only up side to the whole thing.
Ah, but,
What’s in a name? That which we call a sewer
By any other name would smell as bad.
Litigant?
This is a sign of desperation. When someone borrows a name for a heinous, painful, debilitating disease to make a natural process more palatable, it is scrambling and nothing else. I have sweaters that are smarter and a lot more pleasant to be around than seth godin.
What a colossal jerk.
Sadly, this will probably work.
Every day, I take the subway in Toronto.
Every day, I have to elbow people (mostly, but not all, of a Certain Generation Who Shall Not Be Named) out of the way as they stop, while on a busy stairwell, to look at their “phones”.
Many of them are wearing pyjamas.
In other words: they are already tasteless people. Comparing a gas that is not only not very harmful, but absolutely essential for the very soy they put into their “coffee” to cancer won’t bother them one bit.
Just wait until Jimmy Kimmel gets a hold of this idea…