Sunday, September 03, 2006
The power of advertising
I just read this post from the Cleantech blog and it reminded me why I'm so fired up at the moment about global warming. Some people may disagree regarding how severe this problem is and what needs to be done about it, but I believe it's more likely than not that this is a big problem (and not going away) and I'm personally not willing to take significant risks with the world that my kids will inherit. The sentiment is captured well in a recent TV ad by Environmental Defense. In it, the narrator stands on a railroad track with a train approaching behind him, talking about climate change coming 20-30 years from now and saying the problem is beyond his lifetime. He steps off the track just before the train is to hit him, but standing behind the narrator is a little girl, who is implied to be inevitably steamrolled by the locomotive (see ad here). The guys at Cleantech compared the Environmental Defense ad to the legendary (if not infamous) "daisy" ad that LBJ used against Goldwater in the 1964 election (see Wikipedia or PBS). I can only hope that global warming ads like this one have a similar impact on the collective consciousness as the daisy ad had on the 1964 election.
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I think that the younger generations have been sold out in more ways than one by the decisions of our government and other influential leaders (particularly business leaders). This ad is disturbing and, obviously, meant to be to help us wake up a bit. Personally, I think we will live to see some significant crises due to global warming, fiscal irresponsibility by our government, etc. Haven't we already seen crises in terms of the European heat waves, loss of plant and animal life, and so on? When I make a decision to live more simply, a big part of that choice is for my children and their children. But it is also for my peers living today in other parts of the nation or world. love you.
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