- The end -

It's now back-to-the-studio time ! But before the curtain-fall, let's see how far we have come.

When I did my first steps in blogging here ... I had no strong background about global warming. So I tried to find some information about it and I found thousands of theories : pros, cons, scientific statements but also self-fulfilling prophecies ... I realized that serious theories and craps were next to each other in quite a mess. All this mixture of truth and untruth I discovered made me take a step back. One should be careful with all that is written  about global warming. There is kind of a green fever in the air and one can find anything and everything about Global warming. Let's take a step back and look at things from a distance !

About the communication strategies (after all ... that's the reason I am here) ... I discovered kind of an history of theses strategies. In the early ages of the Green fever, admakers were puting it like : "If you help the planet, your life will be better". Then, they turned into fear strategies, much more efficient, and put it like : "If you don't help the planet, your life will be terrible". And nowadays, it sounds like they've changed for a more sexy - but insiduous - strategy : "If you help the planet, you will be someone cool". Of course, from a firm to another, strategies do are different, but there are global trends in all this.

In a nutshell, global warming is a serious issue, but maybe we went crazy too fast about it. There is kind of a media frenzy about it and we lack perspective.

Video #2

Video test

From yellow journalism to green journalism

 

In a recent post, I mentioned an article from Slate Magazine (there you go) spotlighting the impermanence of fashion in journalism.( Here is another one ..) From yellow journalism, a lot of journalists have turned to green journalism in recent years. They now see the life with green glasses, find environment issues in every topic, and feel like they have a green duty to their readers.

This is revealing how intellectual postures can be influenced by trends, and how impermanent and temporary can be some looking-strong journalistic taking sides.

x

Eco-lego

A limited edition of a two-foot-tall motorized lego windmill set ... What more to dream about?
The bad news is that the starting bids are a bananas $1,000 and $1,700.. Being green is always expensive !

But a leopard can't change its spots.  The windmill is sold with ... a truck to transport it. Not a bike. Not an electric car. Not an hybrid. Not even a Toyota Prius. But a large dirty truck. Habits are hard to break...

Climate Change is a precious opporunity ... to let your lego see the light of day.

Here is a good reason to turn gree ! You've been told for years that you were too old to play with lego ? You felt picked on and tourmented ? Climate change is a stalking horse to let your old lego see the light of day !

Cool is a way to sell everything

GreenCheesepodcast1 by Green Cheese

If I were the Green Don Draper ...

And if I were asked to work on a "Being green is being cool" ad ... I would :

• Try to put across that solar ovens make the best cakes ever.
• Explain with nice words that domestic windmill is the new pet generation.
• Expose that green showerheads is the best money saver
• ...

In other words ... I would try to put over that green products are cool. Putting the stress on green attitude is a thing ... but I find more efficient, or at least more clever, to underline the coolness of green products so people don't feel just cool, but also smart.

If Orlando does .. I do

Sometimes, ad makers have really weird ideas to make people into a cause.

"Even super cool people has turned green !" It seems to be the new gimmick to make people concerned about Climate Change. Toyota Prius has gotten out to a flying start by spreading this "on the spot" picture on the internet.

This campaign is really smart, in some respects, as it is insiduous. No logo, no caption .. Orlando is cool, buying a Prius is cool, and beeing green is super cool. Case made.

I wish Toyota try to seduce me with technicals arguments.

Will you still have friend if you save electricity ?

As more and more people feel concerned about Climate change ... some of them wonder about their new green image. Can you drive a hybrid car and still be popular?  Will your dog still love you if you recycle?

Admakers have step into the breach forthwith. A farewell to polar bears dying because of human kind ! Here is the smart new gold vein : "Being green is being cool". It is much smarter, beacause it's not calling fear or threat as a lot of ads do (see my post here), but above all, it is much more efficient, as it manage to get rid of the painfull image green movement is suffering from. But in a way ..isn't it paradoxical ? Or people are not smart enough to understand the profound stakes of Climate Change ... or the cause is vacuous. 

Anyway, let's get back what we were talking. Here is a green peace ad campaign about how to be green and cool. Let's say taht ... they are not beaten about the bush.

As far as we (don't) know

How far do we know about climate change ? 

"The average surface temperature of earth has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900 and the rate of warming has been nearly three times the century-long average since 1970". 

This might be the only truth universally acknowledged about Global warming. But as for the rest, it is all out of focus.

Some scientists predict blood-and-thunder scenarios for the future, But the matter is they look hundreds years ahead. Is the science the right tool to predict the avenir in such a long-range ? I am glad it is not.  If we rely on these kinds of predictions, the planet would be drained because of farmers moving from a region to another, as a now-discredited theory of climatology tried to proove years ago.

But let's get back to the subject in hand. If I decide to buy a Toyota tomorrow, will a baby bear die in 1.000 years because of me ? And will pandas hold it against me for the next 500 years ? Hopefully, science doesn't have the answer.

"To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take."  Michael Griffin, NASA administrator

A hot topic

Global warming is a hot topic. So is the making of moon.

From www.savechickens.com

The specter of disaster

Why using the threat of Global warming to make people saving energy ? An Inconvenient truth, Home, 2012, or WWF ad campaigns... they all use fear in massive doses.

Is terrifying people the only way to get the message across ?

After decades of mass consumption, a turn around in public opinion has occured. Time has come to save energy. But to spread this new model, its supporters has brandish the threat of climate disasters and other terrifying natural catastrophes. The matter is .. they used a non scientific statement as a central argument. It would have been more simple, but also more honnest, intellectually speaking, to talk about money savings to grab people's attention. But fear factor seems to be pretty efficient...

Don't get me wrong ...

I do care about environment issues. And I do care about saving energy (above all at the end of the month, when I recieve my bill ...)

But I am a bit jaded about trends... For about 5 or 6 years now, "Climate Change" is becoming the new greenwagon everyone want to board, without any firm scientific proof. I am not saying Global warming is a hoax. But I say that its alleged terrifying consequences are just ... estimates ! 

But it makes no odds. Multinational firms,  fashion magazines, even schools ... everyone has turned greenie within (too) few years. A good article from Slate Magazine mentions that even the very serious New York Times Magazine is suffering from this new green-brained disease.

"It published a feature on the glories of an experimental solar-hydrogen house. The piece read great until a less-than-worshipful letter writer caught up with the magazine two weeks later. Using hydrogen as an energy-storage medium is wasteful, A.R. Martin wrote to the magazine. "For every 100 kilowatts of electricity produced by the solar cells, only about 40 kilowatts is recovered from the hydrogen fuel cell. By contrast, as much as 80 kilowatts could be recovered from a storage battery."

In a nutshell, solar-hydrogen houses and all these eco-trendy stuffs will not change our lives, since all this is lacking of scientific background. For now, it is nothing but eco-snobbery.

3, 2, 1 ...

This is the very early stages of the begining of my blog.

From Treatloaf.com : http://www.treatloaf.com/2009/01/