A convenient fiction?

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truthhas had vast amounts of coverage. In a way it has become the default opinion. He has persuaded the guilty middle classes of the world to buy into a belief that the sky is falling.

The key word is belief.

As with arguing the existence of God (or Gods) people tend to accept what they are told. It is so much easier than gathering data for yourself. The priest tells you you will burn in Hell if you don't believe and behave as you are told then you are a heretic. The Godless are shunned in a devout society.

Al Gore is the new Pope. The slide show is his pulpit. And, given that he is a former Vice President of the United States of America - well, think appointment as anointment. Like Papa he was God's man on Earth.

Don't get me wrong. I think we should be more mindful of the planet. Hey, it's the only one we've got. I enjoyed the video I have embedded here. Not because it's an entertaining topic. On the contrary it is because it offers a contrary, informed point of view.

I am of the (admittedly ill informed) opinion that we need to factor in the pace of technology in the environmental equation. In the 1960s oil producing nations got together in Rome and made the chilling pronouncement that oil would run out in 2000 (or thereabouts). It didn't happen. Why not? Because technology provided new ways of predicting where oil might be found and it gave us ways of transporting newly found sources of oil - like the Alaskan pipeline. Fuel injection technology made the oil we used go further. Then, how can we forget, on board computers made the oil we use go miles further. Technology moved us forward. Like whale oil before it - the Victorians believe that the Empire would collapse when the last whale was slaughtered - our reliance on oil will change with technologies like hydrogen (clean and abundant).

Al Gore has done a terrific job of raising awareness of the issue. But don't let one source of information be the end of the story. Media is lazy and populist - the catchy title 'An inconvenient truth', slick packaging and P.R. In other words it is the very model of a modern ad campaign. Great marketing*. You have been persuaded of the 'truth'. You have no way of confirming its veracity but it seems plausible doesn't it? And the alternative, like Hell itself, is just too horrible to contemplate. The video above makes the excellent point that this is not a political issue - don't let it become one.

I agree we should reduce the volume of stuff we consume and increase its quality with an eye on thrift - not 'sustainability' because that word buzzes with vibration.

Watch the video, think about it, share with friends. Discuss.

* Check out All Marketers Are Liars

All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Comments

Anonymous10:03 pm
"The Limits to Growth" came out in 1972 and predicted petroleum reserves at 50 years then based on 1968 estimates. The lastoilshock.com has more detail on the peak oil theory but so far it has proved remarkably true. It is not so much that we will run out period but the major changes in price that start to happen when researves start to decline as they are. Technology has helped more with accuracy than it has with finding more oil.

While global warming is a popular angst subject - there are also many other global problems that can be actually solved. Check the Copenhagen Consensus and Bjorn Lomborgs work on facilitating this discussion.

During his research - global warming actually comes out at the bottom of the list.
JoeGreenz10:37 pm
Is Lomborg the guy who speaks at TED?
I'm sure i saw a very sane presentation from someone who had interesting perspectives on what we should be concerned about...?

The thing that grabs me is the languaging and manipulation of media.
I have recommended it before and still but Unspeak is an important book to read. I have a copy you can read or it's on fishpond Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality

"What do the phrases "pro-life," "intelligent design," and "the war on terror" have in common? Each of them is a name for something that smuggles in a highly charged political opinion. "Climate change" is less threatening than "global warming"; we say "ethnic cleansing" when we mean "mass murder," A completely partisan argument can be packed into a sound bite. Words and phrases that function in this special way go by many names. Some writers call them "evaluative-descriptive terms." Others talk of "terministic screens" or discuss the way debates are "framed." Author Steven Poole calls them Unspeak. Unspeak represents an attempt by politicians, interest groups, and business corporations to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak--in the sense of erasing or silencing--any possible opposing point of view by laying a claim right at the start to only one way of looking at a problem. Recalling the vocabulary of George Orwell's 1984, as an Unspeak phrase becomes a widely used term of public debate, it saturates the mind with one viewpoint while simultaneously make an opposing view ever more difficult to enunciate. In this fascinating book, Poole traces modern Unspeak--from "extremist" to "weapons of mass destruction"--and reveals how the evolution of language changes the way we think. "Propaganda" becomes "public diplomacy," and "sound science" (a phrase actually coined by tobacco giant Philip Morris) becomes a tool with which to instill a fear and distrust of legitimate scientific research."

As professional communicators we have a responsibility to be conscious of the way we use language and the effect it has on people - don't you think?

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