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Green PR Suffers Blowback
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By Alan Caruba (July 11, 2007)
In mid-June, a
respected newsletter for the public relations profession, Jack
O’Dwyer’s, reported on a speech given to a Canadian Public Relations
Conference by Jim Hoggan, a Vancouver PR practitioner. Reportedly,
global warming is the top public issue in Canada, even more than the
economy and healthcare.
I have been a
public relations counselor since the mid-1970s. Like many in the
profession, I came to it after having been a journalist. My advice to
clients has always been to tell the truth.
To the extent
that people are more concerned about a complete hoax than they are
about the real critical issues affecting their real lives tells you how
successful the bogus theory of the Earth dramatically and suddenly
warming in a year, ten years, or a hundred years, has been.
Is the Earth
warming? Yes, it has been warming since the last mini-Ice Age ended in
the 1800s. Since then the Earth has warmed a fraction of a degree
Fahrenheit or Centigrade. Big deal.
 Mr.
Hoggan, however, was worried. In a speech called, "You can spin
MotherNature", he told attendees that a survey he undertook revealed
that, "More than eighty percent of people believe environmental PR pros
mislead the public for a living." Most of the 1,097 respondents said,
"they thought PR people were helping clients misrepresent their
performance."
He said, "There
are climate quibblers in the energy industry. And the auto industry is
confused—actively campaigning against climate change regulation even
while spending billions on advertising concentrated on its largest,
most profitable and most environmentally damaging models."
No, Mr. Hoggan,
neither the energy industry, the auto manufacturers, nor their
consumers and the general public are "confused" about climate change,
nor are they stupid.
About the same
time he was giving his speech, the Associated Press reported that,
"More people than ever are driving alone to work as the nation’s
commuters balk at carpools and mass transit. Regardless of fuel prices,
housing and work patterns make it hard for suburban commuters to change
their gas-guzzling ways." Oh, boo-hoo. Typical of such articles, the
consumer is to blame along with the awful energy and auto companies.
This is why the
environmental groups and their PR representatives continue to spend
millions to influence legislators to regulate, regulate, and regulate
every single aspect of our lives. Based on bogus environmental claims,
the intent is to deny people the right to make market-based decisions.
The result is
policies that drive up the cost of basic commodities that include food,
energy, and housing. Policies based on "global warming" or "climate
change" have no real basis in science. They are based on the hatred of
free enterprise and, indeed, the hatred of humanity that is endemic to
environmentalism.
Who are some of
the "climate quibblers" that are casting doubt on green claims? After a
slow start when any legitimate climatologist or meteorologist who
disputed the claims was attacked, they have been joined by an
impressive and growing list of world leaders.
Recently Vaclav
Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, wrote, "We are living in
strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough irrespective of
the fact that in the course of the 20th century
the global temperature increased only by 0.6 degrees Centigrade for the
environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do
something about the weather, and do it right now."
In April
Yuri Izrael, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was
interviewed by the Ria Novosti news agency. The Vice Chairman of the
International Panel on Climate Change broke with its much-vaunted
"consensus" over global warming. "I think the panic over global warming
is totally unjustified. There is no serious threat to the climate." He
is the head of the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology in Russia.
Science is not about "consensus." It is about provable facts. Everything else is a hypothesis.
Richard S.
Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who early and often debunked and
rebuked the theory of global warming, has been at a disadvantage with
the general public because, not surprisingly, he cites some rather
complex scientific data. As early as 1988 he began to speak out and
that should give you an idea of how long this hoax has been
perpetrated. "The current evidence does not warrant any drastic actions
that cannot be justified independently of climate concerns," says Dr.
Lindzen.
As is
often noted, the same environmental groups, during the 1970s, were
aggressively pushing the notion of a new Ice Age. Ironically, they were
closer to the truth. The Earth is currently at the end of an 11,500
year interglacial cycle and many of the climate anomalies such as a
June snowfall in Denver may well signal the advent of another Ice Age.
What we
can do is insure that American politicians like Sen. Harry Reid,
Senator Barbara Boxer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, John McCain, and others do
not force some truly horrible legislation through Congress based on the
global warming or climate change lie. There is no climate change crisis
and, if there was, like all climate phenomenon, there is absolutely
nothing Americans, Canadians, and the rest of humanity could do.
What we do
not need to do is turn essential food crops like corn into ethanol. We
do not need to insist that auto manufacturers squeeze a fraction of
additional energy out of a finite gallon of gasoline. In an economy
based on the need for electricity, we must resist efforts to thwart the
building of more coal-fired and nuclear facilities to facilitate
growth. We should not deter the exploration and extraction of vitally
needed, known energy resources off the shores of the North American
continent.
Mr. Hoggan
ended his speech by tossing out the standard calumnies about those who
cite real science. "The mainstream media are presenting a controversy
that doesn’t appear in science—usually without mentioning when
skeptical experts were unqualified or were associated with energy
industry lobbying firms or Exxon-funded think tanks."
What Big
Oil is really trying to do is to insure you will have gasoline when you
drive up to the pump or a choice of oil or natural gas to heat your
home this winter. If Mr. Hoggan’s survey is correct—and I think it
is—the public is skeptical of PR professionals who tell them the Earth
is dramatically warming or just about to.
So, whom
do you trust? Jim Hoggan? Speaker Pelosi? Governor Schwartzenegger? Al
Gore? Do you really believe that "Live Earth" concerts have anything to
do with science? I recommend you trust your own common sense.
©
2007 Alan Caruba.
All rights reserved.
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