Carbon tax pitch misses the mark: it’s the climate, stupid.
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Can you sell people an answer, when they’re not sure of the question? The carbon tax TV campaign confirms the government’s strategy of framing the case largely in economic terms: a “clean energy future” for investment and jobs and innovation, building Australia for the 21st century. Long gone are the days of the “great moral challenge” of our time. The “Say yes” campaign by civil society groups exhibits the same economism: “Saying yes to a price on pollution means saying yes to investment, innovation, and new jobs based on renewable energy … Putting a price on pollution will … protect jobs, drive innovation in adaptation and clean energy projects and technologies …” The problem is that barely half the population believes climate change is real and human caused; fewer support the tax. And much of that opinion is soft: it’s one of many concerns. The sense of urgency was lost three years ago, according to Hugh Mackay, who says that the fall in public support is not due to Gillard’s failures or even Rudd’s backflip. Mackay says the trend was evident by mid-2008, when the sense of expectation accompanying the change of government was deflated by inaction and low targets in the first six months of Rudd’s term, creating “a very critical vacuum” in which “people kind of shrugged and said well, it is not that serious after all … It was seen as much more about a talking game than an acting game … When we were not called upon to act, the opportunity was lost.” Yet now the pitch is: “We have this important (tax) change that you should support, because it may not make you worse off.” Great. And a “clean energy future”, whose need is not well enough understood. It’s a big ask to sell a “big change” without a compelling narrative as to why, in language and with a detail that, anecdotally, many do not understand, from a Prime Minister most do not trust. The government’s messaging, and that of many NGOs, fits with a trend in both sides of US politics in following the advice of Republican pollster Frank Lunz to stop talking about climate change and the implications of failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions because they are “negatives”, and sell a positive “clean energy” economic story instead. This suggests we can have answers without being sure of the question; that people will support change that leaves them “no worse off”, without understanding why. The corollary of this “no negatives” is a happy-clappy strategy in which climate action is all win-win, no pain, no problems. Just say yes. Yet the lesson from Mackay’s analysis is unambiguous: the scientific need for action now has to be re-established. What is missing is a compelling heart narrative about the impacts of global warming. The story is not being told of families who will live in a hot world, with more dangerous climate extremes, heat stress and ill-health, with less secure food and water supplies, and of children and grandchildren who will live less well than their parents, and may struggle to survive, unless we act right now. Nor is a story being told about how we can all can play an active, empowering part part in creating a safe climate for future generations. Shying away from the dire picture of climate change impacts takes us away what the well-understood psychology of health promotion now tells us. A meta-survey of research on health promotion campaigns and their outcomes found that the most successful approach is to combine a striking honesty about the problem with a message of personal efficacy: it is about you, and you are part of the solution. The study found no negative effects of messages honest about the severity and likelihood of the health impact, provided there was a clear articulation about what can be done to stop the problem. In fact, the more detail about the severity of the impact, the more effective was the message. A meta-survey of research on health promotion campaigns and their outcomes found that the most successful approach is to combine a striking honesty about the problem with a message of personal efficacy: it is about you, and you are part of the solution. Peter Lewis of Essential Media says if you wish to mobilise public opinion, then “focus on the science first, second and third — and then start talking about the impact on our carbon-exposed economy if we wait for the rest of the world to act first”. US pollster Mark Mellman says suggestions that one shouldn’t talk about global warming are “politically naïve, methodologically flawed and factually inaccurate”. He finds that even dire science-based warnings are an essential part of good climate messaging — along with a clear explanation of the myriad clean energy solutions available today and the multiple benefits of those solutions. People’s well-founded fear has its role in political messaging, as the WorkChoices campaign showed. Modern environmentalism was born from the warnings of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Asked recently about Lunz’s proposition to talk about clean, secure energy and not talk about climate change, Al Gore replied: “The scale and magnitude of the changes that are necessary to solve the climate crisis mean that all of the collateral reasons for taking these steps will not get us to where we need to go without a clear understanding of what we’re facing if we don’t act … it’s a mistake to move that to the periphery of the conversation as so many have done … it has to be the heart of the conversation.” The health promotion review reinforces the effectiveness of uncensored honesty about the problem combined with an empowering message about solutions and personal responsibility. |
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12 Comments
My problem is that I’m pretty sure of the question, but I’m damn certain the answer being pushed is wrong.
I remember the first AIDS ads- who can forget the GRIM REAPER?
Most people don’t think anymore- they just feel.
So hit them with FEELING- sometimes feeling connects to the brain cells and MIRACLE they start to think.
What about also reminding us all that eventually sanctions will be imposed to make nations compliant. By then we will be so far behind the clean energy future game that our kids will be condemned to a life way below the standard we enjoy today.
my thoughts anyway….
“THE S TORY IS NOT BEING TOLD!’ to quote a few words from your article, David.
Or at least it is not being adequately reported by the media. It is not getting through because 70% of our print media is dominated by News Ltd who are bent on supporting the case for No Price On Carbon! The government, the Greens, Independents and conservationists, climate scientists, and others have been putting out plenty of information on how perilously close to catastophe we are. Newspapers have done such a good job of ‘balanced’ reporting that that even your Bernard Keane has somehow joined the doubters who think that government information on this is ho hum, just more government propaganda.
If you have to argue it, you’ve already lost.
It must be a compelling and honest call for change that moves people EMOTIONALLY, so that the cost of decisive action is worth it.
The problem is this pathetic useless rabble in government couldn’t even sell hacked phones to NewsCorpse!
Yet now the pitch is: “We have this important (tax) change that you should support, because it may not make you worse off.” Great. And a “clean energy future”, whose need is not well enough understood. It’s a big ask to sell a “big change” without a compelling narrative as to why, in language and with a detail that, anecdotally, many do not understand, from a Prime Minister most do not trust.
Spot on!
Yes! yes! yes! Isaid to my wife only this morning, in regard to the latest poll showing a drop in public support for the carbon tax, that the gov’t advertising campaign should be telling people just how dangerous a position we are in. People just don’t seem to realise that this is not some minor inconvenience we are talking about here, it is a crisis that we must address. All the spin in the world won’t change that fact. The conservatives would have us believe there is some doubt amongst scientists. I saw Howard on ‘Insiders’ on Sunday claiming that there are scientists who argue global warming is not man made. He didn’t mention who they were, and of cause Barry Cassidy didn’t ask him to back this up with some evidence at all. Heaven forbid! He also said other countries aren’t acting at all. Of course this is only to be expected from ‘honest john’.
Murdoch controls all of the print media on the Gold Coast so there is no way this message is ever going to get through.All we get is Abbott and his solutions. God help us.
I’ve been a Green voter for some years now and now I am finding really abusive terms used to describe Bob Brown and the Greens. Abbott has surely polarised the community as such
and is a far better salesman than Gillard ever was.
The political vacuum left by the collapse of Rudd’s ‘greatest moral challenge’ was ably filled and infected by the low-feeding trolls of the Murdochracy and its fellow travellers.
As Possum tweeted today: this country is a muppet factory.
Couldn’t have said it better.
The carbon tax is not the solution to climate change but it is an essential first step. A combination of market signals and regulation are necessary to make producers aware that there is value (and profit) in using energy in the most efficient way (businesspeople are often quite stupid when it comes to looking after their long term interests and profitability). Public support is only partially necessary (if we are entirely ruled by public opinion we would probably still be in the dark ages of capital punishment and using the cane on school children). In any case, public support in this case is not necessary, since voters wont play any part in framing legislation or voting for a government for the next two years (unless the current miserable and spineless crop Labor politicians panic). The government should focus on locking down the legislation and tying farmer and business interests to a carbon market, which would make it difficult and very expensive for Tony Abbott to undo the whole package. There is a good chance that an Abbott government will be faced with a world recession and a period of global economic stagnation, which would (hopefully) put severe budgetary constraints on any attempt to undo the carbon market.
Can it be a co-incidence that 70% of the press is owned by Mudorc and 67% of people polled believe that they’ll be worse off under carbon tax, despite the clear, incontrovertible evidence to the contrary?
The do-nothings have run a very effective campaign to destroy the public’s confidence in the science and scientists who work in the area of climate change research.
In the current atmosphere there is no way the politics can be run on the science - the realistic possible outcomes of business-as-usual are truly scary. The problem is they are too scary - an honest dialog with the public is seen as scaremongering, exaggeration, vested interests keeping themselves in jobs by a cynical, fatigued and distrusting public.
It is a tragedy that the debate and the politics have dropped to the levels they have. I don’t see, at this point in time, how the debate could be run any differently.
I think that the campaign should be focused on the future, and what lies in store for our children and grandchildren if we don’t do something. All of the points that David elaborates are there - hotter climate with all the resultant nasties. Why isn’t the government informing people of all this instead of the incessant concentration on the economic detail?
Basically we are talking about a form of child and grandchild abuse just so we can all go on living our pampered lives for a few more years. As has already been said, putting a price on carbon pollution is a start, but we need to do much more. Future generations will suffer the brunt of our neglect. We have become the ultimate me, me, me society.
I don’t agree with the premise of this article. I think a major reason people have tuned out is that they do not feel as if there is a solution and so its been easier to deny there is a problem. The fear mongering on both sides has left us with a zero sum game. According to the apocolyptics on both sides, if we do nothing, we’re doomed because the earth is going to explode but if we do something our economy is going into meltdown and with it our way of life. But if I deny there is a problem, I have no moral culpability and no economic one either, problem fixed. Climate change provides the rationale for moving to a renewable energy economy but as you say yourself people have to be involved in the solution, they need to feel that there is something they can do. Australia is better placed than most to take advantage of green technology, this is what should have been pushed alongside the rationale. Instead all we got was doom and gloom with every man and his dog trying to cash in, then Rudd and co’s failure to do anything about the moral challenge of our time dealt the fatal blow. I just hope, like the GST, that this will all calm down between now and the next election