Sure, we all do it. We all spin. Everyone chooses the words they feel will best help them in a given situation. Yet, get caught in the act of doing this in a calculated way and alarm bells go off; it is big news.
That is exactly what happened to ecoAmerica, as reported in the NY Times over the weekend.
The group is attempting to help frame and shape the debate about global warming and environmental issues. It has conducted polls and research that reveal some unfortunate associations with the existing words used in the debate. According to the article:
The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”
The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals,
economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to
extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a
nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.
ecoAmerica concludes that the language needs to change; this will in turn impact how people think and talk about global warming.
Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk
about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon
dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.”
Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash
back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
All well and good, except the findings were accidentally leaked to the media. Hence the article and this blog post.
You get the usual hand wringing in response. Later on the article, an opposing view was presented (the reporter has miraculously produced a pedigreed "expert on environmental communications"):
Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental
communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what
industry and political conservatives were doing… “You want to sell toothpaste,
we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s
the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”
He
said the approach was cynical and, worse, ineffective. “The right uses
it, the left uses it, but it doesn’t engage people in a face-to-face
manner,” he said, “and that’s the only way to achieve real, lasting
social change.”
I am not sure I agree. Words do have an impact on perceptions.
I do believe that in this case it is too late; the global warming train has left the station. For better or worse people have formed their impressions and it would take more than just a campaign and clever worsdsmithing to change them.
