In a new paper published in the Journal of Social Marketing, Dr. Erik L. Olson spotlights the “Fakegate” scandal as a salient example of the unethical and deceptive practices used by those who promote dangerous anthropogenic global warming (AGW) — a“difficult-to-sell” cause.
It is suggested that the ethically questionable tactics employed by AGW “marketers” (i.e., falsely hyping “the severity, immediacy, and certainty of AGW threats”) have failed and should be resisted.
Three years ago, an unheralded paper was published in The International Journal of Geosciences entitled “Climate Change Science & Propaganda” (Nelson, 2015).
The author, a retired chemical engineer, openly and brazenly characterized the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as an “undisputed” distributor of propaganda.
“Propaganda is a manipulation tool focused primarily on emotions. It has little to do with truth or facts and everything to do with persuasion and motivation.
Whether that is good or bad, depends on whether you feel science should be boringly independent and often ignored, or entertainingly deceptive but viewed by many. If the initial reaction is emotional, it’s probably propaganda.”
“The IPCC members are obligated to uphold, maintain, and implement its principles and promote its products, and act in accordance with the manifesto (IPCC, May 2011 p. 24).
They must proactively communicate with the media and correct any incorrect representations that may be damaging (IPCC, May 2011, p. 33).
Bureau members must not express any views beyond the scope of the reports (IPCC, May 2011, p. 36).
All members, including all lead authors (IPCC, Nov 2011, p. 16) must sign a conflict of interest form (IPCC, Nov 2011, p. 19), which indirectly obligates them to uphold the IPCC principals and products.”
“It is undisputed that not only does the IPCC recommend propaganda, it teaches and promotes it.” — Nelson, 2015
In a new paper, the marketing of an imminent human-caused climate threat is heavily scrutinized by Dr. Erik J. Olson, a professor of marketing at a Norwegian business school.
This time the criticism targets the tendency for the purveyors of dangerous AGW to utilize deceptive and unethical tactics in an effort to garner the public’s attention and to “sell” governmental policies that promote costly emissions mitigation.
Olson analyzes the public’s response to the “Fakegate” scandal — an instance in which an activist climate researcher named Peter Gleick admittedly stole documents and deceptively posed as a Heartland Institute member in a failed attempt to undermine climate change skepticism.
The results of the analysis reveal that AGW advocates (or, as Olson calls them, “believers”) tend to justify the unethical conduct of those on their side as long as the transgression is deemed to have been for a “good cause”.
Yes, the AGW paradigm is difficult to “sell”. But Olson warns that the utilization of deceptive headlines, the unethical practice of manipulating temperature data to “hide the decline”, stealing documents and faking authorship . . . are not selling points when it comes to persuading an already skeptical public.
Instead, as a marketing strategy, these tactics are destined to fail.
Read rest at No Tricks Zone
Rationalization because it is a “good cause” is not limited to the climate change movement. I have seen liberals illegally use a tax exempt organization to further a political objective and think it was quite all right because it was a “good cause”.
Let’s get real. There is no real science that supports the anthropological climate change movement. There is plenty of real science that undermines it. The only possible tactic to promote their agenda is to use unethical methods
I once read an article written by an IPCC scientist on what went on when writing an assessment report. Politicians would go around to different scientific groups and badger them to come up with more dire predictions. Then it was the politicians, not the scientists, who wrote the summary report.
I remember a local ’70’s rock band that divided the crowd left / right, A side and B side. The band leader led A side with a “the other side sucks” chant. He then asked B side to retaliate.
We loved it. So fun and easy.
The IPCC scam is indefensible, but that hasn’t stopped their side from chanting.
Climate Deplorable Syndrome.
They think everyone is stupid except themselves. They’ve never read Lincoln; ‘You can fool some of the people……………
Some of these idiots have come up with some pretty stupid ideas over this whole Global Warming/Climate Change poppycock like Going Vegan this Modern Enviromentalisms a form of Stupidity