With more and more people affected directly or indirectly by (flash) floods, forest fires and irregular droughts, no amount of “advertising” and “public relation” will assuage mobs of angry/desperate/displaced individuals from seeking irrational forms of justice that could never reasonably make their life whole again for all that was lost.
Moreover, we will enter (have already) a period whereas politicians will find it more and more acceptable to misdirect our woes/anger toward, at first, individuals/groups/corporations/countries unrelated to the causes of climate change as convenient scapegoat. Eventually as things progress (as in decline/worsen/degenerate), they will ultimately find themselves only viably electable by repudiating anyone/anything directly or even barely related to the fossil fuel industry.
Advertising / lobbying is one of their last attempt to avoid accountability.
Nevertheless, advertising and lobbying will never decrease the many real/visible/lived/experienced consequences of climate change.
They’ve been doing this for the last twenty-five years.
Anyone else remember when the “Oil sands” were regularly referred to as the Tar Sands in the news reports in Alberta through the 90’s?
They are merely returning to their old budget after so many years of people doing half of the propaganda for them.
Reminds me of a frank statement from tobacco industry.
Same play book used by all large sectors of economy once they are exposed
I seriously doubt this campaign will have any impact other than reinforcing the views of people who already believe this nonsense.
Greenwashing should be illegal. Consumers trying to reduce their personal impact can have their decisions influenced by greenwashing propaganda and end up making misinformed decisions or not hold a company accountable for their true impacts.
“How is a natural gas leak bad? It’s back in nature where it came from!”
"Its an organic compound so its totally safe "
It’d be pretty hard to define it, though.
I guess you could require green advertising spending to be some fraction of spending on being green, but that wouldn’t really apply to those meat ads about grasslands, because that’s genuinely a side effect of their trade. Banning most forms of paid advertising in general would also do it.
Y’all really don’t read the articles. The UN already has reports on greenwashing woth pretty solid definitions and recommendations. The report was linked in the article.
Excerpt from the linked UN report:
Our report also specifically addresses the core concerns raised by citizens, consumers, environmentalists and investors around the use of net zero pledges that make greenwashing possible. Our recommendations are clear that:
• Non‑state actors cannot claim to be net zero while continuing to build or invest in new fossil fuel supply. Coal, oil and gas account for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. net zero is entirely incompatible with continued investment in fossil fuels. Similarly, deforestation and other environmentally destructive activities are disqualifying.
• Non-state actors cannot focus on reducing the intensity of their emissions rather than their absolute emissions or tackling only a part of their emissions rather than their full value chain (scopes 1, 2 and 3).
These recommendations explicitly cover the ad campaign discussed in OP’s article, as well as many other greenwashing ad campaigns.
You’re right, I didn’t read this one. I’m surprised that was in there, my bad.
I’m glad and not surprised someone’s working on a definition.
Why do they limit that to non-state actors? Are they giving governments a free pass?
