According to a report by the organizers of the upcoming new UK event Climate Week, there are a lot of celebrities who could inspire real action by lending their voice to the movement. The report, which focused on British celebrities, found that David Beckham has nearly as much clout as green-oriented public figures like Al Gore and Bill Gates. As the Guardian explained:
Climate Week says the survey highlights a strong correlation between familiarity and green influence, showing that celebrities who are not actively “green”, such as Beckham, “still have tremendous potential to wade in on environmental issues”. It says this is why the X Factor judge Cheryl Cole beat “known environmentalist” Gwyneth Paltrow to be the woman most likely to make people act on climate change.
So does this mean the climate movement needs celebrities to promote its message? Is that what saving the planet has come down to—whether or not reality-show stars support climate action? Thankfully, Climate Week commissioned another survey, investigating the impact of people we interact with on a daily basis. It found:
This seems to be good news for us activists. First off, it means our work is more important than a celebrity endorsement. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it means we should look to the changes within our communities and circles of friends and families when we feel like the world isn’t listening. We are likely to find encouragement there.
I think real evidence would be more likely to inspire climate action. So far, all that’s really been had are a lot of bad computer models, hand-wringing over polar bears (that are growing in number, not diminishing), out-of-context “science,” and a lot of political and PR spin (is it “global warming” or “climate change” or “climate disruption” or what??).
So far, nobody has offered any empirical evidence. Yes, CO2 is a contributing greenhouse gas, but on such a tiny scale compared to others like methane and water vapor that banning it is pure banality.
What the green movement really needs to do is stop jumping on b.s. rhetoric and lazy science backed by expensive suits and actually work on things that matter. You know, like the huge amount of garbage we dump daily, the extremely wasteful energy use we have in our “global economy,” the crap we’re dumping into rivers and oceans…
Instead, all we hear about is how “the ice is melting” (it’s not doing anything it hasn’t done before in the normal cycle of things), how earthquakes and hurricanes are on the rise (they aren’t), and how we’re all going to live on an oven in ten years (we won’t).
How about getting some of your “experts” to actually sit down and debate with skeptics in an honest forum? Instead, they all cop out or disappear or spend $500,000 avoiding spending $8,000 to release their raw data (ask Mann and friends about that).
It’s time to be honest and open instead of spewing rhetoric and working in secret.
Aaron, I like the way you think.