Rebellion misses its mark
Imagine you have a product to sell. Actually, a concept, more than a tangible product, one that some people are finding it hard to get their head around.
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Suppose lots of people, celebrities even, are very vocal in attempting to discredit your concept even though the science of it is well understood.
Let's say you want to convince the unbelievers/doubters via an advertising campaign.
What's the best strategy you could employ? Let's look at some basic rules of successful advertising.
1. Find a novel way of attracting the attention of your target audience.
2. Don't annoy, harass or inconvenience them unduly, Especially don't announce that it's your intention to annoy them until they submit to your value system.
3. Do not cost them money.
4. Do not confront their value systems head on.
5. Challenge them in a subtle way, possibly involving children, small furry animals and/or humour and the absolute truth of the science that underpins your concept.
6. Do not resort to insults and abuse.
7. Dress and act in keeping with the dignity and gravity of your cause.
How do the Extinction Rebellion protesters rate? Not very well,eh? In fact I think they are setting the case for Climate Change Action back years.
That's not to say I think we are not in a Climate Emergency. The science is overwhelming on that. It's just that I think they need to find a better way of selling OUR message.
Geoff Richardson, Bellingen
Single parents
Big thumbs up to YMCA and council for introducing a single parent season pass (1 adult + 2 kids) for the pool.
This is a positive step that will help more of our community access the benefits our wonderful pool offers - physical exercise, valuable social interaction for parents, play for the kids, and a place to cool off on a hot summer's day.
Thanks for listening to my lobbying (whingeing?) over the past few seasons.
Melissa Murano, Bellingen
1895 climate emergency
The climate of hysteria is ablaze.
Reading the ABC article 'If this is the new reality', will more Australians need to ask: am I in a bushfire zone? Would they seriously have us believe that local forests don't regularly experienced fire?
Here are just a few examples of historical fires and drought in our region. Did anthropogenic global warming cause this one in 1895?
'Bush fires are raging all through the country. The whole of the Upper Bellinger district is on fire. The smoke and heat are intense. The air is so thick that you cannot see any great distance. If it does not rain soon, the maize crops will fail next season. Bellingen was cut off yesterday, and there is no telegraphic communication with Sydney, Grafton, or Kempsey. - The Sydney Mail and NSW Advertiser Sat 7 Sep 1895. (note no rain for at least 7 months)
'Fire raged at the rural settlement of Thora, situated in the 'Shadow of Dorrigo Mountain, in the upper Bellinger River. The whole forest-clad hills were ablaze' - The Gloucester Advocate 25 Sep 1928'The fire was part- of a large bushfire, which was burning along the mountain range"..... It was it spreading down to Gordonville and Gleniffer.'- Daily Examiner 24 Nov 1953
'Gleniffer farmers have undergone a, year of unprecedented severity, the present dry conditions being the worst known to the knowledge of the oldest inhabitants ofthat flourishing little centre.' - The Armidale Chronicle 10 Nov 1915
Be safe out there!
Martyn George, Thora
Response to Darcey
No, Darcey Browning, you don't target individuals in your diatribes, you slam entire generations - today's children are spoilt, their parents and teachers are culpable etc.
I am a near neighbour and enjoy your company, but can't sit by, week after week, and allow your proselytising to go unchallenged.
You may be endowed with uncommon common sense, but your personal views and experiences do not counter the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists.
If they wanted to know about raising cattle, they may well come to you. When it comes to climate change, why not go to them?
Even common sense may conclude that since the Industrial Revolution, 300 years of pouring carbon into the atmosphere and destroying forests may affect the atmospheric bubble that protects our blue planet.
I don't want children to be unnecessarily alarmed, either, but they may as well know the truth. And it's about time adults were doing something about it.
Craig Nelson, Thora
Damaging silence
Another week, another climate denial letter from Darcy Browning, this time including the dubious claim "I'm not a climate denier". This in a letter that repeated long debunked claims about the significance of the Fort Dennison data set, blatant scaremongering about the 12-year warning and the usual education bashing and general anti-intellectualism that is a hallmark of denialist propaganda.
The misrepresentation of the tidal study was so egregious that the researcher wrote a letter of protest to the newspaper that first publicised it. "Sea levels around the Australian coast rose an average of 5 - 6mm per year between 1993 and early 2011, CSIRO observations show, well above the 20th Century average of 1.7 mm per year." Not a hard quote to find. The 12-year warning was not that the world would end in 12 years but that certain irreversible tipping points could be reached within 12 years. The dismissal of expert opinion, and the decades of research worldwide that supports it, by a self-confessed non-expert retired farmer from country NSW is completely unsurprising and consistent with how conservatives in Australia, and elsewhere, treat data they are uncomfortable with.
Darcy's denial, though frustrating, is of little import. Far more important is that it also the apparent policy of the National Party. How else to explain the ridiculing of expert opinion by the National's NSW leader John Barilaro (building dams that may never fill and drowning frogs to save the Darling!), and the complete silence on the environmental vandalism planned for the headwaters of the Kalang from our local member and Minister for water. It is apparent that her concern for our river is token or non-existent and her real constituents are the agri-business holders of Class A water licences rather than the people who elected her.
Sad, Ms Pavey, no better than Darcy Browning and infinitely more damaging.
Sean Tuohy, Brierfield
Bad Dad
Re: Scott Morrison's a bad dad for vilifying young climate inaction protesters
Steve Biddulph, renowned psychologist and family therapist, has pointed out that Scott Morrison insulted an entire generation of school children when he recently criticised the 300,000 young people who took to the streets in the School Strike 4 Climate as lacking "context and perspective".
Morrison showed his ignorance of young Australians since they are the most science literate generation in history and climate scientists have proven that this is the most perilous time our world has ever faced. But world leaders simply twiddle their thumbs while Rome burns.
These young teenagers show more maturity than many adults and their speeches were articulate and passionate. Their demands are reasonable: no new coal mines, stop exporting coal and stop Adani. Morrison's typical response was to accuse them of being stooges for the aims of others. This is extremely disrespectful and demeaning and shows he does not understand teenagers whose nature is to question adults.
A good dad and a good PM are similar; they take bold action to ensure our future is safe.
However, the chance to take action was lost 30 years ago when we chose not to face the consequences of our dependence on the fossil fuel industry.
Meanwhile, Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist drew widespread irrational anger from conservatives after she delivered an impassioned speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
She said: "People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth."
Yet privileged old white men attacked the 16-year- old for everything from her perceived emotional tone, to her appearance, to even her neurological differences.
These pernicious attacks stem from the paranoid idea that positive media coverage of an intelligent, prominent young woman is the result of a vast left-wing conspiracy. What is amazing, though, is how ineffective these attacks have been, how little they have affected Thunberg and her extraordinary influence.
She keeps the focus on science; when she submitted the IPCC's report on limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius instead of personally testifying to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing she attached a short letter that said: "I am submitting this report as my testimony because I don't want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists. And I want you to unite behind the science. And I want you to take action."
Thunberg's speech is reminiscent of the profound words of a 1960s protest singer, viz. Bob Dylan:
Admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone...
And you better start swimming
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
The song is even more relevant now than when it was written.
Adrian P. Wolfin, Bellingen