Wow. This climate-themed web ad from CO-SEN candidate Andrew Romanoff is very, very strong:
If you’re very jaded, above-it-all — or merely uninformed — you can call it a “scare tactic”. But reality is beyond scary. And it’s way, way past time to call it like it is. I salute what must be a very strong personal conviction of Mr. Romanoff to get this thing done, as well as the professionalism involved in making it.
Hey Ed Markey … maybe you could use something like this.
Please share widely!
Christopher says
There has to be a middle path, at least on the communication side. The first minute of this video struck me as over-the-top apocalyptic, but I’ve also read the outline of the Green New Deal and do not see any down side to it.
SomervilleTom says
If you think this is over-the-top apocalyptic, then you either have not read or do not understand the compelling science that has been published for decades.
It is true that the scientific papers are dry. They are intentionally so, in order to avoid distracting from the technical message of whatever the paper is. The result of that language is the same as this ad.
If fact, as the data has continued to arrive, we see that when the results do fall outside the error bars of the predictions, those results show that the crisis is MORE severe than predicted and happening FASTER than predicted.
Climate scientists and their advocates tried avoiding “over-the-top apocalyptic” language, and the result was that their work was either ignored or rejected altogether. Right-wing groups targeted scientists like James Hansen and Michael Mann with outrageous attacks and threats.
Chillingly, the Trump administration has muzzled ALL government-sponsored researchers. The satellites needed to continue gathering climate data are not being launched. The halting baby-steps we took towards limiting CO2 emissions have been reversed.
This is a good ad.
jconway says
This is a very effective ad for a Democratic primary and a lousy one for a general election in a purple state. It’s a pretty cynical way for a middling candidate to go viral and get out of state money while knocking down the best candidate capable of taking this seat from the GOP. Andrew Romanoff is like the Martha Coakley of Colorado. He’s already lost multiple races for the Senate, House, Governorship and now is running for Senate again. John Hickenlooper has already won two statewide races in years that were unfriendly to Democrats and is currently soundly beating Cory Gardner in the polls.
I think our nation and planet would be better served by a Democratic Senate. Linking Hickenlooper to Gardner and Trump as Romanoff does here is dishonest and there’s a real risk in an emerging blue state that a too left of center candidate will turn off moderate voters who split their tickets Hickenlooper/Gardner last time. This is a fantastic style of ad for our next nominee to run against Charlie Baker. I’d focus on a clearer danger like the T underwater, but the underlying facts are not wrong. The framing is terrible for a purple state.
jconway says
Will we be living in gas masks under ground? I don’t think so. Will our kids be fighting wars over water and will billions die from famine? It’s quite possible. There will definitely be a Katrina level event every year in the short term. The projected reality of climate change is scary enough that we don’t need to exaggerate it into A Quiet Place rip-off. I think it undermines the solid second half of the ad which is showing the frightening present.
SomervilleTom says
I’m disconnected enough from the current entertainment universe that I didn’t recognize the rip-off. I assumed the gas masks were the result of some unspecified climate-change driven catastrophe. This is an interesting example of perhaps unintended differences in the cultural connections of the audience.
I saw the gas-mask sequences as a reference to some WWI or WWII type emergency.
I don’t think we’ll be living in gas masks underground. On the other hand, we will be putting enormous stresses on infrastructure like refineries, manufacturing plants, railroad lines, and similar things. I think there will be great many second-order or indirect climate change consequences, some of which could well result in breaches of refinery holding tanks, crashes of railroad trains that release hazardous gases from strings of derailed tank cars, and so on.
The various IPCC reports do talk about indirect effects. They tend to use language like “indirect costs” rather than try to predict the myriad of ways that a Katrina-level event can create havoc.
I sort-of agree with you. At the same time, I think the ad is well within the envelope of historical campaign advertising exaggerations.
Christopher says
I didn’t realize it was a take-off on something else either.
jconway says
It’s not a direct take off, just survivalist parents in a post-apocalyptic environment arguing and debating about adding another mouth to that world is similar to A Quiet Place.
I think the world of Interstellar is closer to what our reality could be if we extend Trumpism another fifty years. NASA is banned and forced underground, science itself is largely banned from schools, and we keep digging further and further to get new top soil to deal with shorter harvests and food shortages leading to chronic dust bowls. Our only hope being finding habitable worlds in other solar systems.
It’s tough with political ads. The hard hitting one on gun control is something I actually had called for previously to drive the point home, but it frightened my students and made them think school shootings are a much bigger threat than they really are. Just like the odds of getting killed in a terror attack are low, so are the odds of getting killed in a school shooting. The drills are counterproductive in my view since they put the onus on individual schools and not society to solve this problem.
The odds that the community I teach in will have to deal with flooding, erosion, and the economic effects of both are a lot higher. I like using realistic projections so students can see their community under water or picture the temps they will need to deal with. For Colorado Springs in 60 years its really bad, avg temps of 80 degrees would wreck their economy and way of live, but it’s not gas mask bad.
We should also remind voters that the US was not a net emitter until Trump took control. We were actually on our way to cutting down under Obama, it was China and India that were the bigger polluters. Now we’re first again, in a metric we should want to be last in.
Charley on the MTA says
I always think of Interstellar too; and Melancholia.
In any event, anyone who thinks this ad is over the top should look at footage from the very-explicitly climate=related Camp Fire — or really any natural disaster. They’re scary. People die. Truth is stranger and scarier than fiction.
jconway says
I think the real footage is more credible than the story at the start of the ad, which relied on inaccurate numbers. The truth about climate is scary enough that we do not want to take needless risks embellishing it. That emboldens those who say scientists are lying. That was a big weakness of the Day After Tomorrow as a message movie.
Charley on the MTA says
“Inaccurate numbers” … don’t know what that refers to. Anyway, we’ve been coming in closer to the worst-case scenarios on so many projections – ice-sheet loss, Arctic warming, and so forth. One might have thought the Camp Fires as being hellishly, cartoonishly fictional, until they weren’t. People were incinerated. 85 people died in a situation far more terrifying than the fictionalized depiction here.
I don’t disagree that the fictionalized part is, to me, less compelling than the reality of the second section. But I do think that people need to imagine themselves, and their own kids, in those situations, which will become tragically common. That what artistic depiction is for. I don’t think that’s a needless risk; it’s a risk *not* to do so.
There are Climate Liars, funded by the wealthiest and most ruthless corporations and individuals on the planet to the tune of countless millions. They will say what they’re paid to say. It is not the fault of climate advocates that they exist. Let’s assign the blame proportionately. I am done thinking defensively about such things. Play offense.
Christopher says
So because there are deniers, we have to dial the advocacy to 11? You don’t think that will just perpetuate the vicious cycle? Propose all the bold initiatives you want; just lose the tone – that’s all I’m asking.
SomervilleTom says
The deniers have been shouting down the rest of us for decades. You would have us obediently walk to a quiet and orderly extinction.
jconway says
I linked to a 60 year temperature projection for Colorado and it’s bad-80 degree average compared to today. Today’s NM average in tomorrow’s Colorado Springs. It’s not gas mask live underground bad.
I liked the family aspect of the scene, which is why A Quiet Place was so effective. I just think if we want to be the side of science we should use actual projections-which are still plenty scary-and not exaggerate the numbers.
I want to take the fight to deniers, but if we want to restore empiricism to policy making (Al Gores underrated book Reason comes to mind) we need to use accurate figures. 127 average degree days are not coming to Colorado Springs in 2060. 80 degree average days are and that will decimate their economy, water supply, and wild fire risk. It’s worth it to be honest.
It’s also really dishonest to say Gardner and Hickenlooper are one in the same or Hickenlooper and Trump are one in the same. Shades of Jill Stein there. You’re welcome to back romanoff in the primary over fracking, but Hickenlooper is the one who wins statewide every time while Ramonoff loses every office he runs for.
Christopher says
I still think there has to be some way to bring scientific conclusions to life without needlessly sounding like Chicken Little. I absolutely do NOT see a future where we all live underground.
SomervilleTom says
I’ve watched the piece again, and I don’t think it’s depicting people living underground any more than people who took shelter in basements and subways in London during the Blitzkrieg “lived underground”.
I think there are many immediate climate-related scenarios that force people to take shelter underground for brief (days?) periods.
Your reference to Chicken Little is troublesome to me. That’s not what’s happening here. What’s happening here is that the fire alarms, smoke alarms, and CO monitors are all sounding, and our government is turning them off rather than admit that a fire is raging.
Christopher says
The difference is that if I’m in school with the kids I teach and the alarms start going off. I will calmly say, “OK boys and girls, we need to leave the building now. Please quickly and quietly line up at the door and we need to stay together.” OTOH, it sounds like you would be more likely to say, “OMG kids, the building is on fire – run for your lives!”
SomervilleTom says
And what do you do when the alarms go off and then the administration says, over the intercom, “Ignore the alarms, they are false”. A little while, with the alarms still sounding, your class smells smoke and sees flames. It is all well and good to calmly shepherd children to an exit when everyone involved is acting responsibly.
That is not the situation we face on the climate. When the adults and authorities in the room are denying the obvious facts, at some point you either defy the authorities — which is seldom done quitely — or die.
Christopher says
The protocol is that when the alarms go off you leave, even if you witnessed a kid pulling the alarm as a prank yourself. The fire department still has to come investigate and give the all-clear. Yes, even if there is sensory evidence of a fire best practice is evacuate in a deliberate manner.
SomervilleTom says
And what is the plan when all the adults around you refuse to follow the protocol? When you hear the alarm and have sensory evidence of a fire, what do you when you and your class meet an assistance principal who, for some reason, tells you to go back to your classroom and get on with the day’s lesson? What do you do when he or she threatens you for attempting to continue your deliberate evacuation? What do you when he or she loudly announces to your class that they should ignore what you say?
We are in a topsy-turvy world in which a great many of the powerful players around us intentionally exploit your desire to be deliberate to their own ends to your extreme harm.
Charley on the MTA says
Christopher, you are stubborn. But in any case, here are 11,000 scientists, signatories to a statement that you will doubtless find “Chicken Little”, “alarmist”. Go read up, with an open mind.
“emergency”, “alarming”, “urgently necessary”, “immense increase of scale”, “untold suffering”, etc. It seems that no one has their hair on fire as much as those whose job it is to know something about what’s going on.
SomervilleTom says
When scientists use this language, we should be paying even more attention — scientists are conditioned throughout their training and experience to scrupulously avoid hyperbole.
It is not possible to be “alarmist” with this.
Christopher says
My personality is calm just as a general rule. If you were to look at the whole body of my commentary over the years you will see I don’t have much patience for foot-stomping I-want-my-way-and-I-want-it-now approach to much of anything. I agree we need to act and I favor many of the proposals I have heard to ameliorate the situation, but screaming that we’re all going to die and that we will be extinct as a species within the lifetimes of the currently living is not helpful or accurate.
SomervilleTom says
Except that this is NOT a “foot-stomping I-want-my-way-and-I-want-it-now” approach. Actually, we are all going to die (none of us is immortal).
There is a reasonable chance that we will be extinct as a species within the lifetime of the currently living. At the current rate, it is probable that we will have crossed the tipping point into extinction in that time period, even if some survive.
The Shakers did, in fact, ultimately die out. They died out because they forbade reproduction. The fact of that demise was pre-ordained when that dogma was adopted at the sect’s creation.
Suppose you are a passenger in a vehicle travelling 70 mph. If you see that the traffic ahead is at a dead stop, and you see that the driver of your car is paying attention to his or her texting, I certainly hope that you yell at the driver rather loudly, because you WILL in fact likely die if the driver does not get off the gas and hit the brakes.
There are times when yelling is needed.
Christopher says
The crash at 70 MPH is a lot more obvious, imminent, and damaging.
SomervilleTom says
Understood. I’m using hyperbole as an example.
Climate change is much like lung cancer — by the time the signs are as obvious as a 70 MPH car crash, it’s FAR to late to do anything.
jconway says
Maybe not in Colorado Springs which is my quibble, but the Outback is already becoming uninhabitable to humans and they are resorting to underground homes. South Africa’s largest city already had a Day Zero for water and California’s supply is constantly threatened. I think highlighting those stories already happening is more effective, but I’m spiritually aligned with the ad. My bigger beef is the dishonest Democrat on Democrat narrative about his competitor.