• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package August 7, 2022
Researchers Point To ‘Dangerously Unexplored’ Risk of Global Climate Catastrophe August 2, 2022
Koch Network Pressures Manchin, Sinema as Advocates Praise ‘Game Changing’ Climate Deal August 2, 2022
Coastal GasLink Cost Skyrockets 70% to $11.2B August 2, 2022
Ottawa Releases Regulatory ‘Frame’ for Net-Zero Grid by 2035 August 2, 2022
Next
Prev

International Campaign Targets ‘Brain Pollution’ from High-Carbon Adverts

October 1, 2021
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Alex Kirby

Glenn Carstens-Peters/Unsplash

Glenn Carstens-Peters/Unsplash

42
SHARES
 

A new campaign is taking aim at careless advertising that promotes high-carbon lifestyles and fossil fuels, arguing that messaging from fossil companies and other big polluters rot the brain while heating the planet.

The Brain Pollution initiative is gunning for what it says is “the advertising industry’s lack of scrutiny for its role in the climate crisis”. The group estimates the United Kingdom alone spent £28 billion on advertising in 2019.

It’s even invented an almost credible but entirely fictional “Ministry for the Climate Emergency”, its handoutsmodelled on UK government releases, and launched this morning with a public health warning film voiced by popular TV presenter Chris Van Tulleken. The film comes with a “Ministry” briefing and billboard posters on the dangers of Brain Pollution. A bicycle-powered billboard is to tour some of London’s leading ad agencies with major polluters as clients. 

The campaign targets the fact that the climate is changing faster than people’s behaviour and cites ads promoting high-carbon lifestyles as a major obstacle to change. It also spotlights the huge gap between the carbon cuts science says are vital to meet climate targets and current action—and lack of it—by industry and governments.

To fill that gap, the initiative has invested in a public health warning campaign about the dangers it identifies in advertising, featuring the film voiced by Van Tulleken, a leading British infectious diseases doctor and documentary maker. He focuses on a medical novelty—“commerciogenic” disease.

“The brain pollution of advertising creates not just the high-carbon lifestyles feeding the climate emergency, but also a wave of commerciogenic diseases ranging from malnutrition to depression,” Van Tulleken says. 

“Yet this is one of the least talked-about and understood aspects of the climate and public health crises. We are desperate for an official public information campaign … We need to end the badvertising that undermines climate action and public health for both our health and our ultimate survival.”

The international campaign focuses on advertising in the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the United States. Among the problems Van Tulleken identifies as resulting from daily commercial life, air pollution is one of the most severe: the burning of fossil fuels is estimated to cause 8.7 million premature deaths a year worldwide.

“Advertising is a sector which has largely escaped attention until now, but actively promotes high-carbon, polluting goods and services, and creates an obstacle to change by making heavily polluting lifestyles appear normal,” the Brain Pollution team says. “People encounter an estimated 4,000 to 10,000 adverts daily.” The amount spent on advertising cars in key global markets in 2018 was estimated at over US$35 billion. 

The initiative for the Badvertising campaign comes from two leading UK climate campaigners, Andrew Simms, co-author of the original Green New Deal and co-director of the New Weather Institute, and animator Leo Murray, who devised the Frequent Flier Levy and created the “Trump Baby” blimp.

“By encouraging high-consumption, polluting products and lifestyles, large parts of the advertising industry are an obstacle to climate action and are actually encouraging behaviour which makes the climate emergency worse. Yet, until now, the industry has largely escaped scrutiny,” Simms said.

“Change happens though, and we have been here before,” he added. “Against huge resistance, but for good public health reasons, the advertising of tobacco was ended. The climate emergency is an even bigger issue, so action to stop adverts fuelling the crisis is even more urgent, yet it is not even being discussed by politicians and regulators.”

Murray said it’s tough trying to help people make the changes science says are needed: “It’s almost impossible to get these messages to stick against the relentless, overwhelming tide of commercial messaging urging people to keep on trashing the planet. I hope our new film might help kickstart a long overdue conversation about the brain pollution that is blocking us from making the changes we so urgently need.”

Badverts hopes to emulate the successful campaigns to end tobacco and cigarette advertising, and is urging similar controls on high-carbon ads. It is calling for legislation against high-carbon advertising, with a particular focus on fossil fuel companies, internal combustion engine cars, and aviation.



in Climate News Network, Coal, Culture, Fossil Fuels, Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion, Oil & Gas

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Bernard Spragg/flickr
Energy Politics

$12.3B in Profit over 3 Months as Big Fossils Reject Federal Emissions Cap

August 11, 2022
252
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons
Hydrogen

Global Push for Hydrogen Sidesteps Knowledge Gaps on Climate Impacts

August 11, 2022
298
Protect The Planet
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Work Site Blocks Early Salmon Run on Coquihalla River, Local Observers Say

August 11, 2022
382

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Bernard Spragg/flickr

$12.3B in Profit over 3 Months as Big Fossils Reject Federal Emissions Cap

August 11, 2022
252
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

Global Push for Hydrogen Sidesteps Knowledge Gaps on Climate Impacts

August 11, 2022
298
Protect The Planet

Trans Mountain Work Site Blocks Early Salmon Run on Coquihalla River, Local Observers Say

August 11, 2022
382
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
1.6k
Joseph Brent/Flickr

Green Hydrogen Will Cost Less than Fossil-Fuelled ‘Blue’, Shell CEO Admits

August 7, 2022
756
Early stages of construction on the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor in France

Failing French Nuclear Plants Drive Up Electricity Costs as Heat Waves Cut Production

August 8, 2022
530

Recent Posts

Focus Blame for Climate Change on Fossils and Governments, Ecoanalytics Advises

August 11, 2022
125
TheKurgan/Wikipedia

Ontario Pension Giant May Be Getting the Memo on Fossil Divestment, Members Say

August 11, 2022
101
@stan_sdcollins/Twitter

Stranded Communities Hope for Emergency Food Supplies as Newfoundland Wildfires Rage

August 11, 2022
52
Maurizio Pesce/Wikimedia Commons

Tesla Lobbying Points to Ontario as Possible EV Manufacturing Site

August 11, 2022
41
MENA/Flickr

Ontario Gains from U.S. EV Tax Credit, But Plans No Incentives for Local Drivers

August 11, 2022
39
Twitter

Shelling of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Plant Raises Fears for Nuclear Safety

August 11, 2022
36
Next Post
Plug'n Drive/Wikimedia Commons

Advocacy Targets EV Supply Chains, Clean Fuel Standard as New Government Takes Shape

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}