Send to a Friend

mattbrowne's avatar

What are the most common positions taken by climate change deniers and can you help invent powerful metaphors to counter these position?

Asked by mattbrowne (31732points) February 1st, 2013

I’m trying to reach people who sit on the fence. The fossil fuel industry has hired excellent marketing professionals who are aware of the full spectrum of human emotions. Therefore people who are concerned about the climate have to create good marketing strategies as well. Communicating numbers like ‘the 2012 average annual concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 394 ppm’ is not enough. For this reason I want to invent one powerful metaphor for each of the most common positions taken by climate change deniers. Here’s what I came up with so far:

1) Denying man-made climate change is like denying that cigarettes are addictive.

2) Denying global warming is like denying an increasing population of the United States.

3) Denying that CO2 and CH4 are greenhouse gases is like claiming that the planet Venus is made of green cheese.

4) Telling people that CO2 is fertilizer for plants is like telling people to eat more vitamin D pills.

5) Telling people that the use of fossil fuels is cheaper than green technology is like telling people that cars without seat belts are cheaper.

6) Linking a shift to green techologies to the end of modern civilization is like linking a shift to smaller computers to the end of information technology.

7) Blaming global warming on solar activity alone is like blaming car accidents on weather conditions alone.

8) Pointing to colder winters as a sign that global warming isn’t real is like pointing to the occasional smiles of a raped woman as a sign that she was never raped.

What is denial position number 9, 10, and so forth?

What would be good metaphors (easy to memorize) using this format?

Using Fluther

or

Using Email

Separate multiple emails with commas.
We’ll only use these emails for this message.