They call it pollution... we call it LIFE!

That's the punchline of two utterly fucking stupid ads from the bullshit-sounding "Competitive Enterprise Institute" designed for American TV. "It" here is Carbon Dioxide, or CO₂ for short. It's good for you because you breathe it out, but it's even better for trees! Ad #1 tries to argue that CO₂ gives us energy, because otherwise we'd all be living in poverty. Ad #2 tries to contrast Time Magazine (the glaciers are melting!) against some scientific articles (no, they're not!).

They're crap, and not just because they're trying to interest the uninterested in journalism versus peer review. Both ads are narrated at great, unenthusiastic length for a minute by the same woman, who probably would be using the same voice for life insurance, or possibly an personal accountant. If only they'd learnt from my personal benchmark in the field: the classic Toyota "Bugger" ad of Australia. Only one word in the dialogue, repeated a few times: "Bugger". Now that was effective advertising - it never got stale to watch. If only CEI had learnt from this, but I'm glad they didn't.

But are the ads effective? I doubt it. They're not going to convince anyone with firm conviction about "global warming" - for or against. As for the unaligned middle, I doubt the advertisement will stop them taking a quick pottie break when it's on the tellie. It's unclear what the ad is trying to sell except no change in purchasing behavior. (That's pretty unique, when you think about it.) People will continue to drive cars because they want to, until the price of petrol becomes $2 AUD a litre. Or $3. Or another category 5 hurricane from the Gulf of Mexico wreaks destruction on their suburb. And then they're fucked.

Nor are the ads bad enough to be satirised. Now if they had used that basso profundo voice they use for movie advertising for the voiceover (you know, the guy who reads lines like "In a world where darkness reigns..." while you are waiting for the main feature) then the ads would be worthy of parody. But they're not even that wretched.

The kicker is that the assumption of the first ad (pollution versus poverty) is negated by the experience of the "Third World". Here, pollution and poverty often go hand in hand, such as in this country. Vietnamese people aren't stupid. They know pollution is bad for you: foul smells, coughing lungs, dirty eyes, runny nose, and oily, acne-prone skin. Not only that, but they are quite aware of where these symptoms come from: factories and vehicles - both large sources of CO₂. It would have been instructive for the CEI to use a small sample of locals as a "test audience" for the ad. Very polite people, but they have a way of cutting through the bullshit. They would not have been impressed with the ads, not at all.

Link source found courtesy of Peak Energy.