The Benshi

The climate movement is a communications train wreck.  It’s been 7 years since Pat Michaels made fun of the, “We’ve only got 10 years left” line from climate worriers in my movie “Sizzle.”  Now the head of the UN comes out with “We’ve only got 30 years left.”  I’m sorry, you can’t do that sort of “making it up as we go along” nonsense and expect the public to trust you.

“WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING IN TEN YEARS — THEY’VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR TWO YEARS — WHY DON’T THEY AT LEAST SUBTRACT TWO AND MAKE IT EIGHT?”  This is the kind of clever critique that makes you want to be a climate skeptic (not really). 

I am forever quoting Daniel Kahneman’s line about how the public needs a voice that is “trusted and liked,” otherwise all your evidence is worthless.  Here’s a case study in “not building trust.”

About the best zinger in my movie 2008 movie, “Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy,” was climate skeptic Pat Michaels making fun of the ten year thing in the clip above.

Now the head of the U.N. offers up his own 30 year urgency deadline.  To which I’m sure nobody cares because there just isn’t any sort of careful strategic messaging associated with the climate movement.  It’s just endless “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks.”

The problem is, we have to do something about this in ten years.  We only have ten years to act on climate communication.