Posted by
Rogue Historian on Monday, August 14, 2006 2:17:24 AM
What bothers me most about the work of the adcouncil is that they produce commercials for many government agencies, including the justice department. This gives the government's imprimatur to all adcouncil hysteria.
The EDF, for which the adcouncil produces ads, makes the following very strange claim on their website.
We are guided by scientific evaluation of environmental problems, and the solutions we advocate will be based on science, even when it leads in unfamiliar directions.
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/aboutus.cfm?linkID=8
In this ad, a well-groomed white man in his forties is standing on railroad tracks. Nature buzzes around him as he laments
“Global warming. Some say irreversible consequences are thirty years away. Thirty years. That won’t affect me.”
Then he steps lightly from the tracks, not a care in the world, revealing an adorable child, golden locks spilling over horrified features. She is frozen in the trains path!
http://www.adcouncil.org/default.aspx?id=325
The next gem is many times worse.
"Tick. Tick. Tick. Massive heat waves. (Forlorn child. Very sad.) Tick. Tick. Severe droughts. Tick Tick. Devastating Hurricanes. (Forlorn Children. Very Sad. Psychedelic visual affects. Emotions reaching hurricane speeds.) Our future is up to you. (More cute children. Then an older sister screaming.) TICK! TICK! Go to ridiculouswebsite.com while there’s still time."
And then there is the radio ad. This is an exact transcript:
"Melting polar ice was a dirty look. Shrinking glaciers, a nudge. Then dying coral reefs pushed us, hard. Rising ocean temperatures and extreme weather, an uppercut. Then record-breaking heat waves hit us, right where it hurts. Has it occurred to anyone that maybe the earth is trying to get our attention."
Apparently, "unfamiliar directions" includes animism. The EDF seems to believe that nature is human-like or, more exactly, a pugilist who doesn't want to hurt us but, darnit, we just won't listen. And what does "right where it hurts" mean. In my day, when I was the same age of the children to whom this ad is directed, it had a very specific meaning. It meant my gonads. Mother Nature fights dirty!
This is not science. But the adcouncil- comprised of a bunch of ad eggheads- made the ad to, they claim, "take a powerful, emotional approach to reach Americans with the message that global warming is an urgent problem that requires their immediate action."
So the scientists are not really responsible for the horrific, shocking insinuation that conservative American fathers don't mind throwing their children in front of an oncoming train or the horror-flick heart racing pace of devastation conveyed in "tick." That's the adcouncil's job. The PSAs are just a showcase for creative talent, after all. And what about the responsibility of our elected officials? Again, none. The government agencies who use adcouncil are not responsible for their other work. All they need to know is whether ads work (or seem to).
So the adcouncil is a private nonprofit ad agency that does work for the government- to which they invariably fix their seal- and for radical leftist organizations whose method is to cast anyone who doesn't swallow their "science" as homicidal or to terrify children using children. We better stop adcouncil before its too late!