Al Gore's got some big bucks

Thoughts on the newly announced 'we' campaign

Posted by Jon Rynn (Guest Contributor) at 9:03 AM on 01 Apr 2008

So Al Gore announced a $300 million 3-year effort "aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."

My question is, wouldn't it be better to spend that money on building grassroots organizations pushing for climate change legislation instead of spending it mostly, I presume, on advertising? If $100 million was spent each year on grassroots organizations in 30 major cities, that would work out to $3 million per each major metropolitan area, enough for a decent-sized effort to organize citizens to push their legislators.

Or how about setting up some think tanks and media outlets, as the conservative movement did? Or is raising money for ads much easier than raising money for grassroots organizing? Color me confused.

For story: Al Gore's got some big bucks
14 Comments | Post a Comment

it depends

Depends who's donating the money, but most foundations would rather fund actual change, grassroots groups with specific plans and measurable impact.

But Gore's probably raised a lot from individuals, folks who liked the media message of his movie and which might like to see their money go into more media, like an ad campaign.

As far as impact goes, you'd have to be for the funding of grassroots groups.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

by Erik Hoffner at 9:58 AM on 01 Apr 2008

Yeah, I figure "anonymous donors"

probably means something like "billionaires who don't want to be named", or someone near that number. I would imagine that a pitch by Gore about the world-changing possibilities of an ad campaign would have greater effect than "we're going to set up dozens of environmental groups", with the implication in the donor's mind that they might impinge on said donor's lines of business. So I assume advertising is safer for that sort of thing.

That said, I think Gore shouldn't shovel all of his money into it. Advertisers don't know whether their ads work, when they work, or why they work. Also, ads have a very concrete action which they are pitching: go out and buy our product. That concreteness will be lacking from Gore's ads. But hopefully I'll be proven wrong.

by Jon Rynn at 10:08 AM on 01 Apr 2008

Suggestion box, please

I'd like to see an online 'brainstorming' suggestion box, for projects the ACP could&should fund. Moderated, to keep it from being polluted into insignificance by the "global warming stopped in 1998" types.

The ACP site's too top-down for this; could a Gristmill blogger do this please?

by Anna Haynes at 11:08 AM on 01 Apr 2008

think tanks

I agree 100% that it would be worthwhile to establish some sort of intellectual clearinghouse. I've long thought one big advantage the right-wingers have over environmentalists, and progressives in general, is that they have a far more coherent, coordinated ideology. (Although I didn't agree with everything in the Schellenberger/Nordhaus essay some years back, this is one point I did agree on.)

Granted, the right has some advantages in seeking ideological coherence and discipline. They're more likely to have an authoritarian mindset, and of course when at core your main goal is profit and the enabling of the profit motive, ideas are more easy to organize.

Most of all, democracy itself is not well set up to answer (or even ask) questions like Why?, What for?, What do you want to accomplish? etc., if you're not going to give brute materialistic answers.

by Russ at 12:05 PM on 01 Apr 2008

Nature's Technology

The bad news is that no matter what we do now, climate change has started and there will be impacts. Gore's efforts are crucial to inspire action that will prevent those impacts from being catastrophic.
However, weaning industrialized economies off fossil fuels will take decades. We need a holistic approach, starting now, to hold down greenhouse gas emissions and help species and people adapt to climate change.
An immediate and cost-effective first step is to protect vital ecosystems such as tropical forests, which store carbon dioxide while providing clean air, fresh water, food, medicines and other natural resources essential to species and people.
Burning and clearing tropical forests emits more greenhouse gases than all the world's cars, trucks and airplanes combined. If we stop or seriously reduce deforestation now, we will reduce harmful emissions and conserve ecosystems depended on by some of the most vulnerable people.
Currently, less than 1 percent of all carbon market investment targets deforestation, which causes more than 20 percent of global carbon emissions. Gore's campaign is great, but we also need to balance investments in proportion to the source of the problem.
It will take man-made technology to find alternative energy solutions, and nature's technology to restore balance in our environment.

by tcohen at 12:49 PM on 01 Apr 2008

Great point, tcohen,

...some of that $300 million could go to buying rainforests, or to follow the logic of Rainforest Action Network, help indigenous peoples gain control of their forests.

This leads to the greater issue, what should be the goal to which the viewers of all of these ads should be directed? This, I'm sure, is where the difficulties lie. If you're going to have ads with Newt Gingrich and Pat Robertson, you're not going to be able to get "outside the box", much less talk about rainforests, high-speed trains, financing of solar/wind on buildings, or the many other innovative ideas floating out there. You're going to have to go to the very lowest common denominator -- apparently they are talking about a moratorium on coal plants, which apparently can gain some Republican support.

I think I'd have to say that the only people who should contribute to this fund are people who are normally turned off to environmental causes -- in other words, this effort should not siphon off funds from any other current ones.

by Jon Rynn at 12:55 PM on 01 Apr 2008

Same song same verse a little bit louder and . . .

This same ad campaign approach, albeit with less money, was tried in 2000 (if memory serves) by the National Environmental Trust spending around $10M mostly in Ted Turner money. Al Gore's current aide, Kalee Kreider, was the head of that campaign. The message was essentially, "global warming is real and you should be worried about it." The problem was that pre-polls showed that a very high percentage of the pop already believed this statement (~80%?). The campaign failed to produce any significant change in poll numbers because that would have meant moving the GW deniers, and a 30 second ad isn't going to do that. The campaign didn't ask for specific action because of tax implications (gotta keep those tax deductions) but it did mine some contact list data. Lots of justifications afterwards that rang a bit hollow.

Now the question becomes, did Kalee & Co. learn anything from this effort, really, or is this flinging more money at a fundamentally flawed approach? That remains to be seen. It appears that the core WE message is that "we can do something about GW." They want to motivate people to take action. If, as appears from their website, they merely flog the same actions for the same reasons as have been flogged for years (same song, higher volume), take names, and then attempt to remotely mobilize large numbers of people, they will likely piss away this money. Volume by itself has a limited impact on minds. Remote mobilization, even with a more personalized "social networking" approach, doesn't itself produce hard action the way in-person grassroots organizing does, because few people take more powerful action absent face-to-face relationships and social commitment. Reliance on social networking may create mostly a lot of chatter with little hard personal commitment. Do we need larger numbers of people to have sympathetic feelings or a smaller number of more committed activists?

Finally, the WE campaign faces the daunting task of convincing people that action by those in the US (assuming the campaign is US centric) can change the course of GLOBAL warming. If additionally the campaign pushes supply-side solutions (keeping trees in forests and fossil fuels in the ground) they might be able to reframe the question in ways that might appeal to a different element of the un-motivated masses. But, it doesn't appear that they've fundamentally rethought how to appeal to the self-interests of most people.

If the big secret that is going to propel them to success is that Al Gore is going to run for President, they're doomed, especially if the economy crashes and their jolly march begins just before the onset of winter. But don't worry, in the DC nonprofit world relationships are more important than success or failure. Good luck!

by HiTension at 4:20 PM on 01 Apr 2008

Point of the ads..

...is to help inspire people to raise money for thr grassroots to begin with (amongst other things).

Sure one guy can donate several hundred million...but wouldn't it be better if he convinced several hundred million people to join up instead?

by Tasermons Partner at 4:48 PM on 01 Apr 2008

Better idea than making people concerned

Is helping them understand what they can do to assuage that concern. Here's a thought:

The 5% Project

by JMG at 4:52 PM on 01 Apr 2008

So give JMG the $100 million!

by Jon Rynn at 5:47 PM on 01 Apr 2008

So what kind of ad would you run?

How about this: a few seconds at the beginning about global warming, then a standard slogan about green jobs and a green collar economy, with the remaining 20 to 50 seconds (depending on 30 or 60 second commercial):
rotate among different elements of solutions, between 1) high-speed rail/light rail 2) solar panels all over every building 3) geothermal heat pumps/solar heating/retrofitting 4) wind farms, local and centralized (these last three ending with shutting down all coal plants) 5) organic farm belts around cities 6) all-electric vehicles by 2020, 7) encouraging walkable town and city centers

then, a few seconds giving the web site of the national organization/coalition that will push for legislation for all of this.

by Jon Rynn at 6:33 PM on 01 Apr 2008

Mass media is still king

Whether we like it or not, broadcast commercial media still reaches far more eyeballs than the internet. With 50% of the public still ignorant of the threat or unaware that they can do anything to solve it, advertising is probably the most effective way to influence popular opinion.

I'm guessing that this is the first in a series designed to inspire a bottom-up push for policy changes. So far it has the traits of an effective message: a strong core, human-scale, and it taps into stories that have become cultural shorthand. Once they have built cultural recognition, the next phase should be advocacy, but first "We" must create a resonant core message that will stick in the minds of the public .

50 years ago a group of scientists effectively changed the cultural mindset about the new atomic age with a simple, resonant symbol: "seven minutes to midnight." So far science has failed to communicate effectively with respect to global warming because the scientific community has been unable to create just this kind of resonant core message. Hopefully the We campaign can succeed in creating that message.

by Robco1 at 9:09 AM on 08 Apr 2008

Not sure where the ads are running...

...it would probably be better to run them where the "eyeballs" have had less exposure -- saw the ad running on American Idol, which I would think is a good choice. On the other hand, I hope that they planned these ads a while back, if they do them on the spur of the moment, it's much more expensive. Here's to second guessing!

by Jon Rynn at 11:33 AM on 08 Apr 2008

clean energy solution

Good day,

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This engine uses nickel batteries, which are stronger than super magnets AND ferra magnets. The nickel magnets can run for over 400 YEARS. If after that they lose power, you can melt them down and recharge them to go another 400+ years. There is zero waste
produced by using these magnets.

It can be used in an application as small as a cell phone (imagine NEVER having to re-charge your cell phone, and not having to dispose of the spent batteries), to something as large as a commercial airline jet without the need of any jet fuel...at all.

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All we need is for news agencies/environmental organizations help to get the word out about this motor. If there is any way you can help directly or in-directly please let me know. We need this to get to the main-stream media ASAP. The motor is going through the last few tweaks, but is currently a working motor, then Georgia Tech University will be conducting the actual testing of the energy input/output. Off the record, they have told the inventor this motor design could win him a Nobel Prize.

Thank you in advance for any help, insight, or interest in this invention. Soon we can be off oil and electricity (in most cases) for good. To see more, you can go to the Wilt motor website at www.wiltscleanenergy.com. It's a bare bones site for now, but we plan on adding more videos, etc. to it soon. If you would like to view the engine, we have uploaded 2 videos of the motor (including an interview with Mr. Wilt) available on youtube.com. Simply type in the search field, Wilts magenetic motor and view the 2 videos. We'll have more footage added soon.

Sincerely,
Timothy J. Cavanaugh
941-915-4560 (H & O) 24/7

by TCavanaugh at 1:22 PM on 17 Apr 2008

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