Climate change ‘exaggerated’ in government adverts
17/3/2010 BBC Two government press adverts which used nursery rhymes to raise awareness of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).It said the advertisements went beyond mainstream scientific consensus in
asserting that climate change would cause flooding and drought.
A total of 939 people complained to the ASA about the “Act on CO2″ campaign.
But three other advertisements, including a TV commercial, were cleared by the
advertising watchdog.
The ASA ruled that the banned adverts, created on behalf of the Department of
Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to promote its carbon reduction initiative,
made exaggerated claims about the threat posed to the UK by global warming.
Two posters juxtaposed adapted extracts from popular nursery rhymes with text
that warned about the dangers of global warning.
One of the banned adverts read: “Rub a dub, three men in a tub, a necessary
course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change.”
And a second said Jack and Jill could not fetch a pail of water because extreme
weather due to climate change had caused a drought.
The ASA upheld complaints against these two advertisements, saying a claim that
“extreme weather events would become more frequent and intense” should have been
phrased more tentatively.
It noted that predictions about the potential impact of global warming made by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “involved uncertainties”
that had not been reflected in the adverts.
The advertising watchdog said the text accompanying the rhymes should have used
more tentative language in both instances.
Future campaigns
However, the watchdog cleared complaints against a TV commercial, showing a
young girl being read a nightmarish bedtime story by her father about a world
blighted by climate change.
Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the ASA had “comprehensively
vindicated the accuracy of the TV advert” made for the DECC and “rebuffed those
who attempted to use the advertising standards process to question the reality
of man-made climate change”.
And, where the banned adverts were concerned, he said: “The science tells us
that it is more than 90% likely that there will be more extreme weather events
if we don’t act.
“In any future campaign, as requested by the ASA, we will make clear the nature
of this prediction.”
Mr Miliband said the government would “continue to provide public information
about the dangers of climate change”.
Go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/8571353.stm