The communication needle
About a year ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke about moving the “communication needed” not the “political needle” in respect of motivating politicians and businesses to take rapid and real steps in curbing climate change through infrastructure construction. And he decided, correctly in my opinion, that in order to move the needle and make progress there has to be lots of communication, effective communication on the topic of pollution which is the cause of climate change.
Curbing global warming is ablout moving the communication needle by Michael BroadRELATED: Young people insufficiently motivated by Greta Thunberg’s efforts to curb climate change
If leaders talk about pollution, it has an effect on the populace because it affects them directly. It causes asthma and other illnesses. When you make a direct connection between cause and personal effect people become motivated and involved.
Conversely Arnold Schwarzenegger says that if you talk about climate change it’s too vague and technical and the general population don’t know exactly what it is. Many still don’t believe that it exists including leaders such as Donald Trump.
So, you talk about pollution, environmental pollution, pollution in the air in order to make progress and he demands that the world makes rapid progress by building infrastructure connected with renewable energy. This will curb pollution from coal burning for instance. And renewables are cheaper than coal burning so there is no barrier to building renewables except inaction and red tape.
In the video below you will see him talking about what he thinks should be done to move the needle.
The Sunday Times
And today, in The Sunday Times, there’s a similar story emerging. It is perhaps the other side of the coin to what Arnold is talking about. It’s about the Labour Party in Britain selling the idea of renewable energy to curb climate change by saying that it will allow producers to create cheaper and more reliable electricity. It will be cheaper for the citizens of Britain to buy energy produced using wind farms and solar panel farms. That is the motivation.
And cheap electricity is at the heart of Labour’s energy strategy. They’re not talking about net zero which baffles pretty well everybody. They are not talking about eliminating carbon emissions.
Sir Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister, in a recent speech, when he launched Great British Energy, a publicly owned company, did not mention climate change once. Instead, he said net zero was really about energy security and not having to rely on the Middle East or Russia for oil or gas. It was about, ultimately, cheaper energy which will chime with the general population.
So, Sir Kier Starmer, is using effective communication to try and motivate the country to rapidly change energy production to renewables and in doing so progress towards net zero. This is exactly what Arnold Schwarzenegger was saying but in a different way: moving the ‘communication needle’ as he called it.
Animal-human relationship?
What has this got to do with the animal-to-human relationship? Everything as it happens and as I believe you understand. Global warming is an existential crisis. It could destroy the planet as we know it. And in doing so it would destroy wildlife and millions of animals, flora and fauna, which lives on our beautiful blue planet. And of course it will kill millions of people as well. Pollution already kills about 7 million people annually according to Arnold Schwarzenegger. And global warming is also killing wildlife as I dictate this. There needs to be a paradigms shift in how humans relate to the planet because it sustains us and if we damage the planet substantially as we are doing that which sustains us will no longer be able to do it.
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