Global warming: Are Britain's TV ads too scary for children?

In the United States, advertisements by the Ad Council and the Environmental Defense Fund featured a man standing with his back turned to an oncoming train. He says the consequences of global warming won’t affect him, and at the last moment steps off the tracks to reveal that a small girl is now in the path of the train.

More recently however, there has been criticism of what some perceived to be an overly depressing message in films such “The Age of Stupid,” a docudrama about a ruined Earth of the future.

George Marshall of the Climate Outreach Information Network (COIN), a British charity working to raise climate-change awareness, says that people change their behavior on the basis of what those around them are doing. COIN, for example, is helping trade union members to give workplace presentations and talks about climate change.

To help viewers feel that they can do something positive, the environmental activists behind “The Age of Stupid” film threw their weight behind a British campaign known as the 10:10 initiative, aimed at cutting carbon emissions by 10 percent in 2010.

Others are also not short on ideas for how to connect with the public without scaring them. David Turnbull, the Washington, D.C.,-based director of Climate Action Network International, an umbrella for hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, says a need remains both for campaigns that can startle and those that have more positive messages.

“It’s important to convey, for example, the benefits of stimulating a greener economy. At the same time, with the increased speed of global warming, it’s important to show that there is a serious urgency.”

Mick Hulme, founder of Britain’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, suggests that connecting with people’s personal experiences can ultimately be much more productive than “dressing climate change up as an impending catastrophe for the planet.”

“If, for example, you talk about flooding in their locality, or air quality, that can be much more effective,” Professor Hulme says. “You have to start off with things that are local, tangible, and near term in order to really engage with people.”

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