Misbranding By Progressives Leave Them Vulnerable

As I sweated through temperatures that approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), I kept thinking about the debates over "Global Warming". Following the last winter when the east coast of the US got more snow than usual, the percentage of people believing that environmental change was man-made dropped by some 20 percentage points. I'm sure that after an early and very hot start to the summer, those numbers are changing again.

The term should have been "Climate Change", or "Man Made Climate Change", not "Global Warming". While the considerable snow this past winter was likely due to warming temperatures in the atmosphere, that is way too difficult a concept for many people. Warm is warm and cold is cold. The right wing used some errant e-mails from scientists to claim that all of the hoopla over "Global Warming" was trumped up, biased science. They actually claimed a conspiracy, imagining that most of the world's scientists would or could actually create a conspiracy. Anyone who has ever worked in academia or in a science-based company knows that it is difficult to get even a few scientists to agree to anything, let along create a conspiracy

It was the terminology, or branding of the problem that was wrong. People need to understand that the climate is changing and much of it is due to decisions we humans make or do not make.

Misbranding also can be found in the debate over abortion. Women's rights groups chose the slogan "Pro Choice", while the anti-abortion movement selected "Pro Life". Imagine two product--pro-life versus pro-choice. Which one would engender more emotional appeal? Clearly, pro-life is more emotional. How many people would claim to be anti-life, but that is what the brand "Pro-Life" suggests about those who appose them. On the other hand, the opposite of "Pro-Choice" is "anti-choice". This is hardly as problematic for people to accept. The bumper stickers that declare "it's a child, not a choice", become the nature advertising campaign, but it further obfuscates the real and honest differences amongst people about when life begins and the rights of women to choose for themselves.

We need healthy, open discussion and debate about such serious issues as climate change and abortion, but the branding puts everyone on the defensive. It would be wonderful if we could get all the branding and advertising hype out of these serious issues so that we can really discuss them as grown-ups.