Animal suicide: new global warming ad
Picked up this from a US-based social media and PR class blog.
This was unsettling to watch, for a few reasons. One, it is well made, put together by a Portuguese environmental organization named Quercus. The PSA was created by McCann Erickson Portugal.
The tag line at the end of the video reads “Global Warming - If you give up, they give up.”
However, the anthropomorphism is unsettling and perhaps a problem. The manipulation of images of polar bears has already given denialists plenty of ammunition against effective action on climate change (not least Sarah Palin, of course, who sued the Federal Government in the US on its decision to list Polar Bears as under threat).
I’m not wholly comfortable with the attribution of such human decision-making to animals. Not least because animals are smarter than we’ve been - they look after their own habitats much better than we do.
The question is, what gathering of meaning does this message contribute to? If this is one singular event of a particular form of message, what message pool does it contribute to at the semiotic level? What ‘regime of truth’ does it help supplement? That if animals are sentient enough to ‘give up’, does that justify their own extinction? Did the Javan Tiger (extinct) really ‘give up’ because we gave up on its habitat or right to life?
As appreciative as I am of the efforts of this Portuguese group, the fact that an ad agency (ultimate goal and mindset is one of capital and money making; I worked in advertising, and I know that people in that industry are not in general aware of the need to be semiotically and psychologically aware of the content of their messages) came up with this advert says a lot of the type of ad that it is. Think for example of the Coca-Cola Polar Bear, and you see the same anthropomorphic intent.
In no way should any message cloud the understanding, at a conscious, semiotic or unconscious level, that animals are without choice in a world so comprehensively dominated by one species. Yes, if we give up on tackling global warming, they are doomed, but not because of any choice on their part. I’d prefer an ad that apportioned all responsibility for extinction of animals, where linked to global warming, to those actually responsible: us.
I’m not that fluent in Portugese, so I stopped watching after the polar bear scenes.
That video was made to support its one-sided conclusions, which the makers accept as fact, without evidence.
The fact is, polar bear populations are increasing:
Federal Polar Bear Research Critically Flawed
For one thing, there’s more than one “polar bear population”. Some are declining, many are increasing.
Are Polar Bear Populations Increasing?
“The early estimates of polar bear abundance are a guess. There is no data at all for the 1950-60s. Nothing but guesses. …”
More bears are killed by hunters than by “climate change”.
How do polar bears fare?
“… the number of polar bears in the Davis Strait area of Canada’s eastern Arctic – one of 19 polar bear populations worldwide – has grown to 2,100, up from 850 in the mid-1980s.
“There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a … lot more bears,…
… Dr. Taylor explained his conviction that threats to polar bears from global warming are exaggerated and that their numbers are increasing. He has studied the animals for the Nunavut government for two decades.”
I think he’d know about bears.
The film is simply silly propaganda that tries to make us feel guilty over something we have no control of, and tries to anthromorphize the animals, which is very illogical.
Animals do not “commit suicide”.
This ad is a real tearjerker, compared to what the Ad Council cranked out here in the US:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdu6AD5Y3D0
the effect of Global Warming these days is even worst. i think every government should pass stricter laws on Carbon Emissions. we should also concentrate more on renewable energy sources and avoid fossil fuels.