Deflecting the Blame: How Corporations Get Us to Look the Other Way

Fossilfuel companies Auden Schendler wrote quotlike consumers and corporations to do anything and everything as long as they stay out of the companies39 way and avoid doing anything that could actually make a differencequotGetting to that point required a massive PR initiative In 2004 BP quotBeyond Petroleumquot hired Ogilvy ampamp Mather to push the idea that consumers bore the responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions from their use of oil and natural gas The campaign included a helpful carbon footprint calculator that enabled people to measure their own impact on the earth The results were exceptional from an oil executive39s point of view and now comprise official industry policy A One Earth study found that ExxonMobil for instance routinely uses language quotaimed at shifting responsibility for climate change away from itself and onto consumersquotThis tactic is stunningly effective and adopted across polluting industries quotIt39s not just that we need the fossil fuel industry to stop polluting but we need corporations to recognize how we got where we are and take appropriate actionquot Schendler said in an exclusive interview with MediaVillage He pointed out that Apple which hired the former head of the Obama EPA Lisa Jackson and quottalks enormously about climate changequot nevertheless has opposed the 35 trillion reconciliation bill a one shot at meaningful emissions reduction because it might be financed with a rise in company taxes But Apple39s public image hasn39t sufferedI39ve written extensively about Keep America Beautiful famous for its Crying Indian ads starring quotIron Eyesquot Cody quotPeople start pollution and people can stop itquot the ad saysKeep America Beautiful39s partners include CocaCola McDonald39s AnheuserBusch Dr Pepper and many more KAB wins if people see a fastfood wrapper and think quotIt39s my job to pick that upquot It loses if the thought is quotWhy isn39t the bottling industry using returnable bottles or supporting bottle billsquot Again this kind of campaign is very effective for companies that want a bad public perception to go awayBut anyone who thinks this approach is recent should think again Tom Standage39s new book A Brief History of Motion offers a fascinating glimpse into the auto industry39s thinking at the launch of the motoring eraFrom 1900 into the 1920s cars were being demonized as killers of innocent pedestrians and cartoons showed the Grim Reaper at the wheel The National Safety Council arose to combat the threat and it found fellow travelers in the local chambers of commerce the Boy Scouts schools and churches In Memphis a black flag was installed every time a child was killed on the roads quotEvery automobile accident whether serious or minor causes a sales resistancequot said a car dealer in 1922 Campaigns to get speed governors installed on cars were gaining steam What to doThe American Automobile Association yes AAA and the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce joined forces on a campaign to quoteducate pedestriansquot This explains the rise of the quotjaywalkingquot concept and convincing people to quotcross on the green and not in betweenquot At the time a quotjayquot was a clueless country bumpkin who needed to understand that automobiles ruled the roadSoon carmakers auto clubs dealers and suppliers were united in helping to fight the jaywalking scourge quotOutwardly this approach seemed to champion the safety of pedestriansquot Standage writes quotBut by arguing that people should only cross at junctions and at right angles to the traffic it promoted and reinforced the industry39s position that the streets were now primarily for the use of motor vehiclesquotPeter Norton a historian at the University of Virginia and the author of Fighting Traffic The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City agrees quotIn the early days of the automobile it was the drivers39 job to avoid you not your job to avoid themquot he said quotBut under the new model streets became a place for cars and as a pedestrian it39s your fault if you get hitquotThat was a new concept Take a look at this historical footage from San Francisco in 1905 with pedestrians crossing whenever and wherever they wanted Obviously they needed to be reeducatedThe industry39s lobbyists persuaded President Herbert Hoover to tone down his anticar rhetoric and instead in 1924 focus on making pedestrians responsible for their own safety The accident statistics were even skewed that way We39re living with the consequences of thisThere are many other examples of this The industry got consumers to accept tetraethyl lead in gasoline by calling it the friendly sounding quotethylquot Ethyl alcohol could have been used instead and would have been much more benign but any farmer could make it and the industry couldn39t get a patentThe Ethyl Corporation was formed between General Motors and Standard Oil with Vice President Frank Howard calling leaded gasamp160quota gift of GodquotInventor Thomas Midgely even smeared his hands with ethyl lead to prove it was safe His severe case of lead poisoning was less publicized It took a century to get the lead out By 2020 only one country amp8211 Algeria still sold leaded gasolineIf they didn39t work corporations wouldn39t support campaigns like these But they do work Big timeClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Deflecting the Blame: How Corporations Get Us to Look the Other Way

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Jim Motavalli

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