UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres just called for all member nations to ban all advertising by suppliers of fossil fuels, likening their products and their advertising to tobacco and the well-publicized deceptive practices of many in the tobacco industry to deceive smokers and society.
The Secretary General's call is wrong, implementing it would be harmful to the very people that he claims he wants to protect, and the fossil fuel situation is not at all the same as tobacco.
Like it or not, the vast majority of the world's population is going to be dependent on fossil fuels for transportation, food production, shelter, heat, light and water for most of the next five decades. Yes. We all hope to see alternative energy taking over a lot of those needs, but that is going to take time.
Enabling consumers and voters to make smart and informed choices in energy consumption, government policies on energy and the differences between those choices is critical. Journalism, media and advertising are critical forces in informing consumers and cutting off their primary information channels is poorly thought out and smacks of sensationalism.
As then U.S. President Calvin Coolidge told the American Association of Advertising Agencies (today's 4A's) in Washington, D.C. in 1926, "Advertising creates and changes this foundation of all popular action, public sentiment, or public opinion. It is the most potent influence in adopting and changing the habits and modes of life, affecting what we eat, what we wear, and the work and play of the whole Nation. Formerly it was an axiom that competition was the life of trade. Under the methods of the present day, it would seem to be more appropriate to say that advertising is the life of trade."
Those words are at least as relevant today as they were when he spoke to them almost 100 years ago. We don't want people to have less information on one of the most critical issues in the world today. We want them to have more information, and we depend on healthy news and information companies to get that information to people wherever they are.
Rather than removing information about fossil fuels -- and the critical differences between different fossil fuels -- from the world's information space, we should endeavor to better inform consumers on how they can make better decisions in which fossil fuels they consume today and policies and practices for a speedy transition to a self-sustaining energy future that doesn't alter our climate and make the world less livable.
Further, painting fossil fuels companies as the modern day tobacco industry is wrong. The role that fossil fuels and tobacco play in humanity have little in common, other than the fact that they are both combustibles. Fossil fuels provide the world's billions with the energy that they need to sustain life for themselves and their families. Tobacco is a dangerous and addictive drug with virtually no positive values.
Yes, without question, we need to transition the world from its dependence on fossil fuels. That transition will be a long, painful and expensive process. It will not be solved, or well served, but grandstanding tactics like the Secretary General's here. The people of the world deserve better.
Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.
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