Columnists
The MEOW response
You may be a climate change skeptic, but you had to admire the gutsiness of our political leaders when they met to address climate change issues shortly after the Paris accords and agreed that they were going to have to agree upon something, sometime soon, and that it would require money.
That was an auspicious beginning to a campaign that could eventually require a MEOW response. MEOW is short for the Moral Equivalent of War. The phrase was originally used by the psychologist and philosopher William James in the early years of the last century. James addressed how a government might rally the public behind an objective that is not participation in a war, but something equally threatening to the social order, although less obviously so.
If you think this phrase rings a bell, you’re right. Former US president Jimmy Carter invoked it in 1977 during an attempt to reduce American dependence on foreign oil, primarilly through conservation. Carter was so successful with this pitch that he quickly became a laughing stock and served only one term—although I suspect that history will be kinder to him than his contemporaries have been.
So any attempt here in Canada to invoke a MEOW response for climate change faces an uphill slog. Not to worry, though. The government of Ontario accepts the gravity of the challenge. Its major play is to introduce a carbon tax by way of a ‘cap and trade’ system. And convincing Ontario residents to pay more for fossil fuels (about 4.3 cents per litre for gas, for instance) “may be the most daunting communications and marketing challenge” the provincial government has ever faced, according to the Toronto Star. Polling suggests people are skeptical the tax revenue won’t ‘leak’ into activities that do not serve to foster the green objective.
Not to worry, though. The government of Ontario has put Glen Murray on the file, as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. He has looked at the results from similar campaigns. “The energy ministry in the UK ran [an advertisement] that scared the hell out of people,” he told The Star; “so a lot of people have been rolling it back.” He went on to say “I can’t give the details [of the forthcoming Ontario campaign], but it’s very impactful.”
“Rolling it back.” What on earth does that mean? Rolling what back? To where? And “impactful.” Did he obtain the permission of the grammar police to use that word? I just about fell off my chair when I first saw it used about three years ago, in connection with a tribute dinner, the honoree of which was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair—one of the most ‘impactful’ leaders in recent years; a conclusion, giving the word itself a free pass for the moment, I would agree with but would not necessary honour him for. I had hoped that it was a freakish never-tobe- repeated mistake made by some over-eager event planner. But apparently not. And speaking of British Prime Ministers, would Winston Churchill, on assuming the office at the beginning of the Second World War, have dared try to inspire the British people by saying that all he could promise was something “impactful”?
One would expect that the Ontario advertisement would have an impact—otherwise it would be a complete waste of money. One would also expect the ad would persuade people to change their behaviour in a way the advertiser has in mind. So to require the ad merely to be “impactful” seems to be setting the bar pretty low.
While you prepare to toss me aside as a grammar fussbudget, let me move on to something in the article that bugs me even more. It’s the reference to convincing Ontarians to pay more for carbon as a “marketing and communications challenge.” I grant you that it is, in part. But it’s much more. Political leaders have to continually earn—and can quickly squander—the moral authority to govern us. Heavyhanded legislation such as the Green Energy Act (the choice of name a brilliant marketing and communications stroke) not only engenders hostility for the stacked deck it creates in favour of renewable energy projects, it also erodes the crediblity of a government that may someday, and soon, require a MEOW response. Just like the boy who cried wolf too often, when governments routinely overplay their hand, they risk cynicism and disbelief trying to persuade the public that a real crisis has arisen.
To put it in terms that Mr. Murray would appreciate, for every Green Energy Act you enact, you make your MEOW of fossil fuel taxation that much less “impactful.” Actually, I’ll agree to pay the tax without complaint if he promises to “roll back” that word.
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