On this day in 1997, the cuddly-sounding but actually simply evil “Global Climate Coalition” ran the following newspaper advert, as part of the huge, well-funded and well-coordinated campaign to … (checks notes)… render human civilisation quite unlikely in the second half of the 21st century.
Image via the fantastic “Inside Climate News” site.
Exactly 12 years later, on June 19, 2009 there was a “Mothers Day of Action” in the US, as part of a push for a climate and energy act.
“On Friday, June 19th, 1Sky and groups like MoveOn, Green for All, Oxfam and others are calling for a national day of action to make the climate bill stronger. It’s a day for you to “get visible” in your community. Please invite your family, friends and neighbors to rally at your representative’s district office and make your voice heard loud and clear.
Sign up now for this national day of action: http://www.1sky.org/getlouder
Your voice lets your representative know that there are concerned citizens — like you — who want a stronger bill to create millions of clean energy jobs and begin to tackle climate change. So now it’s time to get louder!…..
Why June 19th? Right now, several committees are working on this bill, and we expect a House floor vote by the end of June. This is the critical moment we’ve been working for in the House, so it’s time to make ourselves visible!
Why this matters.
We need to remember that the language of motherhood has been used a lot (I think it is a two-edged sword, tbh) – that this did not suddenly emerge in about 2018. Corporations and threatened industries can cloak themselves with the mantle of the underdog, of innocence, and go all DARVO too…
What happened next?
GCC shut up shop in 2002, “mission accomplished”.
MAU shut up shop in 2011 – mission not really accomplished. So it goes.
One reply on “June 19, 1997/2009 – children of colour used as propaganda tools by #climate wreckers/greens do “motherhood””
Won’t someone think of this children.
I really like the way this post links the two campaigns that are apparently for opposite things, which lets us see the similarities that must link them.
This narrative is a symptom of a failure to build international solidarity, or even strong solidarity within the boundaries of imagined societies typically defined by race, nation, empire.
The appeal to children really means your children or your future children or the children you most care about or even the child that you are, so it’s a minimal form of solidarity that calls on a form of self interest.
It’s right wing and socially conservative when you think about it.
The discourse is nevertheless powerful because of its connection to human familial structures which are profoundly important to basically everyone. It’s emotive whether you like it or not. The discourse probably won’t go away. It speaks directly to anxiety.