Forty-two years ago, on this day, October 14th, 1980, scientist Barry Commoner is running for president, and a ‘shocking ad’ is released.
“It’s all bullshit!”
“What?!”
“Carter- Reagan-Anderson, it’s all bullshit.”
See also https://time.com/4584919/barry-commoner-shocking-ad/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 339ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Barry Commoner had been banging on about the threats to the environment for a looong time. His first book, Science and Survival, had come out in 1966 and was a crucial node for awareness of climate change. And he finally decided to run for President to highlight the issues. Of course, that was the election that one of the Koch brothers also stood on a so-called “libertarian” platform.
Anyway, Commoner’s campaign was not getting a lot of attention, of course. His campaign manager had the bright idea to put out an advert saying that voters should pay attention to Commoner if they were sick of bullshit. And this was back in the days when swearing was newsworthy. And it got Commoner a certain amount of attention though, by all accounts Commoner was not happy since it kind of cut across his preferred reputation as a serious and non joke/ attention-seeking candidate.
What we learn is that if you want to get attention, you have to do something newsworthy. Because the media are bored of it reporting actual issues. Because they know that the voters want a circus instead. The voters want a circus because what they can choose doesn’t really matter anyway, so they may as well be entertained. And also, some of the voters are really fucking thick. But that’s not really their fault. Education System, schooling system and society are all designed to make people thick, because thick people are easy to manipulate. The last thing you want is an intelligent electorate. What a freaking nightmare that would be.
What happened next Commoner lost, obviously. Reagan got up. Gaia help us all.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
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Also on this day:
October 14, 1974 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor is warned about carbon dioxide build-up.
October 14, 1977 – a UNESCO education conference mentions climate change…