No, it’s not John Stewart funny fake news, it’s scary fake news – click the image above to see National Guardsmen handing out bottled water in a drought-stricken Southern California of the not-so-distant future.  It’s an ad for an upcoming National Geographic Special on global warming. Social research suggests the producers have chosen their message well. As the chart below reveals, setting this up as a looming crisis makes the whole thing more believable.

(Click the chart to download the full poll, note how the reference to future generations causes the sense of urgency to spike. That’s why it’s a word that works!) 

And by depicting the rationing and lines for water, the prodicers convey how droughts and global warming can affect them, without hosing viewers down with a lot of hard-to-parse scientific jargon. So I’m confident this fake news story will do a good job building interest in the upcoming TV special. But will the TV special move us in the direction of solutions? 

That will depend on the degree to which the producers have gotten over the antiquated notion that “awareness = action” and use their airtime to address the concerns that really hold viewers back. “I’m not sure what to do.” “I don’t think my efforts amount to anything.” “I can’t solve this problem by myself.” “I don’t see anybody else doing their part,” etc… etc… 

We can’t move people past objections like this with scare tactics. Fear is a poor remedy for ignorance and lack of confidence. We have to help them out by showing them role models doing things they can do, and demonstrating that others are doing their part. We have to encourage them that we’ll all be working together and it’s not too late to make a difference.  It’s as important to prove to people that they can save money by conserving water and energy as it is prove that global warming is real.  

Thanks to Aqua Blog Maven over at Aquafornia for the tip! Feels great to be back in the blogging saddle.

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