Rebranding Global Climate Change - The New Yorker
Rebranding Global Climate Change | The New Yorker
This approach activates large swaths of the population that can’t define “woke,” but will stop at nothing to completely dismantle anything the word has been affiliated with.
Barbenheimer saved Hollywood—why stop there? Capture spillover support for the cultural phenomenon that was the blockbuster films “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” by creating an event where people watch a fun movie in the morning, a bleak one in the afternoon, and then tackle an existential crisis in the evening.
Sometimes people don’t need to read or understand something to instinctively know they hate it. Invoke Ayn Rand’s ode to libertarianism to start influencing perceptions and shaping decisions about the scourge that is climate change.
Unify people from all across the political spectrum with an extra charge that you know shouldn’t exist and will only get worse if you let it go unchecked. It can still be stopped, but only if you band together and fight the corporate toadies to end it now.
Shoehorn Barack Obama’s name into any clumsy portmanteau to create a bridge to new audiences whose hatred of the former President will inspire vicious word-of-mouth, grassroots movements. Make it seem like Obama is responsible for the entire Anthropocene epoch (rebranded to “Anthropobama days”) and let the outraged vocal minority make it their life’s purpose to crush global warming for good.
For the ultimate call to action, release an anodyne statement that falls short of overwhelming praise for Taylor Swift and attribute it to the forces behind climate change. Then sit back and watch the Swifties unleash their fury and tear to shreds the Gordian knot that was once catastrophic global warming.
Appealing to audiences and critics alike on a streaming platform is a surefire way to get anything cancelled after one, maybe two seasons tops. Not only will it be stopped but any record of its existence will also be wiped clean!
Destroying years of brand recognition with a new name that, at best, means nothing and, at worst, sounds like a mildly pornographic furnace may seem idiotic, but there is a powerful silver lining—it will inspire instant, irrational hatred and a desire to demolish it. ♦
Related Knowledge Center: Air emissions
More than 30 years after the last major update of the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Supreme Court has upended the ability of Congress to give the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies broad scope to combat air pollution, including the emission of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, further Biden administration efforts to limit emissions face opposition in the courts.