ecofoot and "positive messages"

[Ignoramus]

I was listening to the Laura Flanders radio show and she mentioned http://www.ecofoot.org, which has a quiz that judges how many planets would be required in terms of acreage needed to sustain a person, if everyone on earth shared your lifestyle.

This reminds me of things I've been reading and things I've been trying to articulate for myself for years.

I think the quiz is interesting and a step in the right direction, but it uses negative messages and is therefore somewhat self-defeating. Also, there seems to be a kind of defeatism implied. And, I think there is a problem with the use of specifics as part of the sound bite sized message. The use of specifics lacks "effective" credibility, because the specifics are not irrefutable on their face.


NEGATIVE/POSITIVE MESSAGES

My lifestyle would require 3.5 planets to sustain if everyone had my lifestyle, according to the web page. Nowhere do I see it mentioned what the correct answers should be in order for only 1 planet to be required.

What does it mean that this was not the focus of the quiz?

The view of the message from 10000 feet is: "some undetermined quality of your lifestyle is bad! Be afraid! Do some unspecified quantity of these things, because you are ill!"

What is the message that is prepackaged for sound biting? It was not:

"If you do this list of things the planet will be sustainable."

Which would be a certain and positive message, in other words:

"We are good people and let's keep ourselves healthy by doing this specific positive thing".

Instead the message is fear and negativity, in other words:

"We are sick people and some unspecified amount of something bad is happening! Know that you are doing something bad, worry about it and try to do something unspecified to not be quite as sick".

This mirrors the failed anti-drug message that "war on" morons use.

"If you smoke marijuana you'll jump out a window and kill yourself".

It defeats itself by playing on fear. The door is wide open for someone to find a reason not to believe the attempt to scare them, even though the people telling you the factoids presumably believe it.


SPECIFICS, ABSTRACTS AND GENERALITIES

I tried a few variations on the answers, but not all. What I came up with is that according to the quiz, only 1 planet is required if people use no electricity, have no cars, don't use airplanes, don't transport food and live in small dwellings without running water, with multiple people living in the same dwelling. Adding in a car, required 1.1 planets. Is that right?

I could go dig into their data, which I haven't done. But, people aren't going to do that.

The collective interpretation is the only thing that matters, not what I personally can go find if I go digging, or if you point me directly to it. Public opinion will be the result of what the majority does.

Because there are not specific answers emphasized, in a way that is simple and irrefutable, this ends up to just be an argument about generalities. Effectively a straight man to the predictable response from the right.

Again, this mirrors the failed war on drugs type messages.

"Don't take heroin or your brain will be smashed by someone with a skillet".

It uses specifics that beg not to be taken seriously. It ends up being an argument over something nebulous.

You can be specific in a way that is irrefutable on it's face. Dubya says, "Evil's bad, m'kay?". Of course that statement is seriously defective, but it's an example of a specific that doesn't seem to be a he said/she said specific. It's specific about an abstract.

"You can enjoy a sense of fulfillment by living with less" is another sort of specific about an abstract that seems irrefutable on it's face.


IF WE'RE ALL DOOMED, WHAT'S THE POINT?

Anything requiring more than 1 planet is not an option. So, why is there a scale, if the bottom of the scale is the only feasible option?

If this was their conclusion, how could their minds pose the quiz in this way?

It resembles hypochondria. Someone fixates on negative qualities and compulsively chases fleeting notions about something bad, without putting it into a perspective with the focus being something positive and specific.

My point is not to say people are delusional, or to belittle the issues. The point is to do what is effective.

If it's really true that something seemingly impossible to achieve is the only answer, why go down this path? Is there something other than the amount of acreage per person to consider? We don't know from this quiz, because the answer is not the focus here.

If it is true that we are doomed, then what should the strategy be? Obviously it would be some sort of survivalist endeavor, not futile effort, right? What does it indicate that this is not the focus, given the doomsday implication of the quiz?

Lack of purpose and strength. Lack of credibility.

I heard some right winger say something like "people want positive messages, not the same old negativity repeated by the liberals". I think this is actually true.

If you are preying upon people, this is easy. Guide them by making them feel good about something that promotes your agenda. Hitlerism as Dubya would say.

If you are not preying upon people, it's really hard. How do you use positive messages to encourage people to join you, when you are dealing with what you see as a state of crisis. I think that's what the anti-oblivion movement needs to focus on.

[thegreatwildebeest]

1. Eh...

I'm not sure about your comparisons to the war on drugs, or other parallels, but I do agree there needs to be more focus on the things one can do to cut down on ones ecological footprint. Even if one doesn't want to become a primitive survivalist in a cob house there are many small things you can do to your house and to your lifestyle. Buying local, organic food, replacing regular lightbulbs with CFL's, using a bike or mass transit for local errands. If you have the space, plant an organic garden to cut into the amount of food you have to buy from agriprocessors. If you don't, look into the possibility of a local community supported farm. If a community garden exists in your area, help out. Alot of basic things around you can reduce your ecological footprint immeasurably.

[Ignoramus]

2. If you fell out of an airplane...

would it be important to spread your arms and legs out in order to slow your descent? Either way you die when you hit the ground. (the parallel with environmentalism is the question: is it important to take measures that would not prevent an ultimate bad result from occurring, and thus be insignificant toward that goal)

Asking people to change their behavior, without showing them how it is useful to do so is not likely to be successful.

If each of us are not interested in getting people to change their behavior with us, I think it is unlikely that the small number of people with the luxury to think about these things will be able to make a significant difference.

So, I think it is important to convince people that it is in their interest to change.

Another instance of people trying to convince other people to change their behavior is "the war on drugs". It appears to be the case that it is unconvincing to simply give people long lists of bad results to expect if they use drugs. People continue to use drugs anyway (see the parallel: drug abuse/natural resource abuse). People don't appear to be successfully "scared straight" as a rule.

I offer my opinion that a positive approach might be more successful, in the original message.