In an age of climate change, should we ban automobile advertising?

2 Comments Posted by on August 5, 2017

I have a question for you. We banned cigarette advertisement when we found out the cigarette smoking causes cancer. The decision was based on objective scientific research, not the studies provided by cigarette companies.

We did not make cigarettes illegal, but we made it hard to promote them through advertising.

celebrity-smoking-ad_barbara-stanwyck-lm

Now we know that climate change is a threat to human survival with confirmation through extensive research. The signs are already out there for you to see. Do you think we should ban the sexy promotions of driving in automobiles around the world found on television and in newspapers?

si-lexus

Jeep-Call-of-Duty-Ad-11-7-11

 

 

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2 responses to “In an age of climate change, should we ban automobile advertising?”

  1. Craig August 5, 2017 at 5:35 pm

    Smoking advertising wasn’t banned because smoking had side effects; the side effects were most of the effect. If used as directed, tobacco is a poison.

    Cars aren’t a direct poison. They have side effects, but cars aren’t the source of most of the greenhouse gases in the world. Industry is. Almost all fossil fuels are produced through power generation and factories; China alone builds so many coal-burning power plants a year it’s a global catastrophe.

    Car technology is also improving.

    We need to go after the heart of the problem. Also, we’ve been saying to China and India etc. that they can go through the same process the West went through, but condensed, without restrictions. In all of the treaties, China is given a pass. In the attempt to become rich, China’s numbers are turning that country into the moon, and the government is encouraging it – even jailing those who attempt to oppose it. Yet China is given a complete pass, while countries like Denmark are penalized for having people in cars, which isn’t even a tiny fraction of the problem.

    If we’re going to get into an authoritarian future in which we brutalize and dictate to people what they do, we could have avoided small places like Denmark altogether and just gone whole hog after China. Using this approach, we could ban China from using cars, and should have forcefully barred China from building even one more megawatt worth of fossil fuel power generation.

    Banning car advertisement may make us feel good, but it will have no effect whatsoever other than making us feel better bout ourselves, which is what I suspect the original goal is.

    Reply
  2. Emanuel Pastreich August 6, 2017 at 1:39 am

    This suggestion that China is given a pass is so removed from reality that I am not sure how to respond. China is a major source of pollution and Chinese at all levels are responsible, but was American investment banks, oil companies and other hidden players who were lobbying behind the scenes at Kyoto, Rio, Paris and elsewhere to weaken all global agreements on climate change–it was not the Chinese. Moreover, the US and other “advanced” countries have solved their pollution problems related to manufacturing by moving their factories to China. The China problem is in fact an American problem and American companies are deeply involved in the process of working within China to weaken regulations on pollution and weaken the rights of workers. That grotesque story had been documented.

    Reply

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