Pro-Coal Ad Campaign Disputes Warming Idea - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/08/business/pro-coal-ad-campaign-d...

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Pro-Coal Ad Campaign Disputes Warming Idea

By MATTHEW L. WALD
MOST EMAILED RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
Published: July 8, 1991

Coal-burning utility companies and coal producers, disturbed by FACEBOOK 1. Parents Killed After Warning Daughter
About Boyfriend’s Racist Views, Family
public acceptance of the idea that burning fossil fuels will change the TWITTER Says
climate, are deciding whether to go national this fall with an ad GOOGLE+ 2. Fiat Chrysler to Recall 1.8 Million Ram
campaign they tried in three markets earlier this year. Trucks Over Rollaways
EMAIL

The advertising effort was tried out in Flagstaff, Ariz.; Fargo, N.D., SHARE
3. Salmon Fit for a Czar
and Bowling Green, Ky. The campaign produced nearly 2,000
PRINT
requests to a toll-free telephone line for more information, said Gale
REPRINTS
Klappa, a vice president of the Southern Company, a coal-using 4. Jessica Chastain Takes Aim at ‘Sad’ All-
utility based in Atlanta. White Cover

The goal of the campaign, according to one planning document, is to "reposition global 5. PAUL KRUGMAN
warming as theory" and not fact. America Is Not Yet Lost

In Bowling Green, an ad showed a cartoon horse in earmuffs and scarf and said, "If the 6. Eric Garner’s 27-Year-Old Daughter Is in a
Earth is getting warmer, why is Kentucky getting colder?" Another, with a cartoon man Coma
bundled up and holding a snow shovel, appeared in Minnesota and substituted
"Minneapolis" for "Kentucky." 'Another Viewpoint' 7. ON THE RUNWAY
Meghan Markle’s Sheer Top Was a Sneaky
Statement for a Royal Portrait
"Those who are predicting catastrophe have been very effective at getting their message
across in national media, and in so-called 'public service' announcements," Mr. Klappa 8. One Man’s Stand Against Junk Food as
said in a telephone interview. "But there is another viewpoint, a substantial viewpoint Diabetes Climbs Across India

from a body of reputable scientists, and that viewpoint has really not been made available
to a large majority." 9. New York Today: Alone in an Empty City

A packet of internal correspondence and other information relating to the campaign was
provided to The New York Times by the Sierra Club, the San Francisco-based 10. LETTERS
The U.N.’s Rebuke of Trump on Jerusalem
environmental group that favors taking steps to reduce the risk of global warming. The
organization had apparently been given the materials by someone who disagreed with the
campaign's goals or approach. Log in to discover more articles
based on what you‘ve read.

Many climatologists are alarmed by the rising concentration in the Earth's atmosphere of What’s This? | Don’t Show
carbon dioxide and other gases that they say will trap the sun's heat, raise temperatures
and change rainfall patterns around the world. But scientists differ as to the extent of
climate change or the speed with which it will occur. More Punch Wanted

The three scientists who form a "science advisory panel" for the campaign said in
telephone interviews that the salient element in two of the ads, that some areas might be
getting cooler, did not contradict the theory of global warming. But one of the three,
Robert C. Balling Jr., director of the office of Climatology at Arizona State University, said
in a telephone interview that the advertising campaign designers felt that an ad that
simply discussed the contradictory state of evidence for global warming would not have
enough punch.

Dr. Balling and another member of the panel, Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Virginia's
climatologist and a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, have
both asked to have their names removed from future mailings. Dr. Balling, who taped
radio ads used in Flagstaff, said some people who heard the ads "did not like the idea that I
was coming on the radio" and acting as "a mouthpiece" for a private group.

Dr. Michaels said that with only three names on the mailing, people would identify him as
the source of the information, while he was not, in fact, the author, and that the size of the
panel was so small that it made the position appear scientifically unpopular.

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Pro-Coal Ad Campaign Disputes Warming Idea - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/08/business/pro-coal-ad-campaign-d...

The third scientist on the panel, Dr. Sherwood B. Idso, an adjunct professor of botany and
geography at Arizona State, said it was not clear whether adding carbon dioxide to the
atmosphere would result in global warming or cooling, but that it would probably be
beneficial because it would increase plant growth.

A scientist not affiliated with the campaign, Dr. John W. Firor, a climatologist at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Center for Atmospheric
Research, in Boulder, Colo., said in an interview that pointing out that a single location ran
against the predicted trend was "a straw man." Name Search

Preparing for the test campaign, the organizers commissioned opinion surveys by
Cambridge Reports, the Massachussetts research organization, to explore public attitudes
toward global warming. Among the issues explored by Cambridge Reports was a name for
the group, to conform with the acronym "ICE."

A Cambridge Reports document in the packet advised the group to adopt Information
Council on the Environment rather than Informed Citizens for the Environment, because
the latter name was "perceived as combining the attributes of activist nd technical
sources."

Cambridge Reports also suggested strategies like telling people that "some members of the
media scare the public about global warming to increase their audience and their
influence," according to documents in the packet.

The survey also showed, said the consultants, that "members of the public feel more
comfortable expressing opinions on others' motivations and tactics than they do
expressing opinions on scientific issues."

Mr. Klappa said in an interview that the advice was unsolicited and had not been followed.
Division Among Utilities

The utility industry is divided on the question of global warming. Two California utilities,
Southern California Edison, the nation's second-largest utility after the Pacific Gas and
Electric Company, and the Los Angeles Water and Power Department, the largest
municipal company, volunteered in May to cut their carbon-dioxide emissions by 20
percent in the next 20 years. Most of the savings, they said, would come from efficiency
improvements in lighting, motors and cooling that would pay for themselves.

The Arizona Public Service Company, which serves Flagstaff, declined an invitation to
participate in ICE. Mark De Michele, president and chief executive, did not reply to
repeated phone calls seeking comment. But he told The Arizona Daily Sun in May, "The
subject matter is far too complex and could be far more severe than the ads make of it for
the subject to be dealt with in a slick ad campaign."

The Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group based in Washington that also helped
organize the ICE campaign, takes the position that because of the possibility that climate
change is a real threat, steps should be taken to cut carbon-dioxide output if those steps
are justifiable for other reasons -- for example, saving money through higher efficiency or
reducing the output of sulfur dioxide from power plants. That chemical causes acid rain.

Photo: An ad by the coal and utility industries to "reposition global warming as theory (not
fact)."

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