{"id":197,"date":"2012-08-13T12:51:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T17:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=197"},"modified":"2013-07-07T18:56:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-07T23:56:28","slug":"if-the-medium-is-the-message-is-the-bumper-sticker-the-medium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=197","title":{"rendered":"If the medium is the message, is the bumper sticker the medium?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I attended a non-eco event that necessitated a longish subway ride. My reading material for the ride (one of the great advantages of not driving) was Tim Jackson\u2019s Prosperity Without Growth<\/em><\/a>. Having since completed reading it, my copy is now littered with Post-it notes.<\/p>\n

A friend attending the event looked at the book under my arm and asked, somewhat aghast, \u201cwhy would you want prosperity without growth?\u201d It took me a few seconds to grasp that that she thought the book was advocating financial prosperity over personal growth.<\/p>\n

Easy enough to understand in retrospect, the reaction brings up one of the major stumbling blocks of EcoOptimism and of environmentalism generally: how do we not only convey the message, but put it in sound-biteable, appealing terms? Or put another way, where\u2019s our version of Frank Luntz<\/a>?<\/p>\n

For better or worse, most environmentalists are liberals and it\u2019s a truism that liberal goals don\u2019t often translate well into catchy slogans. The earliest evidence of that I can remember was the Vietnam War era bumper sticker that read \u201cAmerica. Love it or leave it.\u201d Why did we never see something like \u201cAmerica. Fix it or lose it?\u201d Where\u2019s the equivalent to \u201cGuns don\u2019t kill people. People do.\u201d or \u201cDrill, baby drill?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Who\u2019s got the better messaging?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do recall — or perhaps I\u2019m wishfully riffing on a Saturday Night Live line — bumper stickers that read \u201cThe Great Silent Majority is Neither.\u201d (By the way, always fact check. When I looked up \u201cthe Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire\u201d just now, my dependency on pop culture was revealed. Turns out it\u2019s attributed to some dude named Voltaire, not Mike Myers.)<\/p>\n

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One of the relatively rare examples of a really catchy green slogan, \u201cDon\u2019t Mess with Texas\u201d began as a statewide anti-littering campaign, as recently pointed out in \u201cMaking Green More Macho.\u201d So successful, in fact, that it\u2019s been adopted and transformed for other purposes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve had a few, probably lame, attempts at channeling my inner sloganeer. Since the day I signed up for Facebook (you know, eons ago), my \u201cpolitical views\u201d have read \u201cTax Pollution, Not People.\u201d Personally, I thought it was pretty catchy. But I\u2019m still waiting for it to catch on.<\/p>\n

Can we\/should we play the sound bite game? It\u2019s tough to explain in a few short words why, for example, a growing GDP is probably not a good thing. Or why a carbon tax is. I think, though, it\u2019s a game we can\u2019t just opt out of, which means we have to play it better. (Please<\/em> don\u2019t make me use a sports metaphor.)<\/p>\n

Enter your suggestions in the comments. And, by the way, as a non-car owner (I prefer the term car-free), I need to find a substitute for bumper stickers.<\/p>\n

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