Shandi
10-01-2015, 11:14 AM
From the website: Think Progress
The oil and gas advocacy group Western Energy Alliance (WEA) is waging a social media campaign that challenges people to not use fossil fuels for five days. To the group, the point of the Fossil Fuel Free Challenge is to show how impossible it would be to live without fossil fuels right now.
“Eliminate fossil fuels! We hear it all the time,” says the campaign’s website (https://www.fffchallenge.com/page.asp?content=startpage&g=fffchallenge). “Sounds easy, right? Then pledge to live fossil fuel free for a week and see what it’s really like.” The site shows a yes button that agrees to the challenge and a no button that says “no, life’s pretty good with fossil fuels.” Clicking on the yes button brings up a new page.
“For five days don’t use any product made from, delivered using or operating on oil, natural gas or their associated products,” the website then instructs. “That means staying clear of anything that uses gasoline, oil or natural gas. Even electricity, plastics, rubber and synthetic fibers are to be avoided.”
At first glance, the argument may seem compelling. Many products most people rely on were made with petroleum-based materials, most food comes to the table transported by fossil fuel-powered machines, and the majority of most people’s electricity and heating still comes from fossil fuels. Because beating the challenge is extremely difficult, the campaign’s intent is to show how essential and positive fossil fuels are to society.
“We’re trying to get people to think about how fossil [fuels] are used in their daily lives,” Kathleen Sgamma, WEA’s vice president of government and public affairs, told ThinkProgress.
To social scientists and climate communications experts, however, reality is more complicated. They say this is a straw man argument that uses a false dichotomy to attempt to exploit the cognitive dissonance people experience when their attitudes don’t match with their actions.
Straw man A straw man argument ignores the actual position held by the opposition, substituting an exaggerated version that would be impossible. The Fossil Fuel Free Challenge site tells the user to go fossil fuel free: “live the life environmentalists promote through protests and social media activism.”
The problem with this logic is that no one is saying it is possible to shift completely off fossil fuels at this very moment.
“The WEA campaign is based on a straw man argument,” Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, told ThinkProgress. “I don’t know anyone who argues we should stop using all fossil fuels this very instant. Most people understand this is about a transition from the 19th and 20th century fossil-fuel-based energy system to the clean energy system of the 21st century. That won’t happen overnight, but it also can’t wait a hundred years.” continued....
The oil and gas advocacy group Western Energy Alliance (WEA) is waging a social media campaign that challenges people to not use fossil fuels for five days. To the group, the point of the Fossil Fuel Free Challenge is to show how impossible it would be to live without fossil fuels right now.
“Eliminate fossil fuels! We hear it all the time,” says the campaign’s website (https://www.fffchallenge.com/page.asp?content=startpage&g=fffchallenge). “Sounds easy, right? Then pledge to live fossil fuel free for a week and see what it’s really like.” The site shows a yes button that agrees to the challenge and a no button that says “no, life’s pretty good with fossil fuels.” Clicking on the yes button brings up a new page.
“For five days don’t use any product made from, delivered using or operating on oil, natural gas or their associated products,” the website then instructs. “That means staying clear of anything that uses gasoline, oil or natural gas. Even electricity, plastics, rubber and synthetic fibers are to be avoided.”
At first glance, the argument may seem compelling. Many products most people rely on were made with petroleum-based materials, most food comes to the table transported by fossil fuel-powered machines, and the majority of most people’s electricity and heating still comes from fossil fuels. Because beating the challenge is extremely difficult, the campaign’s intent is to show how essential and positive fossil fuels are to society.
“We’re trying to get people to think about how fossil [fuels] are used in their daily lives,” Kathleen Sgamma, WEA’s vice president of government and public affairs, told ThinkProgress.
To social scientists and climate communications experts, however, reality is more complicated. They say this is a straw man argument that uses a false dichotomy to attempt to exploit the cognitive dissonance people experience when their attitudes don’t match with their actions.
Straw man A straw man argument ignores the actual position held by the opposition, substituting an exaggerated version that would be impossible. The Fossil Fuel Free Challenge site tells the user to go fossil fuel free: “live the life environmentalists promote through protests and social media activism.”
The problem with this logic is that no one is saying it is possible to shift completely off fossil fuels at this very moment.
“The WEA campaign is based on a straw man argument,” Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, told ThinkProgress. “I don’t know anyone who argues we should stop using all fossil fuels this very instant. Most people understand this is about a transition from the 19th and 20th century fossil-fuel-based energy system to the clean energy system of the 21st century. That won’t happen overnight, but it also can’t wait a hundred years.” continued....