Tak­ing a leaf out of the adver­tis­ers’ book may be the key to suc­ceed­ing in the fight against global warm­ing and eco­log­i­cal apa­thy. At least, that’s the view Robert But­ler takes after look­ing at the suc­cesses of a novel adver­tis­ing cam­paign used to cut the inci­dence of lit­ter­ing in Texas:

The ads avoided the neg­a­tives of guilt and shame in favour of the pos­i­tives of pride and group iden­tity. Within a year, road­side lit­ter had dropped by 29%; within five years, by 72%. The cam­paign had tar­geted a spe­cific group with a mes­sage from “people-like-them” that they were will­ing to hear. Com­pare this with the prim admon­i­tory vague­ness of “Keep Britain Tidy”.

This brings to mind a quote from an arti­cle (dis­cussed pre­vi­ously) com­ment­ing on how gov­ern­ments are tak­ing advan­tage of the public’s cog­ni­tive biases for polit­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal gain.

Like mil­lions of oth­ers, Heath had found that sim­ply being told she ought to save energy had lit­tle effect on her habits – and she actively resents the idea of being pun­ished for dis­obey­ing gov­ern­ment dik­tats on envi­ron­men­tal­ism. Drive a big car? You’re bad – pay a penalty.