Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Two government climate change adverts banned by watchdog

inthenews.co.uk

Two government adverts aimed at raising awareness of climate change have been banned by the advertising watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the ad's had overstated the risks of climate change, which had been created on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

The ASA said it had received 939 complaints about the 'Act on CO2' campaign, resulting in the two ads being banned and three others, including a TV commercial, being cleared.

The two banned adverts used nursery rhymes to bring up the issues of natural disasters caused by climate change.

One said Jack and Jill could not go up the hill because extreme weather had caused a drought, while the second read: "Rub a dub, three men in a tub, a necessary course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change."

The ASA in its ruling said the campaign went beyond mainstream scientific consensus about climate change.

Many viewers including an MEP, the New Party and the Federation of Environmental Trade Associations complained about the TV ad because they believed, among other things, that it was political in nature and could be distressing for children.

The ASA ruling said that the language used to indicate how climate change will increase and affect the environment "should have been phrased more tentatively".

A spokeswoman for the DECC was reported as saying: "We stand by our campaign, we will continue to do this.

"The ASA hasn't upheld any complaints about our TV advert, the reality of man-made climate change has not been challenged, nor has any of the imagery we used been called into question. The ASA has found against one word in our newspaper adverts and we'll take care to provide better explanation in any future advertising campaign."

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