Climate change and power: Does pointing out the cr@p solve anything?

Britain's Channel 4 has certainly grabbed attention with this ad for its programmes on climate change, depicting the powerfully rich as wasteful, twerking wantons who squander money insanely while wearing carbon skid-marked underpants. What do you think? Startling to great effect, or just a slick ad to get us to watch a programme that doesn't really change anything? As many viewers point out, the danger of 'fun' campaigns like this is that they simply entrench perceptions and positions - the powerful are unlikely to want to engage in negotiation with those who depict them in this way. On the other hand, shock tactics are surely justificable in today's world of senseless inequality. The international anti-poverty movement Oxfam this month reported that the richest one per cent of the world’s population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity. “The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction and it is those who can least afford it who are paying the highest price," says Oxfam, which produced the report in conjunction with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). "The huge scale of climate inequality revealed in the report highlights how the two crises are inextricably linked - fuelling one another - and the urgent need to ensure the rising costs of climate change fall on those most responsible and able to pay. The gap between the super-rich and the rest of us is stark. It would take about 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99 per cent to produce as much carbon as the richest billionaires do in a year. This is fundamentally unfair." Calling on governments composed of those who actively engage in the advantages of wealth, power and corporate privilege can be seen as futile, though awareness and calling out injustice are the first steps in any meaningful change. Does the Channel 4 campaign provide the right kind of shock tactics?

Keywords: Channel 4 Climate Change, Channel 4 skid marks campaign, wealth inequality, power and the climate, environment, Oxfam report 2023, 4creative