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Hope for Copenhagen: Campaign inspires public to call for climate action

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Politicians and journalists tend to be jaded about international agreements aimed at improving society. And already too many commentators are saying the global climate summit that begins December 7 in Copenhagen will not produce tangible instruments that limit greenhouse gas emissions. Disgusted by the pessimism, the global advertising industry has started a grassroots campaign to encourage citizens worldwide to sound out a message of hope...in an effort to pressure each country's leaders and delegates to the U.N Climate Change Conference to enact change.

The challenge, of course, is convincing enough people to shout out. So advertising agencies, led by Ogilvy Earth in New York City, have created an aggressive but positive public-relation campaign called Hopenhagen. "You can't bore people into caring about climate change. And you can't threatem then into caring," says Freya Williams, a senior partner at Ogilvy & Mather. Just like convincing them to want a product, she says, "you have to inspire them."


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The tag lines of the campaign are "When people lead, leaders follow," and "Let's turn Copenhagen into Hopenhagen." Ogilvy, its ad partners, and sponsors such as SAP and Coca-Cola have created a series of beautiful, inspirational ads, including the ones you see here.

The ads have begun running in major media worldwide and will continue in magazines and on billboards and television through the Cop 15 meeting, which ends Dec. 18. The Hopenhagen movement lives online at www.hopenhagen.org, where individuals can sign the U.N. Climate Petition calling for action. As of Nov. 13 more than 378,000 people had signed. But campaigns will also run on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, where enthusiasts can obtain a Hopenhagen passport.

Williams says the city of Copenhagen may also agree to temporarily change certain high-profile signs at airports, train stations and other key locations, pasting a translucent green H over the C in Copenhagen. The stated goal of all the efforts is to let the Cop 15 delegates know "the world will be watching and holding them accountable for outcomes."

 

Mark Fischetti has been a senior editor at Scientific American for 17 years and has covered sustainability issues, including climate, weather, environment, energy, food, water, biodiversity, population, and more. He assigns and edits feature articles, commentaries and news by journalists and scientists and also writes in those formats. He edits History, the magazine's department looking at science advances throughout time. He was founding managing editor of two spinoff magazines: Scientific American Mind and Scientific American Earth 3.0. His 2001 freelance article for the magazine, "Drowning New Orleans," predicted the widespread disaster that a storm like Hurricane Katrina would impose on the city. His video What Happens to Your Body after You Die?, has more than 12 million views on YouTube. Fischetti has written freelance articles for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Fast Company, and many others. He co-authored the book Weaving the Web with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, which tells the real story of how the Web was created. He also co-authored The New Killer Diseases with microbiologist Elinor Levy. Fischetti is a former managing editor of IEEE Spectrum Magazine and of Family Business Magazine. He has a physics degree and has twice served as the Attaway Fellow in Civic Culture at Centenary College of Louisiana, which awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2021 he received the American Geophysical Union's Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism, which celebrates a career of outstanding reporting on the Earth and space sciences. He has appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, CNN, the History Channel, NPR News and many news radio stations. Follow Fischetti on X (formerly Twitter) @markfischetti

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