One of the most pervasive and pernicious of all narratives — and one that is in dire need of challenging — is that of climate alarmism. The climate alarmist narrative reads as follows: All manner of disasters around the world are attributable to “global warming,” “climate change,” or “climate disruption,” and the antidote is to halt economic progress and redistribute wealth on a massive scale. Most chilling of all, the state is seeking to silence “climate deniers” by targeting “Big Oil” and with it individuals and organizations who dissent against climate alarmism via costly litigation.
In conjunction with The New Criterion and CO2 Coalition, my company, ChangeUp Media, endeavored to counter this narrative by way of a mini-documentary featuring prominent scientists and pundit Mark Steyn – the target of a suit himself for a critical blog post he wrote about climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann. The documentary challenges the words of climate alarmists themselves, making the case that their movement is dishonest at best and fraudulent at worst, and illustrating how its true ends are about shackling free markets and free minds, making victims of not just pundits and professors but all Americans. Check it out below:
  • The Science ISN’t Settled
You may also appreciate our in-depth interview with Mark Steyn, as well as clips from interviews with some of the scientists featured in the documentary:
  • Mark Steyn’s Stand Against Climate Alarmism: In-Depth with the Climate Crybully Conniption-Inducer
  • Clips from interviews with Mark Steyn, MIT Professor Emeritus Richard Lindzen and Dr. Ross McKitrick
The preeminence of narratives — and the stories propagated to crystallize them in the collective American mind — has been one of the seminal achievements of the progressive’s long and to this point successful march through the institutions.
To counter the Sophistic onslaught of progressives who seek to turn the American idea on its head, I believe it essential to craft counter-narratives across all areas and in a variety of forms. In order to win the “War of Ideas,” we must not only hit people in the mind, but in the heart. Reason without emotion loses. The Left internalized that it is not enough to take over cultural institutions – you have to use them to spread ideas in a compelling enough way that the argument is won before the political battle even begins.
In a postmodern era in which narrative all too frequently trumps truth — as illustrated by The New York Times‘ recent profile of Ben Rhodes, a fiction writer by trade who apparently exerts more influence over American foreign policy than anyone besides President Obama — it is vital that we craft stories that relate critical messages and themes of our own. We must no longer cede this battlefield to the Left. Good ideas mean nothing if they are not packaged in ways that are palatable and powerful.