‘Almost everyone is onboard with the green agenda’
The 3-step, normative pressure manipulation loop
There is a plethora of techniques deployed by the state to lever compliance with their globalist agendas; censorship, propaganda, the smearing of critical voices, and various forms of psychological manipulation, are all habitually used by government agencies to encourage the masses to think and behave in the ‘right’ ways. This article focuses on one specific behavioural science (‘nudge’) strategy – normative pressure – that is, at present, being widely deployed to convince ordinary people that there is a climate emergency.
What is a normative pressure nudge?
The psychological methods of persuasion emanating from the discipline of behavioural science often operate below people’s conscious awareness and frequently rely on inflating emotional unease as a means of changing the behaviour of those targeted. The normative pressure nudge (commonly referred to as ‘social proof’) exploits the fact that human beings tend to feel uncomfortable if they think themselves to be in a deviant minority – in contrast to believing one is at the centre of the herd, a view that generates a sense of safety and security. Therefore, awareness of social norms, the prevalent views and behaviours of our fellow citizens, can exert pressure on us to conform. If government actors can convince the sceptical target group that the majority of people are already onboard with state-approved beliefs and behaviours, this normative pressure nudge constitutes an effective weapon in their manipulation armoury.
Throughout the covid event, the normative pressure nudge was heavily relied upon to shape people’s behaviour in line with public health diktats – we will all remember politicians and their science experts asserting that, ‘The vast majority have complied with the rules’, and ’90 per cent of those eligible have already had the first dose of the vaccine’. Now the same strategy is ubiquitous in the outputs of the influencers who are striving to get us all to accept the - highly dubious - climate-Armageddon narrative. One aspect of this state-endorsed strategy is, what I have labelled, the ‘3-step, normative pressure manipulation loop’.
As way of illustration:
Step 1: Bombard the general public with fear-laden messaging about the purported climate emergency
Ordinary people have, for many years been exposed to fear-elevating information about the ‘climate crisis’, and the intensity of this assault is escalating. This comprehensive exercise in scaremongering is achieved through multiple channels. Examples include:
Announcements by high-profile political bodies
- The weather has become ‘a weapon of mass extinction … a code red for humanity… we are digging our own graves’ (Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations).
- ‘Global warming has led and will lead to more extreme weather events … The risks of irreversible and catastrophic change could greatly increase’ (European Parliament).
- ‘The only way to protect future generations is by tackling the climate crisis’ (Ed Miliband, UK Energy Secretary).
Biased and misleading mainstream media outputs
- Television programming strategically designed to promote the green agenda, such as the 2021 collaboration between Sky TV and the Behavioural Insights Team (the ‘Nudge Unit’) that strives to ‘increase the salience of sustainability in plotlines, and make it emotionally engaging for better impact’, so as to ‘encourage viewers to take up pro-environmental action needed to save the planet’.
- Weather presenters and newspaper journalists enrolling on training courses to learn how to attribute – with maximum emotional impact - any extreme weather event to ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’; for example, the partnership between the Reuters Institute and University of Oxford.
Amplification of unreliable modelling studies
- The green lobby’s reliance upon unscientific modelling studies (rather than real-world observations) to produce scary headlines of imminent climate catastrophes, prophesies that have been repeatedly shown to be inaccurate.
The exploitation of medical professionals to promote the ‘climate emergency’ narrative
- The World Health Organization’s encouragement of doctors (as trusted sources of information) to become ‘powerful climate communicators’, a role eagerly endorsed by the Royal College of Physicians in their recommendation that its members ‘communicate with patients about climate change to help them understand how it will affect their health’.
Indoctrination of children
- Changing school curricula to include the assertion that climate change is the ‘biggest existential threat of our age’, despite a current context where over three-quarters of under-12-year-olds already suffer from ‘eco-anxiety’.
Step 2: Conduct a survey asking questions designed to get the ‘right’ answer
In the wake of this prolonged and multi-faceted drive to promote fear about a future climate catastrophe, the next stage of the manipulation loop is to measure the level of climate concern among the general population. This is accomplished by a survey – the ‘Public Attitudes Tracker’ – conducted four times each year on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (DBEIS). For instance, a recurring question in this analysis is:
‘How concerned, if at all, are you about climate change, sometimes referred to as “global warming”?’
Two observations about this process support the assertion that the DBEIS’s primary intention is to elicit supporting evidence for the idea that the general public is greatly troubled by the potential impacts of climate change.
First, if you expose the population to a protracted period of indoctrination about the ‘existential threats’ posed by future weather conditions – cities submerged under rising sea levels, more droughts, increased frequency of extreme weather events, poorer health – it would be astonishing NOT to find that a lot of people acknowledge a degree of alarm about impending climate events; after all, who would wish to reveal disregard to anything that might jeopardise the lives of our children and grandchildren? Indeed, in the aftermath of this onslaught of fear, and the purported need to save the planet for the sake of future generations, a survey respondent would require unusually high levels of single mindedness - and a desire to conduct one’s own independent research - to openly reject perspectives supportive of the dominant climate-change narrative.
Second, the slant of the questions asked (and where the responses are subsequently amplified) is, inevitably, going to encourage the answers the DBEIS is seeking. By asking, ‘How concerned … are you about climate change/global warming?’, the wording implicitly legitimises the presence of ‘concern’ about future weather events; Furthermore, the generality of the question makes it more difficult to express contrary views. It is interesting to speculate as to how people would have responded to more specific (and differently slanted) survey questions, such as:
‘How concerned, if at all, are you that the green agenda will lead to a rise in energy prices?’
‘To what extent, if at all, do you believe that Western governments are exaggerating the negative impacts of climate change?’
My guess would be that such queries would suggest the presence of a sizable number of climate-change sceptics within the general population.
Step 3: Widely circulate the results of selected survey questions as a normative pressure nudge
Armed with the manufactured statistic that a high proportion of people who responded to the survey acknowledged concern about the future impacts of climate change, the final step in the manipulation loop is to repeatedly publicise this finding, thereby applying normative pressure on the sceptical minority to re-evaluate their existing perspectives. A prominent example of this nudge technique in action is provided by a 2023 document by the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team titled, ‘How to build a net zero society’. The executive summary of this publication leads with the definitive statement:
‘Tackling climate change …is backed by huge public support. The Government’s own data reveal high public concern for climate change (84%)’.
This publication contains multiple nudges of this kind, repeatedly announcing that 80%-plus of the general population are on board with various aspects of the green agenda. Another Behavioural Insight Team document – the collaboration with Sky TV, mentioned in Step 1 – also contains many normative pressure strategies citing survey findings.
Not content with heavily deploying this manipulative intervention in the text, the ‘How to build a net zero society’ document takes the process a stage further by including ready-made Tweets of these dubious survey findings to encourage readers to spread normative pressure nudges among their followers.
The ultimate aim of this 3-step (scare-survey-share) manoeuvre is to prompt those who remain appropriately sceptical of the climate-catastrophe narrative to relent and opt to join the (apparent) majority of believers, seduced into conformity by the anticipated comfort of being at the centre of the herd. It is one specific example of how government-funded influencers strive to promote ‘right-think’ among the general population.
As further illustration of the process, a normative-pressure informed mission to convince people that the earth is flat might look something like this:
Over several decades, expose children to ‘flat earth’ topics and educate them about ways to avoid falling off the edge of the world. Ensure the media pumps out numerous reports of ‘missing’ people/ships/aeroplanes that are all presumed to have succumbed to this fate. Habitually highlight ‘scientific discoveries’ that the earth is getting narrower, and the precipitous rim is getting ever closer, thereby justifying urgent future action to erect enormously expensive barriers along the earth’s perimeter, and other constraints on movement, to keep us all ‘safe’. Conduct surveys asking ‘how concerned’ people are about falling of the world’s edge, and widely circulate the results that inevitably show a high level of apprehension. Repeatedly refer to this widespread flat-earth anxiety to justify the imposition of further restrictions and hardships on the populace.
By highlighting this 3-stage manipulation loop, my main aim is to enable more people to recognise, and call out, this form of clandestine, state-sponsored persuasion. Visible dissent to our governments’ attempts to promote ‘right think’ in their citizens is essential if we are to stymie the authoritarianism that is stripping us of our rights and freedoms.
Finally – to end with a note of optimism – maybe the tide is turning: the winter 2024 version of the Public Attitudes Tracker found that the proportion of respondents concerned about climate change had fallen to 80% (as compared to 85% in 2021), a statistically significant reduction. Perhaps ordinary folk are becoming less inclined to accept the pronouncements of official, nudge-infused, communications? Let us hope so.
This article was first published on ‘Propaganda in Focus’
From 'COVID' to 'climate.' A point i make is IF there really was a climate crisis caused by an excess of greenhouse gases why then would a government consciously decide to blow up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?
"This is not a small amount of gas, and represents a reckless emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere’’
-Grant Allen, professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Manchester.
https://www.sciencealert.com/experts-estimate-the-scale-of-the-nord-stream-pipelines-methane-leak
Brilliant piece, thank you Gary! I have valued your authentic and insightful comments right from the very beginning of the so called ‘Pandemic’, and this takes it all one step further and relates it to what one might call the ‘next phase of the coup d’etat’!
What interests me, and I would value your views on this, is on a scientific basis how ‘successful’ do we think these ‘interventions’ turn out to be? On first sight, I personally, purely as a victim and/or observer of these shenanigans, would say, not very, especially in proportion to the amount of time and resources committed to them over the years.
I am in my 7th decade and I would suggest that very similar ‘techniques’ have been employed over these decades to ‘encourage’ the mass populace to accept and embrace mass immigration and multiculturalism. From the ‘they’re more British than we are’ in the very early phases of mass immigration, to the more recent ‘we need them to pay our pensions’ I personally have watched the British people be bombarded with relentless ‘positive influencing’ to nudge them into accepting massive cultural & social change. Yet, despite this, here we are with multiculturalism openly admitted as a failure and more and more people of all ages sceptical if not outright hostile to immigration.
Similar scepticism to public messaging was common during the ‘pandemic’ and was far greater than we were nudged to believe at the time. Likewise vaccination status, when the unvaccinated were being targeted (unsuccessfully) with ‘YOU are the only one not complying’ messages, before it was finally publicly conceded that anything between 25 - 45% of people across different societies were not taking the jab.
So, with all of this, I wonder just how effective or successful - realistically speaking - much of this ‘nudge’ actually is?
Is there any evidence that ancient communities and societies such as England/Europe have what might be called a thousand year embedded ‘mass inertia’ that may indeed be limiting the effects of these relatively new methods of people management? Might this ‘mass inertia’ be protecting us from the worst excesses of government and ruling class megalomania?
All interesting and very valid stuff, I think. Thank you.