Great Western Coffee Shop

An advert from the 1950s - archived on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxrCjmqRTz0 - and an advert from 2019 that's been showing on my Facebook feed. The first promotes something that is really bad for our health. The second promotes something that is really bad for our planet.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/badvert.jpg)

How much longer will advertising be promoting the use of fossil fuel to the detriment of our children's and grand children's future?

As long as they make money from it. Corporate Social Responsibility is ok as long as it doesn't affect the bottom line.

So where do you draw the line on advertising? Alcohol? Red meat? Airlines? Cars? Products containing sugar? Diesel trains? Coach travel?

I would prohibit advertising for;

Fossil fuels, including petrol, diesel, LPG, heating oil, natural gas, coal, and coke.
Fossil fueled vehicles including cars, vans, trucks, tractors, motor yachts, motorcycles.
Fossil fueled machinery including generators, lawn mowers, air compressors and the like.

Airlines, air travel, and package holidays that include air travel.
TV sets and PCs that use more than 100 watts.
Any electrical appliance with a standby setting that uses more than one watt.
Electric lamps with an efficiency of less than 100 lumens per watt.

Single use or short life plastic products (unless essential for medical uses)
Foods, including drinks, containing excessive fat or sugar (as defined by the BMA)
Alcoholic drink of all descriptions.
Gambling, betting or gaming of any description.

I would not yet ban or prohibit use of these products and services, but would prohibit advertising or promotion. Just as smoking is permitted, but advertising of cigarettes is prohibited.
Excessive use of alcohol is a social problem, I therefore see no merit in advertising alcoholic drink.

I would still allow the advertising of diesel powered trains, coaches, buses, and ferries. Use of same is almost always preferable to driving a private car instead.

Your list of a dozen major categories has left members shocked at the extent of the proposal, but yet it does bring home how the vey fabric o f our society needs to changes to meet sustainability targets.

It may also suggest we're headed for a nanny state where we're told what we can and cannot do to excess.   I note  you did not include a prohibition on political parties advertising ideas which are not well thought through and will be evaluated to being "nice idea but impractical" on 13th December.

I need a drink after reading that list...

I'll bet!

I am not yet proposing to prohibit any of the goods or services on my list, only to ban the advertising thereof.
I support the plans to ban the sale of fossil fuel cars from some future date, but prior to that upcoming ban, I would ban the advertising of such vehicles.

That's very generous of you  ::)

One of the biggest consumable items impacting climate change is red meat (BBC1 2100 tomorrow refers), which generates more greenhouse gasses than all transport industries combined.  So to be consistent I presume you never eat red meat, and that you feel it shouldn't be available on the Pullman services.  And those nasty steam trains on the WSR that puff out lots of smoke as they burn coal, and which people have probably driven to Bishops Lydiard to join, thus emitting totally unnecessary carbon emissions in the process too. They should be stopped too.

Absolutely - time for all steam trains to head for the scrapyard.

………...no more imports of Port either - it'd have to come by air or road (obviously ruled out) and marine diesel is pretty much the filthiest fuel of all so no question of allowing its import by sea...……..Broadgage your options are starting to look rather limited?

I feel this is all beside the point.

Little advertising today promotes the generic product, and a lot does not seem even to promote any one market choice - at least not directly. Nether of the two original examples promotes a product directly. And what happens on-line is dictated by US practice, and the substantial First Amendment protection granted to "commercial speech". In any case, "advertising" in the sense it is being used here - using relatively unselective media - is being replaced by a targetted on-line version, and that has so far proved very hard to regulate at all.

Now, if advertising of some thing stops, will that have much effect on whether people want to buy it? I doubt it. After all, absent advertising is, by definition, invisible. On the other hand, when most people accept that a product is unacceptable, advertising it will stop as it would be counterproductive. It's convincing the bulk of the populace that no-one, not even themselves, should go on consuming such things that is going to be the real problem.

Before you all burst blood vessels at the Morality Police HQ, bear in mind that I can't remember the last time I saw a TV or press advert for petrol or steak or oil or sugar or bacon or a new motorway. Cars, yes, but I've got one already. Petrol - who is cheapest? Alcohol - mine's a pint, please or a glass of, depending on the context. Trains - I see the Famous Five having a wonderful time on GWR, but I can't use any other company for much of my rail travel around home, and won't be going anywhere just because they have an ad on telly.

Holidays - I find the cheap flights, then worry about where I am going to stay later most of the time, using the internet. It looks like banning that would be the easiest way to spoil my planning for yet another break from the English winter in some far flung warm place. I can sit in the sunshine, sip my foreign beer and enjoy my roasted local animal, safe in the knowledge that easyJet are going to plant a tree somewhere to make up for my profligacy. Tax it more, and I will start my break with a train to Paris or Amsterdam or Brussels, have a couple of nights there, then fly back to Japan or Buenos Aires or wherever.

Banning one type of advertising in the mainstream media isn't going to do much good, unless targeted carefully. There are smokers in this country who weren't even born when the last advert for filthy fags appeared on TV or in papers, so banning adverts for bad things isn't a guaranteed path to social benefit. Writing stark warnings on fag packets, introducing generic packaging, and not having them on open display seems to be helping, but if somebody wants something, they will get it, advertised or not.

If I were to ban advertising on any general group of things, I personally would start with anything containing palm oil, because there are other ways. The manufacturers would quickly change what goes into their product if the only way of selling it was high volume advertising.

So, remember this? https://youtu.be/FvNdhriwGuM A type of advert last seen in a cinema on 29 October 1999, by which time tobacco and me had been divorced for over 8 years.

But pastoral farming is an essential part of preserving some threatened habitats and ecosystems. There's a whole world of difference between clearing the cerrado habitat of Brazil for mass produced beefburgers (it's this savanna habitat that's take the real hammering, not the core rain forest) and low intensity pastoral farming that is dying out in places like Belarus and Poland due to rural depopulation leading to scrub invading the valley mires that are one of Europe's best biodiverse habitats, or low intensity grazing (better by cattle than sheep - see that classic "Highlands & Islands" by Fraser Daring and Morton Boyd) of the Scottish Highlands, or indeed sheep grazing maintaining the short grass sward that many insects, flowers and ground nesting birds find so attractive on the North Wessex Downs.

What we need is "sustainable" meat and other animal product production. It will mean less red meat, and if that is to be replaced by soya, an appreciation that much of this is grown on land following clearance of threatened habitats in places like Brazil too. There are no easy answers.

In the context of the morals of advertising (!), I do not have a problem with oil companies advertising fuel offers. It is not like tobacco, which has no intrinsic benefit to mankind but just creates medical prolems. We still need it for transport, and are likely to do so for some time. I am ambivalent about alcohol, but would ban gambling advertising, and (heaven help us) if we are foolish enough to legalise cannabis notwithstanding the well documented risk of psychotic side effects, all the upper respiratory tract health risks of smoking etc etc, then I would be against advertising this too.

As for electrical goods, like housing all we need is compulsory energy efficiency ratings on all advertising, as with house sales. I am not aware of anyone these days positively advertising plastic as a consumer product per se, but recently there has been an absolute rush of organisations replacing plastic wrappings on mailshots, in store bags for produce etc with paper or compostable products so the message is clearly getting home (putting on one side some doubt about how sustainable paper packaging really is).  

It really is impossible to take too wide a moral stand on such issues. Many jobs depend on many of the products and services on Broadgage's list. Many are essential part of the fabric of our society, and bring benefits too. So let them be advertised.    



 

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We're proud of different things now.

I have reduced my consumption of red meat due to concerns about the climate change impact thereof. I do not propose to give it up entirely.
I have mixed feelings about steam locomotives, but on balance would support moderate use thereof on preserved lines, and the odd charter on the main line. I would support the introduction of battery locomotives on heritage lines for engineering trains and ECS moves.
As previously stated I am strongly in favour of a regular through service to bishops Lydeard, partly in order that visitors may enjoy the WSR without driving.

I don't see why Port imports would be affected.
It is imported either by ship or by rail through the channel tunnel.
Rail is reasonably green.
Modern ships use very little fuel per ton of cargo. Sailing ships would be preferable and may yet return.
Final distribution of Port is almost always by road, regrettable but no worse than most other goods.

eightonedee makes some very good points. The more I read about this the more complicated it is.  There is a great difference between the carbon footprint of grass fed meat and cereal feed meat, much of that to do with the carbon footprint of the fertilisers used to grow the grain. Much of the west of England and Wales is unsuitable for grain production - and some of that is only suitable for low grade grain production of the type used to feed animals. As eightonedee says the type of farming we do has created our ecology. 

The vegan products in the supermarkets have loads of imported unsustainable ingredients so the simple vegan message does not work either.  Vegetarianism is not really the answer as you cannot have dairy production without beef!

In general a move to less intensive (especially away from large factory farming in buildings) seems to be the way forward, with us eating less meat, but then we have to ask ourselves how do we support our rural communities who need the income from farming to survive?

The answer will also be different depending on the location. Not just the location in the world but within the UK as well.

In short if anyone says they have a simple answer, then it is probably wrong!

Well, that escalated! 🙂

I think McDonalds still advertise quite heavily, and I suspect they get through a fair amount of beef in a year. I hadn't noticed that the sustainability of its production is a key selling point either.

Yes, young adults are still smoking, but the fall in smoking since the 1970s has been dramatic. From around 50%, it's now down to 14%, with a reduction from 20% in the last 7 years (so the ONS tells me!).  That also says that the biggest fall has been in the youngest age group 18-24. The lack of advertising is of course only one factor, the ban on smoking in public places and making it more difficult for youngsters to purchase (eg no more cigarette machines) will obviously be big factors too. 

If I could ban one type of advertising for the wider social good it would be the majority of betting adverts.   

And payday loans...

A few months of working in a Blackpool amusement arcade and seeing how people can so easily and quickly lose great piles of cash, even with 1p stakes, was enough to put me off gambling. One family sticks in mind - mum, dad and two kids, recently arrived and whiling away the time until they could get into the B&B. I noticed them in the quiet period around teatime, but lost them in the evening crowd until dad asked to speak to the manager, in an unsuccessful plea for a refund. They had spent all their cash, in pennies, including what they were going to pay the landlady with. Complex financial things like credit cards, Wonga, and even cash machines were still a little way off. They walked out around 9pm with nothing but the return fossil fuelled coach ticket for the following Saturday. I don't know how that one finished. Since then, gambling has become even easier and almost normalised, and I would therefore support your proposed ban.

Agree, gambling, betting and gaming were on my original list of things that should not be advertised.
I would not prohibit betting and gambling since that drives the trade underground and into organised crime groups.

I would however prohibit all advertising and promoting of gaming, betting and gambling. For clarity I should add that I refer here to gaming, betting, and gambling for money, or monies worth and not to games played for amusement with no money involved.

Amusement arcades involving gambling are part of the seaside resort experience, and should IMHO be permitted but not advertised.

A fiver says it'll never happen

Not always a pleasant part!

Probably a controversial post for the rest of the post, but I have no objection to petrol stations advertising.
So many of us are still reliant on petrol as alternative fuels haven’t caught up in development and those available are prohibitively expensive for most of us still.
I’m currently driving a fairly economic car that’s been in my ownership since 2010, it does 60+mpg and is in the £30 a year road tax group for low emissions. Arguably my car is better for the environment than modern battery power stuff due to the current manufacturing of battery’s and electricity generation

A good point. "You can be sure of Shell!", "Put a Tiger in Your Tank!". "Something Worthwhile to do with BP!" are all things of the past. Advertising has passed fuel by, as you normally fill up where it is cheapest, or when the tank falls low, whichever comes first. There is rarely a few coppers between the extremes, unlike in the gas and electricity market. My son in law used to search out a certain brand of petrol until he got stuck behind the tanker leaving the cheap place, only to see it unload at his preferred (more expensive) outlet minutes later.

We’ve got a Morrisons and a BP here. Strange you should mention the tanker thing, a Esso tanker was filling the BP this morning! Both are on my normal route, if there’s a big queue I’ll normally carry on towards the next, there’s then 3 other options on my journey to work. I might go to a specific one if there’s a promo on (that I’d hear through adverts, I.e double points, or a gift or spend £20 or more on fuel get this item for a bargain price)

There is a suggestion that petrol advertising and labelling should have a "climate" health warning. Can't remember which organisation suggested it, but was in this morning's news.

"the charity ClientEarth, which takes legal action to protect the environment" - or so it says in the IET's house mag (https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/12/calls-to-ban-fossil-fuel-adverts-global-carbon-emissions-increasing-at-slower-rate/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_campaign=New%20EandT%20News%20-%20Automation%20FINAL%20-%20MEMBER&utm_medium=Newsletters%20-%20E%26T%20News&utm_content=E%26T%20News%20-%20Members&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Feandt.theiet.org%2Fcontent%2Farticles%2F2019%2F12%2Fcalls-to-ban-fossil-fuel-adverts-global-carbon-emissions-increasing-at-slower-rate%2F). Surprisingly, they have found - if not a legislative route to do this, then something quasi-legal:

Probably the Society for Printing Compulsory Labelling. There's usually a pressure group involved. But none of the TV adverts I see urge you to buy fuel at a specific place or of a particular brand. No-one I know is ever going to buy fuel just because it is advertised if they don't own a car, and what happens to those extolling the green virtues of the company's research into making fuel from algae?

I agree, and I would therefore prohibit the advertising of such facilities. I would also use the planning system to discourage excessive provision of amusement arcades, betting shops and similar facilities.
A pre-existing amusement arcade or betting shop within a reasonable distance, should IMO be a reason to oppose the granting of planning consent for additional similar facilities.

I hope you have more success than Public Health had trying to restrict fast food outlets near schools.