Ad campaign contends greenhouse effect is real

Ad campaign contends greenhouse effect is real

By Morgan Simmons
News-Sentinel staff writer

A Knoxville environmental group
announced Wednesday a television
campaign aimed at convincing the
public that the greenhouse effect is
real.

In a press conference on the Uni-
versity of Tennessee campus, the
Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Co-
alition said the new public service an-
nouncement will spotlight the kind of
natural disasters that may become
more frequent should global warming
continue.

"Climate changes is not what hap-
pens in faraway places, but what hap-
pens here in East Tennessee," said
Michelle Neal Conlon with the coali-
tion.

"The public service announcement
reminds us just how important our
climate is to our lives, and of the risk
we're taking if we continue to pollute
the atmosphere."

The 30-second announcement,
which has yet to air but is being
pitched to media markets around the
country, features footage of a recent
Red River flood in Grand Forks, N.D.;
the heat wave of the summer of 1995;
and other costly natural disasters of
the past decade.

Locally, the coalition cited the
Blizzard of 1994 and the Flood of
1995 — both of which proved costly to
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park — as violent weather patterns
caused by global warming.

Stephen Smith of the coalition said
the campaign is intended to raise pub-
lic awareness of global warming at a
time when industries are spending big
money to spread the message that cli-
mate change is not a problem.

"Polluting industries are using
phony scientific statements and
reports to convince us that climate
change isn't happening," Smith said.
"It's just like the tobacco companies
do with cigarettes."

Smith said that television public
service announcements are an at-
tempt to address the threat of global
warming before the world's nations
convene in Kyoto in December to ne-
gotiate an international agreement on
the threat of greenhouse gas emis-
sions.