[MCN] Pro-windpower Superbowl ad attacked by fossil fuels industry

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpt : The pro-wind power Budweiser ad that Anheuser-Busch will air during the Super Bowl on Sunday is being attacked by the fossil fuel industry. 

The Kentucky Coal Association is among the groups attacking the Budweiser ad <https://kentuckycoal.com/anheuser-busch-should-pull-its-deceptive-super-bowl-commercial/>, which has already racked up nearly 14 million views on YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6VciSoR1iQ>. Their attack was echoed by the website ClimateDepot.com <https://blog.ucsusa.org/gretchen-goldman/peabody-energy-discloses-extensive-payments-to-climate-denial-groups>, a project of a coal-backed group called the Committee for Constructive Tomorrow <https://blog.ucsusa.org/gretchen-goldman/peabody-energy-discloses-extensive-payments-to-climate-denial-groups>. 

“Wind never felt better,” the Budweiser ad says. “Now brewed with wind power for a better tomorrow.” 

The first volley came from the American Energy Alliance <https://www.americanenergyalliance.org/2019/01/budweiser-thinks-its-customers-are-gullible-fools/> just one day after Anheuser-Busch announced the ad <https://www.anheuser-busch.com/newsroom/2019/01/budweiser-clydesdales-deliver-a-wind-powered-message-on-this-yea.html>. It described Budweiser’s pro-wind power statement as a “joke.” 

The American Energy Alliance is the “advocacy arm” of the Institute for Energy Research. Together these affiliated political groups have received millions of dollars from the Koch brothers <https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-kochs-climate-20161205-story.html>, as well as money from the coal industry <https://www.energyandpolicy.org/peabody-energy-funding-climate-denial-anti-renewable-energy/>. 

The attack was soon joined by Kevon Martis, an anti-wind activist with ties to the Institute for Energy Research <https://www.masterresource.org/general-problems/speaking-truth-to-wind-power-ier/> and other groups funded by polluting industries. 

Martis posted a video on Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/orville.fontucus/videos/2551321364882941/> in which he protested the Budweiser ad by dumping a can of the company’s beer on the ground. Martis said in the video that he is the director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition, a Michigan-based anti-wind group. 

https://www.energyandpolicy.org/budweiser-wind-power-ad/ <https://www.energyandpolicy.org/budweiser-wind-power-ad/>

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“That social influences shape every person’s practices, judgments and beliefs is a truism to which anyone will readily assent."

“How, and to what extent, do social forces constrain people’s opinions and attitudes? This question is especially pertinent in our day.”

Solomon E. Asch. Opinions and Social Pressure.

Scientific American. November 1955

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“Thirty-five years ago, Yale psychologist Irving Janis published an essay in the Yale Alumni Magazine explaining how a group of intelligent people working together to solve a problem can sometimes arrive at the worst possible answer.”

"Members consider loyalty to the group the highest form of morality.”

“Nobody today says, My area is groupthink. But what emerged subsequent to groupthink was an area called "judgment and decision making," which is one of the most important areas in all of psychology. In fact Danny Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize based on his research into how rational people make irrational decisions.

Philip Zimbardo '59PhD
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stanford University

https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/1947/a-brief-history-of-groupthink





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