Cambridge, Massachusetts, has become the first US city to mandate the placing of stickers on fuel pumps to warn drivers of the resulting dangers posed by the climate crisis.
The final design of the bright yellow stickers, shared with the Guardian, includes text that warns drivers the burning of gasoline, diesel and ethanol has “major consequences on human health and the environment including contributing to climate change”.
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The simple text of the warning stickers is relatively staid compared to versions envisioned by climate campaigners. In a legal complaint lodged against oil giant BP, the environmental non-profit ClientEarth included mockups that showed a forest on fire with a stark list of the disastrous impacts caused by global heating.
More graphic, visceral warnings would influence people in the way that confronting pictures of gum disease and heart failure on cigarette packets forced many to acknowledge the harm to health caused tobacco, advocates say.
Jamie Brooks of the campaign group Beyond the Pump said he pushed for warning text that read: “Continuing to burn gasoline (or diesel) worsens the climate emergency, with major projected impacts on your health increasing over time.”
“Labels are designed to create a feeling like someone has broken a rule or violated a law,” Brooks said. “This feeling, along with increased social pressure, like smoking labels, can translate to a collapse in trust for the current system, thereby increasing the public appetite for alternatives.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/25/massachusetts-city-to-post-climate-change-warning-stickers-at-gas-stations