Oil lobbies and the Metaphor of the Frog in Boiling Water
This morning, reading the online edition of the Financial Times, I came across an advertising banner that reminded me of the metaphor of the frog in boiling water. For those of you who don't know it, the story goes that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water the frog will leap out immediately and thus survive, but if you put it in cold water and heat it gradually enough, the frog will die because it won't understand when to leap out. .
It's a metaphor that's often used to explain humanity's incapacity to react quickly to the deterioration of the environment: since it's happening slowly, and since radical action would go against a great many interests, we end up repeatedly putting off the moment of jumping out of the pot. Just like the frog.
The fossil fuel lobby is very powerful. In America, as in many other countries. And in face of the gust of green that has been blowing in the last few years, it's reacting in its own way. It does so with force, when it can, and with actions that often escape the notice of many, but also with communication. As in the case of the banner that I saw this morning, of which I'll show you here below just the main three images.
The problem is that the frog in this case is made up of seven billion people, grouped together by interests, work, cities, nations, associations, each with their own interests to defend. And I really can't imagine how it will find the courage to overcome all these conflicting interests to jump out of the boiling pot.
