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People can't do numbers. It's why popular science books stick to pictures and colourful metaphors.
If you're writing about the environment you face a still bigger challenge. Many people either wouldn't believe or wouldn't care about the numbers even if they understood them. This is not simply because of the anti-environmental propaganda pushed so hard over the last few years, but because the problems we are talking about will take place too far in the future (i.e. 'not in my lifetime' given a bit of luck).
What matters most is developing arresting images and metaphors that will make an achievable action memorable. For example, owning an average German Shepherd dog results in more than twice as much CO2 as an average SUV (Robert and Brenda Vale, Time to Eat the Dog). This is because of the amount of meat it eats and because of the agricultural practices used to produce that meat. A cat, incidentally, is roughly equivalent to a VW Golf..
Now, the idea that Rover kills twice as many polar bears as the Chelsea Tractor is an arresting one. It could form the launching pad for many different messages: support organic farming; eat less meat; buy veggie dog food... the point here is that talking vaguely about 'saving the planet' (a fatuous message given that the 'planet' will be fine) does not begin to compete with a single striking, memorable image.
Environmental marketing depends on the fact that most people still have a conscience and on giving those people messages they can relate to and act upon. If you are writing for an organisation that has an emphasis on good environmental conduct, talk to the people doing the actual work and find out between you what might look best as a Daily Mail headline.
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