The Power of Marketing

In light of the recent tragic events in Japan, here is a graphic that will challenge your perception of reality.

I know it challenged mine.

For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced…

I think that any time reality doesn’t match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved. Perhaps it was advertising, or perhaps deliberate story telling by an industry. Or perhaps it was just the stories we tell one another in our daily lives. It’s sort of amazing, even to me, how much marketing colors the way we see the world–our reaction (either way) to this chart is proof of it.

Marketing is indeed a powerful force.

Via Seth Godin