[Drafted with Jeremy Brecher]
To talk of climate change or not to talk of climate change -- that is the question.
For the last several years many of the biggest players in the climate movement have argued that to save the planet we need to purge the words "global warming" and "climate change" from our talking points and educational materials. Poll-oriented groups like the Breakthrough Institute and the Environmental Defense Fund argue that public opinion surveys prove Americans care most about jobs and lack the capacity to act on some distant threat.
They maintain that instead of being prophets of doom, climate protection advocates should gather around a "good news" agenda that limits our messaging to green jobs, national pride, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. "Forget about climate change" Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, explained to a gathering of environmentalists last year. Just ask people "Do you love America?"
Eerily, the "good news" strategy is heavily influenced by the Republican pollster and messaging maven Frank Luntz -- infamous for coining phrases like "death tax." In 2009 the Environmental Defense Fund teamed up with Luntz 's firm The Word Doctors to figure out how to help marshal public support for a climate bill. Luntz's advice? "The least important component of climate change is climate change... You're fighting the wrong battle. What they want is an end to dependence on foreign oil."
This is the same Frank Luntz who has long been advising the Republican party on how to grind climate policy to a halt. In 2002 he authored an influential memo advising Republicans to greenwash their public image while sowing public confusion about climate change. Republicans should "continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate" because otherwise, he warned, "[s]hould the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly."
Both political parties took Luntz's advice. Democrats and their allies began calling their climate bill the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act." They stopped highlighting the economic and environmental implications of failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions. To hear them speak there was no climate crisis, only promises of green jobs and energy independence. Meanwhile, Republicans and their forces of climate denial talked about climate change all the time. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck obsessively ridiculed Al Gore during snow storms and profiled "experts" who denied the existence of climate change.
So what was the effect of climate activists' decision to stop talking about climate change? The enemies of the planet won. Climate legislation is dead. The US has not cut emissions, created millions of new climate-protecting green jobs, or reduced dependence on foreign oil. Not talking about climate change has failed to reap even modest wins for the climate movement -- let alone save the planet.
And possibly the most damning of all: Public concern about climate has plummeted in direct correlation with the "stop talking about climate change" strategy. In 1998, before Al Gore tirelessly began traveling the country with his doom and gloom slideshow, only 50% if the country considered climate change a major worry. By 2008, a year after Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize, two-thirds of Americans said they "worry a great deal or fair amount about climate change." In 2009 Frank Luntz instructed environmentalists to stop talking about climate change, and by March 2011, the number of people concerned about the climate had dropped back down to 51%.
It is time to stop trying to save the planet by silence about what threatens it. The climate movement needs to start telling the inconvenient truth again. Richard Wiles, co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, writing recently about his own struggle with climate denial, observed that "what's worse" than climate denial: "the other lie I've discovered in the process. It's the lie that I'm telling. It's the lie that we all tell to our children and each other when we don't talk about climate disruption. It's the lie of us all pretending that everything will be OK."
Beyond an ethical aversion to lying, there are hard-nosed political reasons why the forces of climate protection need to keep ringing the climate alarm bell.
The real "good news" is that there are climate activist groups like 350.org and the 1Sky Campaign that never bought into the Frank Luntz's school of climate politics. They kept sounding the alarm about the climate crisis. These are the folks who organized a global day of action with 5,200 rallies from Mt. Everest to the Great Barrier Reef in what CNN called "the most widespread day of political action on the planet."
Of course we should keep talking about green jobs and reduced dependence on foreign oil -- in fact we need to be presenting a robust vision for how to build a more just and sustainable future. And of course we need to avoid scaring people into despair. But that doesn't require us to be silent in the face of an existential threat. It is as true as ever that silence equals consent.
Rabbi Lawrence Troster: 10 Teachings on Judaism and the Environment
He thinks Mr Gore got it a bit wrong, and he is quite annoyed about it.
Rush to Use Crops as Fuel Raises Food Prices and Hunger Fears
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/science/earth/07cassava.html?_r=1&src=twr
I guess that's one way for the radical myopic environmentalists to achieve the population reduction they crave. Its easy for those of you in luxurious and prosperous economies (relatively speaking) to sit back in complete comfort and spread the global warming lies because you're not on the receiving end of the misery and suffering that expensive and limited access to energy resources cause.
Informed people can only hope that as a result of the November elections we have enough rational and ethical politicians in the legislative branch to strip the EPA of the funding and power they intend to use to destroy our economy and our future. Hopefully someday soon we can get enough informed politicians into office to bring the leaders of the global warming scam up on criminal charges. Put a few of them in prison and we will finally achieve an end to the greatest scam in world history.
That is vague, broad, and accusatory. It helps no one increase his understanding.
Global Warming is not caused by Carbon Dioxide.
Again, too broad, and only hurts rhetorically.
Global Warming is caused by Fossil Carbon.
Global Warming is caused by Old Fossil Energy Technology.
What do practically all legislative/policy solutions try to do? They try to decrease fossil fuel use. Why is that the case unless FOSSIL CARBON is the problem?
If FOSSIL CARBON is the problem, why do we say "man-made" or "carbon", giving critics the rhetorical guns to shoot us with!?
Truly I say fossil carbon is the problem because other sources of carbon in the atmosphere are 'naturally' offset. Remember offsets? Well, these are good "offsets", because they are automatic, not a financial construct. Non-fossil emissions cancel themselves out because offsets are built in.
Breathing, burning wood or biofuel, burning cow flatulence or landfill gas--all this releases carbon that was captured RECENTLY. There is circumstantial pressure felt to release it no faster than it is captured.
Burning fossil fuel releases carbon that was captured thousands or MILLIONS of years ago. Circumstances do not keep us from burning fossil fuel much faster than it was captured.
Greens are not anti-technology. They are anti-old fossil technology. Govt has before and must continue to spur the market to new technology faster than laissez-faire would.
- Avoid name calling. Terms such as warmist, alarmist or tree hugger do nothing to promote mature discussion and as for those who toss out lefty or pinko, all I can say is, the fifties called and they want their clichés back.
- Since the issue is about science, then please refer to real science, the kind that is published by national scientific academies or organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science or the American Geophysical Union
- Finally if the theory of AGW is some kind of a left wing socialist plot, then please explain why conservative, left of center governments in France, Germany and the UK are taking the issue as seriously as they are and are genuinely trying to reduce their countries' CO2 emissions
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/Muller%20Testimony%20rev2.pdf
We have also studied station quality. Many US stations have low quality rankings
according to a study led by Anthony Watts. However, we find that the warming seen in
the “poor” stations is virtually indistinguishable from that seen in the “good” stations.
We are developing statistical methods to address the other potential biases.
I suggest that Congress consider the creation of a Climate-ARPA to facilitate the study of
climate issues.
Based on the preliminary work we have done, I believe that the systematic biases that are
the cause for most concern can be adequately handled by data analysis techniques. The
world temperature data has sufficient integrity to be used to determine global temperature
trends.
Meanwhile, based on our arrogance, coupled with ignorance and denial, it is unlikely that there will be any major human efforts to take precautions against something which we cannot see or touch, and which may not materialize for a generation. Instead, like the people of Easter Island, we will wait until catastrophe is directly upon us. Then, we will scramble to build sea walls and levees, crank up renewable energy, develop drought resistant foods, and relocate a billion people from low-lying and drought areas. Or not.
Meanwhile, as we run out of drinking water, can’t afford food, face mass starvation and accompanying illnesses, fight multiple wars for precious resources, and turn on our neighbors, we will finally get it. Or not.
Surely, some will see at the last minute that what is happening to us is the same thing that has happened to other societies that have exceeded the carrying capacity of their environment – extinction. See for example:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/humans-will-be-extinct-100-years-fenner
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
A research organization
Excellent Post.
You comment would indicate you wish that I had remained silent on the subject, in case I might trigger a “self-fulfilling prophesy”.
My point is that we are headed for extinction because we are an arrogant/ignorant species that lives in denial. Your comment reinforces my point.
Keeping silent about a potential catastrophe is the ultimate in denial. Keeping silent on the basis that “somebody is listening” and our statements may lead to catastrophe is the ultimate in arrogance. Who do we think we are that our comments could possibly have any influence on nature? We are a legend in our own minds, totally insignificant in the big picture.
We are so arrogant we think the fate of our species is somehow the fate of the planet. In our absence, nature has millions of years to cleanse herself of our legacy, regenerate, create millions of new species, and perhaps evolve an improved human model. One could speculate that our demise would be a boon to every other living thing.
What are YOU talking about!? The ONLY reason there is NO action on this issue is the well funded smear campaign being waged by vested monied industries to create doubt and confusion in the general publics perception & outlook. Theredare plenty of folks speaking out, namely Dr James Hansen and Bill McKibben.
Their character is being attacked and questioned by the above. I noticed this during the months before the Copenhagen summit and how convenient those stolen emails were laid out to the press, which have now been found NOT to have altered any data, just folks talking badly!
Unfortunately, time has all ran out, Chima and India have already entered the industrial age and that means a massive amount of carbon coming in the years ahead!
~
"Geologic records show that Ice Ages are the norm, punctuated by brief periods of warming. Now one of the most highly respected paleoclimatologists has weighed in and is warning everyone to prepare for a new Ice Age..."
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7469&linkbox=true&position=2
"...The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid..."
~
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/the_next_ice_age.html
"...We live in a world that is constantly changing in a million different ways. We may enter an ice age or a warming period. We may dodge asteroids and we may avoid the collapse of the West Coast into the Pacific. Whatever our unpredictable future, only one thing is sure: man, the adaptable and rugged animal, guided by his own initiative and enterprise is the answer. Politically correct science and earth-worshiping priests are not..."
The far right can use it as a political ploy to seduce the ignorant just so long. As we head into uncharted territory with C02 levels- not seen in perhaps 20 million years- and sustained over time- with those levels heading further into the extremely dangerous zone- we shall see that science triumphs, as it always will, the small minded can sit in their flooded cities.
say goodbye
It has never, and will never be about change. It is rather about RATE of change, and our ability to adapt. While you and the overlords that program your thought are gambling on the hopes that, against all odds, things will be fine (actually, they think their money will protect them), the reality is that we're messing up the planet and rendering it less productive and more destructive.
In plain English, this means the exploding population is going to hit the wall of reduced resources. That will throw us back into the caves, and hard. Your buddies on wall street have already demonstrated how good they are at casino games with your money. Now you want us to do the same with our very lives.
You must be a proud human being.
Did anyone really think the oil, coal and utilities industries would simply let their profitable and well-protected industries be transformed without a fight? Or that winning would be easy just because we have the facts?
The seeds of destruction of any disinformation campaign is exposure. The online trolling on any news story or person associated with climate change itself offers an opportunity to expose lies and distortions about science while exposing the shills and front groups crafting the lies, and linking both to the moneyed interests funding the disinformation campaign.
People are finally waking up to the fact that the GOP cares more about serving the interests of their plutocrat patrons than serving the public, after hearing Wisconsin's governor currying favor with "Koch" in Scott Walker's personalized version of "Punked." Link them to the truth:
http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2045930493-0504.html
http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001330.php
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/07/naomi-oreskes-book-talk-merchants-of-doubt-how-a-handful-of-scientists-obscure-the-truth-about-climate-change/
http://dirtyenergymoney.com/
This outrage must be exposed, and stopped.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/07/naomi-oreskes-book-talk-merchants-of-doubt-how-a-handful-of-scientists-obscure-the-truth-about-climate-change/
This is perhaps the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard.
Arguing with the people is pretty much a waste of energy (the people will not freak out about this until it is way too late)- What is needed is backing by the insurance and energy sectors because they actually have the ability to change policy in Washington.
Climate is no different. The waters will be rising, and some f0ol will be reaching for his/her/its bib//e to see how many of each animal they should be shoving into the canoe with them.
If you are the sort of person who can simply IGNORE such hard facts data then you have no right to expect to be taken seriously in a scientific debate. Amazingly, most skeptics ignore these records too. They like to debate too much, mostly about statistics. Haters abound on both sides!
But it is easy to see why folks could be fooled by such a graphic and why it is spread by the deniers
This is a demonstrably false claim. The Koch brothers pour millions of their own money into AGCC denial. Prince Bin Al Taweed owns a big chunk of FOX. Guess what his business is?
And these are only two people. It is a shame that you would be so indelicate as to hurl insults at a genuine scientist while simultaneously making such outlandish and easily debunked claims.
But this "false public debate" also contains the key to winning against the disinformation. Link the false arguments to their sources within the PR apparatus of the fossil fuel lobby and the right wing, and expose the money trail to the deniers feeding misinformation and campaign dollars to the deniers in congress. The concern trolls that peddle the "don't give bad news" meme are partly right. Don't JUST give the bad news. Point out that the solution also builds our economy and improves public health. Point out that the fossil fuel lobby is defrauding the public and corrupting politicians to protect their interests at our expense. Outrage spurs action, as does hope.