Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus
WASHINGTON — The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”
The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.
Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.
Asked about the summary, ecoAmerica’s president and founder, Robert M. Perkowitz, requested that it not be reported until the formal release of the firm’s full paper later this month, but acknowledged that its wide distribution now made compliance with his request unlikely.
The research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to “green” their images with consumers and sway public policy.
Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”
The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”
“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.
Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration in the hope of using the findings to change the terms of the debate now under way in Washington.
Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.
Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”
He said the approach was cynical and, worse, ineffective. “The right uses it, the left uses it, but it doesn’t engage people in a face-to-face manner,” he said, “and that’s the only way to achieve real, lasting social change.”
Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant, prepared a strikingly similar memorandum in 2002, telling his clients that they were losing the environmental debate and advising them to adjust their language. He suggested referring to themselves as “conservationists” rather than “environmentalists,” and emphasizing “common sense” over scientific argument.
And, Mr. Luntz and Mr. Perkowitz agree, “climate change” is an easier sell than “global warming.”
I want the language back. I want my freedom back. I want my country back. And I want the thieves off my back.
Mike
“Propaganda is the dissemination of information aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of people. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, often presents information primarily in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
–Mike Ramsey
Anthony,
Have a look at this video that destroys further increase of temperatures due to the Greenhouse effect:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/05/miklos-zagoni-explains-miskolczis.html
I think it is a killer.
I looked at that video, came away with the greenhouse factor of 1/3, and that the C02 induced change resembled the TSI, which is quite similar, and equally insignificant.
So, we are back to albedo, high & low pressure cells, ocean temps and whatever the sun decides to dish out. All in a constant state of dynamic roiling.
So what has got Al Gore all heated up?
Gas. He wants to sell Green Gas. And outlaw the competition.
Sounds like LeGoreistic Monopoly to me.
Coveting thy neighbors service stations.
You can make a buck, just like your neighbor.
But you can’t take your neighbor’s buck.
If his Green Gas is so great, why the fear of the competition?
Ah, so we come to newspeak. It goes along nicely with the doublethink already well entrenched in this debate (cooling = warming, more ice = warming, etc.).
As I said time and again fanatics tend to defeat themselves by simply showing themselves to be what they are, which is well fanatical, then they get marginalized and spend 10 years re-branding and try it again.
When you are losing ground and you are right and have some good data and real arguments you stay the course and just keep getting out in the trenches. When you are bereft of data and arguments and losing ground you simply try and re-shape the debate or change the vocabulary in an effort to deceive.
Ultimately it is easy to tell which side is full of roses* and which is not.
* You can call a turd a rose, but everyone knows it is SH#T.
I have a few suggestions for the AGW wordsmiths.
1) Whatever subject comes up, global warming, sea ice, co2… just say, “Oh, it’s bad it’s really bad.”
2) If any comment comes up about taxes or increased costs… just say, “Oh, don’t worry, evil oil companies and utility companies will pay for all those investments.”
3) If anyone questions the science… just say, “Oh, the National Academy of Sciences provides good assessments of the science and distinguishes between science and pseudoscience.”
4) At the end of the discussion… just say, “Oh, the only thing we care about is your welfare, don’t ever forget that we are here to help.”
5) Don’t forget to smile… alot!
Here is a conumdrum for the AGW proponent team.
What is the distinction between “Consensus” and “Groupthink”? Or are they synonyms?
And on a deeper level.
[1] What is the point of having clear distinctions between words?
[2] Does the loss of clear distinctions between words empower or disempower Individual choice and action?
[3] Who’s interests are best served by reframing the terms of a discourse, where that reframing has been,
(a) Initiated by those holding authority, and
(b) conducted and implemented in secret.
[4 – given 3 above] How does the reframing of “Global Warming” into other terms that do not carry negative emotional freight, serve the interests of Free, and Self Responsible Citizens of a Free Society.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Newspeak.
Mark
This may be a more than a year old, but it says it all … Al Gore’s next act: Planet-saving VC
I recall my utter indignation when I first encountered the term ‘denier’, but it was only a matter of months before I was quite happy to call myself one. In fact, sceptic/skeptic seems almost apologetic now. I’ve noticed that many others in this camp are equally comfortable wearing the epithet like a gaudy necktie.
It’s not my impression that many warmers can stand to call themselves warmers, which is funny, ‘cos that’s what they are!
Ellie in Belfast (09:50:43) :
E.M Smith: “Tax and Charade” – very good.
Oh, thank you! It works best with the American pronunciation of “Shi Raid” as opposed to the UK pronunciation of “Shaw rod”…
“Tax and Tirade” may have been a typo but is almost as good.
Not a typo, but I’ve used if for a while as a pseudo-typo where I wanted to slip something in without being too obvious…
BTW, any attempt to recast this issue as “climate change” will be met with a variety of difficult to deal with responses:
“Oh? What is the correct stable point and how will you stop weather from changing? You can’t? Oh. OK, when does weather become climate and how will you hold climate constant if you don’t control the weather?”
“When has climate not changed? It’s getting colder now, so shouldn’t we be making it warmer? Oh, it’s getting warmer even though it’s colder? So it is global warming that’s the issue? ”
“Who’s going to be in charge of setting the climate? Will we get to vote on what to set it to? I’d like it if you didn’t let it rain on the weekends. Oh. When then, can you make it rain where the droughts are please…”
Never underestimate the power of stupid… “Climate Change” lets me stupid up the conversation to the point where they won’t know if they are coming or going…
“If you’re going to be controlling the climate can you make it like Hawaii here? I’d like that more.” “Oh, but if you can’t control the climate how can you control climate change?” and back to “So it’s not change, it’s warming that’ really the issue? Then why was the name changed?”
It’s all been a terrible mistake.
It set out as ‘global worming’ a health project to rid less developed areas of the World of intestinal parasites. But like “blessed are the cheese-makers” in the Sermon on the Mount in Life of Brian, these phrases have a tendency to evolve as they are relayed.
Smokey:-)
Nail on the head. They’ve claimed warming from CO2 produced by mankind, (including them I hasten to add) don’t ever let them get away with changing their tune to suit their next failed argument.
I say to you all, go to NumberWatch, click ENTER, click Vocabulary. Global Warming = Scary story for grown-ups. Climate Change = Heads I Win Tails You Lose version of Global Warming! It’s warming or nothing at all. Don’t let them get away with squirming out of it. Make them stick to their primary argument of warming regardless of what they sat otherwise.
The primary AGW tenet is that “Man Made Emissions of CO2 Cause Catastrophic Global Warming”.
Paul R
Very pertinent. It matters not one wit the ideology of those weilding power, guaranteed they will twist language to serve their purposes.
Ron de Haan (18:49:44) :
Anthony,
Have a look at this video that destroys further increase of temperatures due to the Greenhouse effect:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/05/miklos-zagoni-explains-miskolczis.html
I think it is a killer.
Good post.
I first read Miskolczi’s paper a year ago. http://met.hu/idojaras/IDOJARAS_vol111_No1_01.pdf
I’ll warn you that it is not an easy read for the non-specialist. But after reading the paper and working through the math myself I had an eureka moment; CO2 based global warming is physically impossible!
Nobody has refuted this peer reviewed paper. I reasoned that, armed with Dr. Miskolczi’s results, scientist would have little choice but to oppose anthropogenic global warming.
I am still waiting for the majority of people who call themselves scientist to show a little backbone and stand up for what has been scientifically demonstrated and if not then to prove why not by refuting Dr. Miskolczi’s work. Refusing to do either proves that they are apparatchiki and not scientist. BTW, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt by saying “apparatchiki” rather than “gutless cowards”.
–Mike Ramsey
A number of earlier posting correctly associated the attempt to remarket AGW using new words and phrases as “Orwellian”.
“Robert Kral (09:14:57) : This is straight out of George Orwell.”
And “Kirk W. Hanneman (20:10:15) :
Ah, so we come to newspeak. It goes along nicely with the doublethink already well entrenched in this debate (cooling = warming, more ice = warming, etc.).”
For those who have not yet mastered “Newspeak”, it would be instructive to hear George Orwell lay out its principles.
In this portion of his essay, I simply substituted “Ecospeak” for “Newspeak”, and “ ArtGlow” (Anthropogenic Global Warming) for “Ingsoc” (English Socialism)
The purpose of EcoSpeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of ArtGlow, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when EcoSpeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of ArtGlow — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.
To give a single example – The word free still existed in EcoSpeak, but could only be used in such statements as “The dog is free from lice” or “This field is free from weeds.” It could not be used in its old sense of “politically free” or “intellectually free,” since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive.
EcoSpeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
The total essay is listed at:
http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/
all his lot seemed to have done was to get shamelessly wealthy from the cancer trade].
Well that’s a little unfair. They also made a lot of money in the awl bidness.
With regards to Miskolczi’s paper, and “Miklos Zagoni explains Miskolczi’s theory”:
Doing a quick Google doesn’t really give any answers to this. There appears to be few scientific (peer) reviews of the paper, which either means (a) it’s not worth reviewing, (b) it’s pointedly being ignored, or (c) some other reason.
There are a few bloggers/physicists who tend to refute the paper, indicating several flaws, so tends to (unfortunately) indicate that it’s avoided because it isn’t worth reading. I can do sum (sic) math myself but that’s a bit heavy duty for me.
The googlesphere has really dumbed people down – they now live in sound bytes(tm) and a Twitteresque state of mind. If you can’t say it in 140 characters, it’s not worth my time…
Great piece Smokey (at 14:54:24).
From Frank K. (16:38:08) :
Remember how fast Cryosphere Today responded to George Will? Where are they now when the President states:
“…just in a few years, during the summer, there won’t be any ice in the Arctic, something we have never seen before.”
Where’s the press release? Where’s the op ed? Where are Mark Serreze and Walt Meier?
They have become, perhaps unknowingly, appartchiki, infected with the worm of corruption that without remedial attention will continue to grow.
It is essential that those of us who have resisted this infection and continue to debate the issues on their merits and not their political ramifications, continue to fight the good fight. The first weapon in this fight, cited by several posters above, is never let the AGW proponents forget that their whole argument is based on CO2=AGW. All of the money-making schemes, the real driver of the AGW movement are predicated on this identity. Live by the hockey-stick and die by the hockey stick.
The shift to the designation “climate change” is a backdoor escape hatch. Consider the literal implication that man significantly influences “climate change” and that this influence has so far been mostly bad. This implies that man can control the climate. That notion gives birth to many ludicrous rationalizations, not the least of which is that we can avoid the specter of unintended consequences. It requires that some agency determine what is ideal…warmer, colder, wetter, drier? And if one were to alter the climate to an ideal(!?) condition in one location, what does that do for the rest of the World?
The whole concept is absurd.
A long time ago it became obvious to many long-time climate scientists, especially those with no skin in the game, that the CO2=AGW identity was untenable. It quickly became obvious that the reason for promoting this hypothesis was as simple as that seminal quote from W. Mark Felt, AKA “Deep Throat” in All the President’s Men:
“Follow the Money”.
“Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
All of which means in Madison Ave. speak – “our current campaign has failed.” And their best professional spinning advice is to back out of the quagmire without looking like thieves, liars or crooks. Good luck with that.
I was going to give my favorite euphemisms for discussions, but the politics of them would derail the thread.
One thing I forgot to mention above is that when the whole AGW fiasco crashes and burns, the ones holding the bag…the scape-goats, will be the Science Community. “They should have known better”. The tragedy will be that many scientists did know better, but reputation, prestige and academic encomiums were too seductive to maintain one’s integrity.
The politicians, rain-makers and their apostles will simply move-on to the next great scam.
E M Smith’s “Tax & Charade” inspired me … how about “C*ap & Parade”…
It’s what Smokey describes:
If the AGW fraudsters had told the truth about the very minuscule effect of a minor trace gas on the planet, then any conjecture about atmospheric CO2 would have been an inconsequential footnote in a few obscure journals…
But they lied. They lied in order to get their hands deep into the pockets of taxpayers…
Hold their feet to the fire. When someone says “deteriorating atmosphere,” remind them: No, that’s just your old CO2=AGW claim, morphing into your latest cry of “Wolf!!” We don’t buy it. You have cried “Wolf!” too many times: Coral bleaching. Hurricanes. Malaria. Sea level. Ocean acidification. Receding glaciers. The ozone hole. Greenland melting. Nuclear winter. Global warming. And every single time it’s turned out to be a false alarm.
John F. Hultquist (17:17:17) :
Sorry for the confusion. Mencken wasn’t referring to either Gore Sr or Jr. He made that crack back in the 1930’s (I think) when Gore Jr wasn’t even a gleam in Gore Sr’s eye. I should have separated the sentences into paragraphs to make it clearer.
Mencken was just talking about people in general and no one in particular although I wish that he was still around to look at the AGW weirdness today. I’m sure he would have a few even more stinging remarks about human intelligence.