“This Is Mind Control To Major Tom:” Leftist Propaganda Ministry Issues Pamphlet Ordering “Global Warming” Name-Change Scam

H/T Pat Dollard.

The New York Times:
 
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.”

Big Government is the Answer! Just Look at these Headlines

If you are a fan of Big Government, it looks like Obama is your man....

.....if you wonder how we are going to pay for it???????

Never mind, we will just print more money, that works doesn't it?

# Commission Urges Obama to Enforce Fair Housing

# Obama’s ‘New Deal’ Not Likely to Cure Economy or Unemployment Rate, Free Market Economists Say

# President-Elect Obama Will Meet with Al Gore to Discuss Climate Change

# Obama Urged to Create Anti-Hacker Office in White House

# Obama Will Help Homeowners Facing Foreclosure

# Obama Helping to Bail Hillary Out of Her Campaign Debt Before She Becomes Secretary of State

My polar bear rant!

by Roger Metzger

  Given the many things the media clamors about these days, polar bears may seem relatively unimportant.

   But a Department of Interior decision today demonstrates illogical thinking in high places and I can’t let it pass without a rant. I know Cyber Pastor’s friend at Arctic Power will be able to delineate things far better than this attempt.

 Attempt, I must, however. The federal government’s act designating the polar bear as “threatened” – a step short of the contemplated “endangered species” action – is important to all of us.    And it may embolden Al Gore to stick his head up for air. Increasingly, media publicity has been quoting scientists as saying there’s been no global warming in at least a decade. In fact, recent science suggests we may be in for 12 to 18 years of cooling … something taken so seriously that even some global warming alarmists are referring to that possibility as a “deviation.”

  Back to our polar bear … a creature whose numbers have increased by five times in the past 30-plus years.    Our Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is quoted today as saying “dramatic declines in sea ices over the last three decades and projections of continued losses” mean the polar bear is “likely” in danger of extinction in the near future.

  News reports say Kempthorne appeared at a press conference “armed with slides and charts showing the dramatic decline in sea ice over the last 30 years and projections the melting of ice – a key habitat for the bear – would continue and may even quicken.”     Three things fascinate me at this point.

1.      Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States entered an international agreement on conservation of polar bears back in the mid-‘70s. That international coalition is not quoted in any material I’ve seen as sounding the alarm about the bears dying.

2.       Even the Interior Secretary acknowledges the polar bear population has climbed to 25,000 within the same time frame when he says sea ice has made a “dramatic decline.”

3.      While the Internet is drowning in reports that our polar bears are doomed and the sea ice is disappearing, it didn’t take me long to find a Science News report of last week that says Department of Interior research on global warming as a reason for listing the polar bear “is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify” that action. That article, based on study to be published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, cited scientists who said only 10 to 15 percent of relevant forecasting principles were used. Also, I quickly found another seemingly valid counterpoint from the National Snow & Ice Data Center. A report last October from that agency indicated sea ice is again growing, but wouldn’t “get above the September 20-21, 2005 minimum” until later last October.

     Unless I just don’t comprehend English, that means we had a lot more to worry about with melting sea ice 2 ½ years ago than we do now. Sounds like the Doc saying, “You had a pretty bad wound back in ’05 but it’s sure looking a lot better now.”

    Of course, much of the global warming alarmism is based on “what if.” Recently there was a television show with outstanding photography of Alaska, depicting “scientific” teams going “where no man has gone before” to study various life forms. I quit watching because of instance after instance in which the “scientists” tried to guess what would happen “if thus and such occurs” – ifs all predicated on the theory of relentless global warming.

     So what, you may ask, is the reason for all this illogical posturing on behalf of the bear?      

     Sen. John Kerry is quoted today as saying the Department of Interior action is “a lifeline for our last remaining polar bears” but warned their survival hinges on limiting oil development in the Arctic.

    

     Then, here comes the bad news for all of us!
     

     Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Environment Committee, says the announcement of the new listing emphasizes the need to approve climate legislation that would limit the release of greenhouse gases and avert the future effects of climate change.
     

     Okay, folks, here’s the puzzling summary.
      -- Polar bears are gaining in numbers and we list ‘em as “threatened.”
      -- Various sources say the Arctic ice shelf is getting bigger, not smaller – bigger than it’s been in 2 ½ years at least. And our government is saying sea ice melt will “continue and may even quicken.”
      -- Growing scientific knowledge supports a process of global cooling, not warming, and we’re worried about ice melting.
      -- Legislators in Washington tell us they want to relieve our pain at the gas pump, yet they want to impose limits on greenhouse gases and climate change when the American public can’t be sure what that climate change really means. (What we can be sure of is that it’s not going to "save" us ... it's going to cost us lots of money.)