Thursday, March 22, 2012

Climate Shift: Green Groups Rebrand Global Warming Around Public Health

Yeah, that's it, it was the branding.
From Big Think:
Following the demise of cap and trade legislation, green group leaders acknowledged that despite spending several hundred million dollars to pass the bill, they were unable to create public demand for action in key Midwest Congressional districts and states.

"The community that tried to move a climate bill fundamentally lacks political power and doesn't have the ability to either deliver punishment or reward to members of Congress who don't vote for us," Kathleen Welch, a Washington-based philanthropy adviser told Politico in 2011. Her admission was echoed in statements by Fred Krupp, Bill McKibben and others.

Now, as Politico reports today, it appears that green groups led by the National Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club are seeking to address this weakness.  “We’re going to talk a lot about the health implications of dirty air,” Heather Taylor, director of NRDC’s political arm told Politico. “I think that the Midwest is one of those places where [there are] a million great clean energy stories, especially. And they’re not being told right now, because we’ve tended to be in other markets. That’s an area where we feel like it’s time to go tell those stories.” You can watch one of their TV ads emphasizing this message later in the post....MUCH MORE
It wasn't the fact that, after the Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution telling President Clinton not to sign the Kyoto Protocol (the vote was 95-0), the Carboñerós, everyone from Enron to the above mentioned NRDC to the Great Carbono himself, Al Gore, decided that the messaging approach should be to scare the hell out of people with a Parade of Horribles allegedly caused by global warming (here's the list through "C", NumbersWatch has the rest):

Afghan poppies destroyed, African holocaust, aged deaths, poppies more potent, Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, African aid threatenedaggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pockets, air pressure changesairport farewells virtual, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Alaskan towns slowly destroyed, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped, allergy increase, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream endamphibians breeding earlier (or not)anaphylactic reactions to bee stingsancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrinkAntarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk,   anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappearArctic tundra lost, Arctic warming (not), a rose by any other name smells of nothing, asteroid strike risk, asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty,   atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increasedBaghdad snow, Bahrain under waterbananas grow, barbarisation, bats decline beer and bread prices to soar, beer betterbeer worse, beetle infestation, beef shortagebet for $10,000, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billion homeless, billions face risk, billions of deathsbird loss accelerating, bird populations dying, bird strikes, bird visitors drop, birds confused, birds decline (Wales), birds driven north, birds face longer migrations, birds on long migrations threatenedbirds return early, birds shrink(Aus), birds shrink (USA), bittern boom ends, blackbirds stop singing, blackbirds threatened, Black Hawk downblizzards, blood contaminated, blue mussels return, borders redrawnbluetongue, brains shrink, brewers droop, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain one big city, Britain SiberianBritain's bananas, British monsoonbrothels struggle, brown Ireland, bubonic plagueBuddhist temple threatenedbuilding collapse, building season extension, bushfires,   butterflies move northbutterflies reeling, butterfly saved, carbon crimes, caribou decline, Cambodian sex trade fuelled, camel deathscancer, cancer deaths in England, cannibalismcataracts, caterpillar biomass shift, cave paintings threatenedchildhood insomnia, children's mental health, chocolate shortage, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increaseclownfish get lost, coast beauty spots lost, cockroach migration, cod go south,  coffee threatened, coffee berry borer, coffee berry disease, cold climate creatures survivecold spells, cold spells (Australia), colder waters  (Long Island), cold wave (India), cold weather (world), cold winters, computer models, conferences, conflict, conflict with Russiaconsumers foot the bill, coral bleaching, coral fish suffer, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrinkcoral reefs twilight cost of trillions, cougar attackscrabgrass menace cradle of civilisation threatened, creatures move uphill, crime increase, crocodile sex, crocodiles driven from water, crops devastated, crop failures increase, cross-breeding, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cryptococcal disease, curriculum changecyclones (Australia)...

With every Postdoc and their professor hustling research dollars by using a global warming hook it got so bad by 2006 that the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research put out a working paper titled "Is this climate porn?".

So yeah, it was the branding.