Al Gore and a bunch of enviro groups have launched the “Reality” Coalition to tell the public there is no such thing as clean coal.
Their inaugural ad violates a central rule of messaging, rhetoric, and psychology: Don’t keep repeating a strong word the other side is trying to push.That is not just a basic tenet of the 25-century old art of persuasion, but a well-demonstrated principle of modern psychology. Here’s the ad:
“Clean” is a very strong word here for three reasons. First, it is short and simple — a key feature of effective rhetoric (see here). Second, GOP word guru Frank Luntz spent a lot of time and money test words and reported in his infamous Straight Talk memo:
The three words Americans are looking for in an environmental policy, they are “safer”, “cleaner”, and “healthier”.
Third, of course, “clean coal” uses one of the most memorable figures of speech, alliteration. That is perhaps redundant: The figures of speech were specifically designed to be memorable.
So if you want to destroy the clean coal myth, you don’t run an ad that repeats “clean coal” five times verbally and two times in writing.
I would have said the mistake in this ad is basic stuff, but even the sophisticated Obama team repeatedly made the same mistake (see here and here). So let me review again why you can’t debunk a myth by verbally repeating it, why linguist George Lakoff titled his best-selling book, Don’t think of an elephant.
Future historians will inevitably judge all 21st century presidents as failures if the world doesn’t stop catastrophic global warming.
If global warming exceeds 5°C (or even 3°C), then we will head inexorably toward an ice free planet with widespread desertification, sea levels rising 6 to 12 inches a decade for centuries, the oceans turning into a hot, acidic dead zone, and a billion or more environmental refugees (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction“). Historians (and every other human being) enduring such harsh misery will care little about Iraq, health care, an early 21st century recession, or the budget deficit.
Passing strong domestic climate legislation by itself cannot make Obama a successful president, let alone a great one, since we generate under one quarter of world CO2 emissions and are an even smaller fraction of future growth. To be a great president, Obama must bring the entire world together onto a sustainable path.
Shell’s Mad Men win the 2008 award for the most unintentionally ironic greenwashing ad. On Monday (and again today), Shell ran a full page ad in the Washington Post on carbon capture with this image:
Barack Obama has chosen cleantech and climate superstar Bill Richardson to be his Secretary of Commerce. That means “the voice of business in government” will be, for the first time in U.S. history, someone who is a champion of clean energy.
As a bonus, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be overseen by a champion of climate science. I briefly worked with Richardson at the department and can certainly attest that he gets it. Grist has his green credentials here.
I trust all those journalists and bloggers who wasted devoted time dissing the appointment of Gen. James Jones as National Security Advisor — even though NSA plays no significant role whatsoever in domestic energy or climate policy (see “Stuff I learned at DOE, Part 1: SOS trumps NSA (Hillary Clinton trumps Gen. Jones)” — will devote equal time to praising the appointment of Richardson to a post that is far more crucial to advocates of climate action.
OK, this isn’t entirely news to CP readers (see here). But the Energy Information Administration’s just released final report covers pretty much everything a climate junkie could possibly want to know about U.S. GHG emissions in 2007. The bottom line:
Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 were 1.4 percent above the 2006 total…. An increase in the carbon intensity of electricity generation … contributed to higher energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2007.
President Bush immediately released a statement:
We are effectively contributing to the problem of global climate change through flawed energy policy, obstructionist domestic and international climate policy, and general disinformation.
Okay, he didn’t release that statement, but he should have, given that after EIA revealed the temporary dip in 2006, he claimed:
As an important aside, the main reason emissions growth haven’t been even faster under Bush is that he’s had two economic slowdowns, 9/11 (which severely depressed air travel), record fossil fuel prices for much of his term, and a rapidly growing trade deficit with China. Had we manufactured in this country everything we actually consumed over the past seven years, the rate of growth of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would have been about 50% higher.
That is quite a record of economic/energy failure masquerading as an emissions reduction strategy [see “Give Bush some (perverse) credit for emissions drop“]. For most of last year we had to put up with nonsense from delayers about Bush’s successful climate policy compared to the rest of the world. In September 2007, the President actually said
The U.N. climate change body has suspended one of the largest auditors of clean energy projects under Kyoto Protocol, a move highlighting problems long aired by critics of the climate pact’s greenhouse gas trading scheme.
Norway’s DNV had their accreditation as project auditors suspended late last week for five “non-conformities” relating to its practices, the U.N. said after performing a spot check of the company’s operations in early November.
Speaking of euphemisms, if George Carlin were still alive I’m sure he’d add “non-conformities” to his famous list. DNV wasn’t fraudulent or incompetent. No. It’s just a misunderstood nonconformist. Fortunately, DNV isn’t a big player or central to the entire CDM process.
DNV is a major player in the $13 billion CDM market, having validated close to half of the projects registered by the U.N.
D’oh. Well, at least the non-conformities weren’t in areas central to CDM credibility, like, say project auditing and verification would be.
DNV said the non-conformities related to project auditing and verification procedures.
MSNBC has done a nice story on the Green Recovery event:
Carol Browner, head of the Obama-Biden transition’s energy and environment team, opened the doors to the public yesterday, leading a panel discussion on the convergence of energy, the environment and the economy. The discussion entitled “Green Recovery” was held at the left-leaning Center for American Progress and featured speakers Gov. Ed Rendell (D- PA), and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
Broadcast live online, the event gave a glimpse into the types of ideas and discussion on energy President-elect Obama promised would take place in his administration. Browner acted more as a moderator, fervently taking notes as Rendell and Friedman hashed out their perspectives. Friedman, who wrote a book on the subject, carried the audience into the “Hot, Flat and Crowded” world.
The car companies have come back to DC begging for money. But this time they have put on the table serious restructuring plans. At first glance, Ford’s (here) appears to me sounder than GM’s (here). I’m interested in your opinions.
Assuming we believe they will do what they say, the reports reveal a fair amount about the company’s plans for cleaner car. Interestingly, Ford does not use the word “hydrogen” or “fuel cell” at all — a huge shift from even a year ago when briefings that I received from the car company suggested they were still enamored of “The car of the perpetual future.” For Ford, the future now seems to be electrons:
The next major step in Ford’s plan is to increase over time the volume of electrified vehicles, as battery costs improve and as the transition from Hybrids to Plug-in Hybrids to Battery Electric Vehicles occurs.
E&E NewsPM (subs. req’d) has a taste of what it will be like when progressives run things:
“Green” power transmission to move renewable energy to population centers will be part of the economic stimulus bill Democrats move early next year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today.
Finally, we can start to think strategically about how the government can enable the future, rather than disable the future, as we’ve seen for the past eight years. The government was critical to enabling most of the key infrastructure efforts in this country — the railway system, the electric grid, the interstate highway system, and the Internet.
The next big thing is a smart, green power grid that enables rapid growth of efficiency and demand management, wind power, solar baseload, and plug in hybrids (see “An introduction to the core climate solutions“). That grid is arguably the biggest bottleneck to the green transition.
Barack Obama has chosen cleantech and climate superstar Bill Richardson to be his Secretary of Commerce. That means “
