Certainly, if you want to hear the best progressive messaging on energy and climate — if you want to know the best phrases and framing — listen to the President.  In two recent speeches Obama has gone out of his way to criticize the disinformers and delayers.

In Florida late last month, Obama said “The closer we get to this new energy future, the harder the opposition is going to fight, the more we’re going to hear from special interests and lobbyists in Washington whose interests are contrary to the interests of the American people.  Now, there are those who are also going to suggest that moving towards a clean energy future is going to somehow harm the economy or lead to fewer jobs.  And they’re going to argue that we should do nothing, stand pat, do less, or delay action yet again.”

A few days earlier, at M.I.T. he said:

The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized. But I think it’s important to understand that the closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight and the more we’ll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action that we’re engaged in. There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy — when it’s the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs. There are going to be those who cynically claim — make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.

Obama understands that our current economic system is dangerously unsustainable, and that the opposition is driven to a large extent by those who act out of narrow self-interest or ideology.  He doesn’t use the term “denier,” instead accusing those who spread anti-scientific disinformation of cynicism.  He does use the word “delay” in both speeches, focusing on the primary goal of the opposition.

Of course, it doesn’t matter what words the President uses — those who oppose his policies will misquote and misrepresent them.  One of the leading disinformers, Pat Michaels, made this absurd assertion on National Review Online:

He stated that any scientific debate about the magnitude of global warming is unscrupulous, decrying “those who . . . make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.”

Then, the president talked tough, saying, “We’ll just have to deal with those people,” language familiar to anyone who knows the vagaries of Chicago politics.

This surely isn’t the first time in world history that some president, premier, or pope has attempted to define science and threaten those who disagree.

No, he didn’t say “any scientific debate” is unscrupulous.  He was just talking about those who “contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence.”  And no, he didn’t talk tough.  If you check the transcript as delivered (here), he said:

So we’re going to have to work on those folks.

Not really so threatening, even for a Chicagoan.  If anyone has a video of that segment of the speech, post a link in the comments.

The point is that it doesn’t matter what you say, the delayers (and deniers) will misrepresent you (and the science) and then attack the misrepresentation.  That’s what they do.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave a much tougher speech on November 6, which I’m going to excerpt at length at the end because it is so astonishing.  Australia is the canary-in-the-coal-mine koala-in-the-bushfire for climate change, since it is the most arid habited continent (see “Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest, much of planet, post-2040” and “Global Boiling: Australia’s hellish black Saturday of extreme fire“ and “Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in”).  Rudd also faces a conservative opposition to climate action (see here) and an aggressive disinformation campaign, as he explained:

The opponents of action on climate change fall into one of three categories.

• First, the climate science deniers.
• Second, those that pay lip service to the science and the need to act on climate change but oppose every practicable mechanism being proposed to bring about that action.
• Third, those in each country that believe their country should wait for others to act first.

Together, these groups, alive in every major country including Australia, constitute a powerful global force for inaction, and they are particularly entrenched in a range of conservative parties around the world.

I have never been a huge fan of the word “deniers,” as I explained in a March 2008 post:  Media enable denier spin 3: PLEASE stop calling them “skeptics.” But, as I wrote, I suspect future generations will call them “climate destroyers” or worse.  I noted that, “delayer” is a “far more accurate term,” since “They all want delay and delay is fatal.”  Delayers clearly encompasses all three of Rudd’s categories.  As the NYT’s Revkin explained about a 2008  skeptic denier delayer conference in New York, “The one thing all the attendees seem to share is a deep dislike for mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gases.”

But while I may be The Web’s most influential climate-change blogger,” I couldn’t get my preferred term — or its variants, like “delayer-1000,” widely accepted.  If you google, “Global warming delayer” [in quotes], you get some 2000 hits.  If you google, “Global warming denier” [in quotes], you get over 430,000.  Climate science denial has actually flourished even as the evidence refuting it grows, which may not surprise some, but I confess I didn’t think so many seemingly serious people would double down on disinformation.

You can’t fight Google — and you can’t miss the in-your-face anti-scientific nature of the disinformers — so I ultimately ended up going back to the occasional use of the word “deniers” as I explained in this June post, Anti-science conservatives are stuck in denial but for climate science activists, the reverse is true:

And so, for better or worse, the word “deniers” stays with us.  As I’ve said, I will try to reserve that term for the professional disinformers and their work.  And I’ll try to remember to use the term delayers for those who have been misled.

I will still use “delayers,” sometimes in combination with “deniers,” and link back to this post for explanation.  I will also keep using the term “anti-scientific” and “disinformers” since I think they are also accurate.

Prime Minister Rudd makes the strongest case to date for using the strongest possible language to describe those who knowingly spread disinformation.  You can read Get Energy Smart Now on his speech, and I’m going to excerpt it at length below:

When you strip away all the political rhetoric, all the political excuses, there are two stark choices – action or inaction. The resolve of the Australian Government is clear – we choose action, and we do so because Australia’s fundamental economic and environmental interests lie in action.

Action now. Not action delayed.

As one of the hottest and driest continents on earth, Australia’s environment and economy will be among the hardest and fastest hit by climate change if we do not act now. The scientific evidence from the CSIRO and other expert bodies have outlined the implications for Australia, in the absence of national and global action on climate change:

• Temperatures in Australia rising by around five degrees by the end of the century.
• By 2070, up to 40 per cent more drought months are projected in eastern Australia and up to 80 per cent more in south-western Australia.
• A fall in irrigated agricultural production in the Murray Darling Basin of over 90 per cent by 2100.
• Storm surges and rising sea levels – putting at risk over 700,000 homes and businesses around our coastlines, with insurance companies warning that preliminary estimates of the value of property in Australia exposed to the risk of land being inundated or eroded by rising sea levels range from $50 billion to $150 billion.
• Our Gross National Product dropping by nearly two and a half per cent through the course of this century from the devastation climate change would wreak on our infrastructure alone.

The Government took a plan to tackle climate change to the last election, to tackle the risks climate change poses to our planet, and especially to the health, lifestyle and livelihoods of our children.

That plan included two fundamental parts:

• First, a domestic plan of action to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution, including:
  • Expanding the Renewable Energy Target to 20 per cent by 2020 (and subsequently directly investing over $2 billion in renewable energy, including investment in large scale solar generating capacity that will be three times larger than the world’s current largest project).
  • A national energy efficiency strategy to reduce the energy that we can consume, and undertaking the largest investment in energy efficiency ever seen in this country.
  • A Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that will increase the cost of carbon over time and facilitate a transition to a low carbon pollution economy.
• The second part of our strategy is participation in global action to tackle climate change, including:
  • ratifying the Kyoto Protocol;
  • participating in global technology transfers – including Australian leadership in a global coalition to develop carbon capture and storage through the Australia-initiated Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute; and
  • strong engagement towards a new post-Kyoto global agreement .

This was the platform we took to the Australian people at the election. This is the program of action we have been prosecuting over the past two years. Yet the cornerstone of this program of action, the CPRS, still lies stymied in the Senate.

Australia has certainly not been alone in our endeavours to tackle global climate change. At the same time, around the world we have seen nations of every political stripe take concrete action to work towards legislation in this critical area – actions which have been slowly building towards coordinated international action to tackle climate change. And most nations have been engaged in the multilateral process – through the Bali Roadmap two years ago, through the 14th Conference of the Parties in Poznan, Poland last year, and the intensifying global negotiations leading up to the 15th Conference of Parties in Copenhagen this year.

Today, the culmination of this domestic and global action is in sight. Much progress has been made, but, the truth is that there is still a long way to go. In fact, the hardest part of our journey is ahead of us over the next 31 days.

This is a profoundly important time for our nation, for our world and for our planet.

In Australia, we must pass our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – to deliver certainty for business at home and to play our part abroad in any global agreement to bring greenhouse gases down.

President Obama in the United States is also working hard so that he can take strong commitments to Copenhagen. And let us never forget that in the US, as in Australia, under both our respective previous governments, zero action was taken on bringing in cap and trade schemes meaning that the governments that replaced them began with a zero start.

Other countries are striving to build domestic political momentum in their own countries to take strong commitments into the global deal.

The challenge we face, and others around the world face, is to build momentum and overcome domestic political constraints.

The truth is this is hard, because the climate change skeptics, the climate change deniers, the opponents of climate change action are active in every country.

They are a minority. They are powerful. And invariably they are driven by vested interests.

Powerful enough to so far block domestic legislation in Australia, powerful enough to so far slow down the passage of legislation through the US Congress. And ultimately – by limiting the ambition of national climate change commitments – they are powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond.

The opponents of action on climate change fall into one of three categories.

• First, the climate science deniers.
• Second, those that pay lip service to the science and the need to act on climate change but oppose every practicable mechanism being proposed to bring about that action.
• Third, those in each country that believe their country should wait for others to act first.

Together, these groups, alive in every major country including Australia, constitute a powerful global force for inaction, and they are particularly entrenched in a range of conservative parties around the world.

As we approach Copenhagen, these three groups of climate skeptics are quite literally holding the world to ransom, provoking fear campaigns in every country they can, blocking or delaying domestic legislation in every country they can, with the objective of slowing and if possible destroying the momentum towards a global deal on climate change.

As we approach the Copenhagen conference these groups of climate change deniers face a moment of truth, and the truth is this: we will need to work much harder to reach an agreement in Copenhagen because these advocates of inaction are holding back domestic commitments, and are in turn holding back global commitments on climate change.

It is time to be totally blunt about the agenda of the climate change skeptics in all their colours – some more sophisticated than others.

It is to destroy the CPRS at home, and it is to destroy agreed global action on climate change abroad, and our children’s fate – and our grandchildren’s fate – will lie entirely with them.

It’s time to remove any polite veneer from this debate. The stakes are that high.

The first category of those opposed to action is the vocal group of conservatives who do not accept the scientific consensus. This group believes the science is inconclusive and does not provide an evidentiary basis for anthropogenic climate change.

In Australia, before the 2007 election, this group was thought to be relatively small. There appeared – for a time – to be bipartisan consensus on the need for action on climate change. In recent times, this bipartisan support has frayed.

As one Liberal Member of Parliament said to Phil Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald last year:
“[at the last election we supported an ETS because] we were staring at an electoral abyss. We had to pretend we cared.”
(SMH, 28 JULY 2008)

More recently that pretence has been increasingly cast aside. Would-be Liberal leader Tony Abbott said in July this year that “the science … is contentious to say the least”. (27 July 2009)

Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi said:
“I remain unconvinced about the need for an ETS given that carbon dioxide is vital for life on earth”.

Liberal Senator Alan Eggleston said:
“Levels of carbon dioxide have risen in the world, but whether or not this is the sole cause or just a contributor to climate change is, I think, unanswered.”
(11 AUGUST 2009)

Liberal Senate leader Nick Minchin said this year:
“CO2 is not by any stretch of the imagination a pollutant… This whole extraordinary scheme is based on the as yet unproven assertion that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are the main driver of global warming.”
(11 AUGUST 2009)

Alternative Liberal leader Joe Hockey – who knows better – has been drawn into the same sort of doublespeak, remarking on the Today Show in August:
“Look, climate change is real Karl, you know whether it is made by human beings or not that is open to dispute.”
(12 AUGUST 2009)

Even the leader of the Opposition, once Minister for the Environment, Malcolm Turnbull, has flirted with this doublespeak, telling Alan Jones on 2GB:
“I think most people have at least some doubts about the science.”
(19 JUNE 2009)

The tentacles of the climate change skeptics reach deep into the ranks of the Liberal Party, and once you add the National Party it’s plan the skeptics and the deniers are a major force.

Climate sceptics are also a powerful political lobby in the United States.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steel said on 6 March 2009:
“We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner said on April 19 2009:
“The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide.”

Republican Congressman John Shimkus said on 25 March 2009:
“If we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere?”

The legion of climate change skeptics are active across the world, and they happily play with our children’s future.

The clock is ticking for the planet, but the climate change skeptics simply do not care. The vested interests at work are simply too great.

It’s been more than 30 years since the first World Climate Conference called on governments to guard against potential climate hazards.

It’s been 20 years since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed and produced its first report.

17 years ago, in 1992, the international community acknowledged the importance of tackling climate change at the Rio Earth Summit and created the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

And the most recent IPCC scientific conclusion in 2007 was that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and the “increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

This is the conclusion of 4,000 scientists appointed by governments from virtually every country in the world, and the term “very likely” is defined in the scientific conclusion of this report as being 90 per cent probable.

Attempts by politicians in this country and others to present what is an overwhelming global scientific consensus as little more than an unfolding debate, with two sides evenly represented in a legitimate scientific argument, are nothing short of intellectually dishonest. They are a political attempt to subvert what is now a longstanding scientific consensus, an attempt to twist the agreed science in the direction of a predetermined political agenda to kill climate change action.

It reminds me of the efforts of the smoking lobby decades ago as they tried for years to politically subvert by so-called scientific means that there was any link between smoking and lung cancer.

Put more simply: these climate change sceptics around the world would be laughable if they were not so politically powerful – particularly in the ranks of conservative parties.

The second group of do-nothing climate change skeptics are those who purport to accept the scientific consensus, but in the next breath are unwilling to support any of the practicable plans of action that would actually do something about climate change. This group plays lip service to the climate change science but when push comes to shove refuse to support climate change action. In Australia, these naysayers have successfully blocked the development of an emissions trading scheme for more than a decade.

After 12 years of inaction under the previous government, this government has worked to build a national consensus around our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We took the concept to the people at the 2007 election, and since then we have methodically, clearly and comprehensively worked towards passage of our scheme.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper was released on 16 June 2008.

The Garnaut Climate Change Review was released on 30 September 2008.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme White Paper was released on 15 December 2008.

The Draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation was released in March.

There have been numerous Senate Inquiries.

There have also been numerous industry consultations.

As of May 2009, the Government had built wide support for action on climate through a carbon pollution reduction scheme.

There was broad business, environmental and community support from:

• The Business Council of Australia
• The Australian Industry group
• The Climate Institute
• The Australian Conservation Foundation
• The World Wildlife Fund
• The Australian Council of Social Services representing lower income Australians.

Today, after so many reports, reviews, consultations, not to mention the small matter of an election – the overwhelming need for Australia to tackle the great challenge of our generation is being frustrated by the do-nothing climate change skeptics.

As recently as last year, the Leader of the Opposition was emphatic in his support for an emissions trading scheme. He said it was the “central mechanism” in the fight against climate change.

Speaking at the National Press Club in May last year, he stated:
“The Emissions Trading Scheme is the central mechanism to decarbonise our economy.”
(21 May 2008)

A few days later, he said:
“The biggest element in the fight against climate change has to be the emissions-trading scheme.”
(HANSARD – 26 MAY 2008)

But still today, after so many reports and consultations, the Liberal Party, the National Party and other opponents of action raise objections to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Their objections fall into three categories:

• Some argue that the cost is too high in terms of its impact on our economy.
• Others argue that the cost is too high in terms of its impact on households.
• And others object to the system of global emissions trading because they believe it will unjustifiably transfer money and power from rich countries to poor countries.

Let us take each of these in turn.

First is the cost to our economy and jobs.

This has been a constant theme of the Liberal and National Parties’ attacks on the CPRS. Mr Turnbull said the CPRS “is guaranteed to slow our economic recovery, cost us jobs.”

And the de facto leader of the National Party, Barnaby Joyce, refers to the emissions trading scheme as the “employment termination scheme” – whereas I thought any self-respecting National Party leader would be out there standing up for farmers facing 40 to 80 per cent more drought in the future, rather than betraying them.

The facts about the impact of unmitigated climate change on the one hand and the CPRS on the other tell a very different story, but that eternal motto of the Liberal and National Parties is never let the facts stand in the road of a good fear campaign – whether it’s debt, border security or climate change.

Here are the facts.

Treasury modelling done in 2008 demonstrates Australia can continue to achieve strong trend economic growth while making significant cuts in emissions through the CPRS. Treasury modelling also demonstrates that all major employment sectors grow over the years to 2020 – substantially increasing employment from today’s levels. Treasury modelling also projects that clean industries will create sustainable jobs of the future – in fact by 2050 the renewable electricity sector will be 30 times larger than it is today.

Another element of the Liberal and National fear campaign about the design of the CPRS is that it will impose unmanageable cost on households.

Again, Senator Joyce – fearmonger in chief on climate change, he who therefore betrays the real interests of Australian farmers – puts the position of the Liberal and National parties as follows:
“If you live in a cave with a candle you would probably be OK, but if your house is wired up for power then every electrical appliance will be attached to a power generator which in all likelihood will pay a tax and that tax will be passed on to you, the consumer.”
(Joyce – 27 JULY 2009)

Again, the facts on the true household costs and impacts of the CPRS tell a different story. Treasury modelling again demonstrates that the price impact of the CPRS is modest. The CPRS is expected to raise household prices by 0.4 per cent in 2011-12 and 0.8 per cent in 2012-13, and the government has provided household compensation to help assist with these modest cost rises.

Pensioners, seniors, carers and people with disability and low-income households will receive additional support to fully meet the expected overall increase in the cost of living flowing from the scheme. Middle-income households will also receive additional support to help meet the expected overall increase in the cost of living flowing from the scheme.

A third argument from those who quibble with the design of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is that the international design aspects of the scheme are flawed.

Lord Christopher Monckton – a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher – was quoted this week in the Australian press by Janet Albrechtsen. Lord Monckton describes the potential Copenhagen agreement as a plan to set up a transnational “government” on a scale the world has never before seen. Enter the “world government” conspiracy theorists.

Lord Monckton also publicly warned Americans that “in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy and your prosperity away forever.”

Janet Albrechtsen, in her understated neo-conservative way, refers to the potential Copenhagen agreement as a UN “power grab”. This gaggle of world government conspiracy theorists are so far out there on the far right, that they rub up next to the global anarchists of the far left.

Those who argue that any multilateral action is by definition evil.

Those who argue that climate change does not represent a global market failure.

Those who argue that somehow the market will magically solve the problem.

And that uncoordinated national actions will fix the problem.

Without answering the basic logical question of how can we deal with an existential challenge for the whole planet which lies beyond the capacity of any individual national action to address.

The climate change deniers now form the comfortable bedfellows of the global conspiracy theorists – in total bald-faced denial of global scientific, economic and environmental reality. These arguments – thinly veiled attempts to create a new climate change global conspiracy theory – are now being used in Australia.

Like the arguments from climate change deniers, these arguments have zero basis in evidence.

Where is their equivalent evidence basis to Treasury modelling published by the Government of the industry and employment impacts of climate change?

Where is their equivalent evidence basis to Treasury modelling published by the Government on the cost impacts for households from the CPRS – and on the adequacy of the compensation arrangements put in place by the Government in our White Paper?

The answer once again is there is none.

Where is the evidence basis offered by the new league of world government conspiracy theorists that climate change can be effectively dealt with by market means or by uncoordinated national means?

Answer – there is none.

The truth is that the do-nothing climate change skeptics offer no alternative official body of evidence from any credible government in the world.

Absolutely none. The truth is they offer zero evidence.

Instead they offer maximum fear, the universal conservative stock in trade.

And by doing so, these do-nothing climate change skeptics are prepared to destroy our children’s future.

The third group of climate deniers are those who pretend to accept the science but then urge delay because they don’t want their country to be the first to act.

In Australia there was once a political consensus resisting this parochial view.

The Shergold Report commissioned by John Howard and written by the head of the Prime Minister’s department recommended that Australia should not wait for the rest of the world to act:

“… waiting until a truly global response emerges before imposing an emissions cap will place costs on Australia by increasing business uncertainty and delaying or losing investment.”
(Report of the Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading, June 2007, p.6)

The current Leader of the Opposition also stated that a domestic ETS would help in international negotiations too:
“… our first hand experience in implementing … an emissions trading system would be of considerable assistance in our international discussions and negotiation aimed at achieving an effective global agreement.”
(Turnbull – SMH Opinion Piece – 9 July 2008)

Then the Leader of the Opposition stated he no longer supported domestic action before Copenhagen:
“I would not find, I would not support finalising the design this year. Even the best designed scheme in theory needs to have the input of the knowledge of what happens at Copenhagen and what the Americans will do.”
(AM – 16 MARCH 2009)

Seven times the Liberals and Nationals have promised to make a decision on their policy on climate change – and seven times they have delayed.

1. In December 2007 they said wait for Garnaut.
2. In September 2008 they said wait for Treasury modelling.
3. In September 2008 they said wait for the White Paper.
4. In December 2008 they said wait until the Pearce Report.
5. In April 2009 they said wait for the Senate Inquiry.
6. In May 2009 they said wait for the Productivity Commission – forgetting that the Productivity Commission already made a submission on emissions trading to the Howard Government’s Shergold Report.
7. Now the Liberals and National have said wait for Copenhagen and for President Obama’s scheme.

It is an endless cycle of delay – and I am sure that with December almost upon us, the eighth excuse cannot be far away – which will be to wait until the next year or the year after until all the rest of the world has acted at which time Australia will act.

What absolute political cowardice.

What an absolute failure of leadership.

What an absolute failure of logic.

The inescapable logic of this approach is that if every nation makes the decision not to act until others have done so, then no nation will ever act.

The immediate and inevitable consequence of this logic – if echoed in other countries – is that there will be no global deal as each nation says to its domestic constituencies that they cannot act because others have not acted.

The result is a negotiating stalemate. A permanent standoff.

And this of course is the consistent ambition of all three groups of do-nothing climate change deniers.

As we approach Copenhagen, it becomes clearer that the domestic political pressure produced by the climate change skeptics now has profound global consequences by reducing the momentum towards an ambitious global deal. The argument that we must not act until others do is an argument that has been used by political cowards since time immemorial – both of the left and the right.

To take just one example, it has been used as an argument to retain protectionism, stifling economic growth and global competition, and preventing the spread of global prosperity.

As many have noted, it is the international political version of the prisoner’s dilemma. If we allow our actions to be dictated by what we falsely conclude to be in our narrow self-interest, then we harm not just others but ourselves as well because climate change inaction harms us as well.

Climate change deniers are small in number, but they are too dangerous to be ignored. They are well resourced and well represented by political conservatives in many, many countries.

And the danger they pose is this – by collapsing political momentum towards national and global action on climate change, they collapse global political will to act at all. They are the stick that gets stuck in the wheel, that despite its size may yet bring the train to a complete stop.

And that is what they want, because they are driven by a narrowly defined self interest of the present and are utterly contemptuous towards our children’s interest in the future.

This brigade of do-nothing climate change skeptics are dangerous because if they succeed, then it is all of us who will suffer.

Our children.

And our grandchildren.

If we fail, then it will be a failure that will echo through future generations.

The consequences for Australia of failing to act domestically and internationally on climate change are severe. We know from formal global and national economic modelling that the costs of inaction are greater than the costs of acting. Treasury modelling from October 2008 shows that economies that defer action on climate change face long-term costs around 15 per cent higher than those that take action now.

The sooner we act, the better placed our companies will be to benefit from new emerging global markets, and to benefit from the economic gains from improved efficiency. Moving to a low pollution economy will require significant investment in renewable energy, carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency and other low emissions technologies.

We need to start giving the signal to investors that they need to factor the price of carbon into their decisions to make the investments we need. Importantly, business needs certainty to make these investments.

As Greig Gailey, former President of the Business Council of Australia said:
“Only business can make the many investments needed to transition Australia to a low carbon economy. To do this business needs certainty.”

Without passage of the CPRS there will be no certainty for business. That is why business groups like the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group want to see the major parties come together and vote on the CPRS this year.

Heather Ridout, Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group said:
“… many of our members are telling us that they are holding off making investments until there is a greater degree of clarity around domestic climate change legislation.”
(ADECCO Group Australia Breakfast – 15 October 2009)

Russell Caplan, Chairman of Shell Australia, said:
“… we believe a far greater risk is that Australia misses the opportunity to put a policy framework in place to deal with this issue. This would create a climate of continuing uncertainty for industry and potentially delay the massive investments required.”
(BRW – 6 August 2009)

These are the implications for Australia. These are the political challenges we now face both at home and abroad.

But my unequivocal message to the nation today is that this nation Australia will not be deterred.

Our course is clear.

That is why this government will press forward with our plan to tackle climate change domestically and globally.

Domestically we will press forward with the passage of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

It will be voted on in the House in the week beginning Monday November 16.

It will be introduced into the Senate immediately after the vote in the House.

It will then be voted on in the Senate in the week beginning 23 November.

We welcome the Opposition’s recent cooperation and I’m pleased to hear from Minister Wong that negotiations are proceeding in good faith. I’d like to personally commend the Member for Groome for his genuine efforts to engage with the Government in good faith to reach a reasonable outcome with the Government that will finally deliver action on Climate Change.

We are of course concerned by the comments of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate that “even if the government accepts all our amendments, we may well still vote against the bill.”
(NICK MINCHIN- 2UE- 30 OCTOBER 2009)

The do-nothing climate change skeptics are still alive and well in the Coalition. After 12 years of inaction, and after two years of preparation, the nation demands a genuine timetable and good faith negotiations to give business the certainty they need with climate change.

The Australian Government is also committed to intensively engaging to support an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen.

At Copenhagen we need an ambitious agreement on mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology.

As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday, the formal UN negotiations are moving slowly.

The UN Secretary-General has said we must maximise the agreement we can reach in Copenhagen. They can resolve some issues, but not others.

Now is time for strenuous efforts by all leaders and ministers.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Rasmussen is engaging a growing number of leaders – in the Copenhagen Commitment Circle – to accelerate engagement by leaders.

Australia is committed to playing a leadership role and has joined Mexico and the UN Secretary-General in the initial group of ‘friends of the Chair’ to help build consensus and draw out concrete commitments from across the world.

In July this year at the G8 meetings in L’Aquila, Australia helped form a 2 degree Celsius 450 ppm ambition for global action on climate change, and it was at this meeting that Australia launched the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, a concrete initiative to make CCS technology a reality.

Australia is currently chair of the Pacific Island Forum which this year delivered the Pacific Leaders’ Climate Change Call to Action demanding urgent action on a real threat to the viability of some Pacific communities.

In September, Australia at the request of the UN Secretary-General co-chaired a roundtable at the UN Special Session on Climate Change – with a view to driving a sense of political urgency with other leaders, and representing the views of the Pacific.

Australia has launched the Forest Carbon Partnerships with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea – an initiative providing policy and technical support to protect the great forests in our neighbourhood.

And Australia has established a $150 million Climate Change Adaptation Fund – supporting vulnerable nations dealing with the real impact of climate change, with a strong focus on the Pacific.

For years – and then, with increasing intensity, in recent months – do-nothing climate change skeptics have been mounting a systematic campaign against action on climate change.

Their aim is not to convince every person on earth of the follies of acting on climate change. Their aim is to erode just enough of the political will that action becomes impossible.

By slowing the actions of each individual country, they aim to slowly drag global negotiations on climate change to a standstill. By hampering decisive action at a national level, they aim to make it impossible at an international level.

If Copenhagen does not deliver the outcome we so urgently need, no individual climate change skeptic will be responsible, but each of them will have played their part.

The corrosive effect of climate skeptics eroding the political will to act may be the disintegration of any possibility of meaningful action on climate change.

In this debate the climate change skeptics have erected an intellectual house of cards based on one simple premise: that the cost of not acting is nothing.

When you boil down their arguments, their world government conspiracy theories and their back of the envelope calculations – that in its starkest simplicity and entirety is what is left: that the cost of not acting is nothing.

That is the simplest premise upon which the scepticism of Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew, Alan, Janet and even Lord Monckton is based. They cling to that single premise like a polar bear clings to a melting iceberg.

Without that premise, their scepticism is sunk. Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew, Janet and the Thatcherite Lord Monckton are betting the house on that simple premise that the cost of not acting is nothing.

For people who claim to hold the conservative torch, their scepticism is in fact radical in its riskiness and recklessness. By deliberately undermining and eroding the capacity to achieve both domestic and international action on climate change the skeptics are attempting to force the world to take the single most reckless bet in our long history.

They are betting our future, the future of our children and our grandchildren, and they are doing so based on their own personal intuitions, their personal prejudices and their deeply ingrained political prejudices.

And they are doing so in the total absence of any genuine body of evidence.

Climate change skeptics in all their guises and disguises are not conservatives. They are radicals.

They are reckless gamblers who are betting all our futures on their arrogant assumption that their intuitions should triumph over the evidence.

The logic of these skeptics belongs in a casino, not a science lab, and not in the ranks of any responsible government.

Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew, Janet, even Lord Monckton shouldn’t even bother with the pretence of science and just admit the currency of their prescription for inaction has all the legitimacy of a roulette wheel.

Basically, let’s just sit back, do nothing and see what happens.

The alternative – our alternative – is to base policy on the evidence.

No responsible government confronted with the evidence delivered by the 4,000 scientists associated with the international panel could then in conscience choose not to act. In any public company, it would represent a gross contempt of the most basic fiduciary duty.

Malcolm and Barnaby might like to bet the future of Australia on the off chance of winning an election, but this Government will not.

A fairly well-known bloke once said that when gambling:

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.
Know when to walk away, know when to run.

My message to the climate change skeptics, to the big betters and the big risk takers is this:

You are betting our children’s future and the future of our grandchildren.

You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition – on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science.

That is too big a risk, too radical a departure from the basic conservative principles of public policy.

Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew, Janet – stop gambling with our future.

You’ve got to know when to fold ‘em – and for the skeptics, that time has come.

The Government I lead will act.

As always, comments welcome.

President Obama delivered a rip roaring speech yesterday in Cincinnati (text and videos here).  It’s how he should have been messaging all along.  Even though it focused on health care and the economy, Obama talked about clean energy, as always does:

And we’re making an historic commitment to innovation–much of it still to come in the months and year ahead: doubling our capacity to generate renewable energy; building a new smart grid to carry electricity from coast to coast; laying down broadband lines and high-speed rail lines; and providing the largest boost in basic research in history.

So our Recovery plan is working. The financial system has been saved from collapse. Home sales are up. We’re seeing signs of life in the auto industry. Business investment is starting to stabilize. For the first time in 18 months, we’re seeing growth in manufacturing….

We have to build a new foundation for prosperity in America….An America where energy reform creates green jobs that can never be outsourced and that finally frees America from the grip of foreign oil.

In the clip above, he launches into a scathing attack on the status quo special interests who are trying to block action on health care reform, and lays out the catastrophe that awaits this country if we do nothing.  This is precisely what he needs to do on climate change, even though (some of) his advisers are foolishly suggesting otherwise.  Obama said bluntly:

We’ve never been this close. We’ve never had such broad agreement on what needs to be done. And because we’re so close to real reform, the special interests are doing what they always do-trying to scare the American people and preserve the status quo.

But I’ve got a question for them: What’s your answer? What’s your solution? The truth is, they don’t have one. It’s do nothing. And we know what that future looks like.

Memo to team Obama:  He could use the exact same words to talk about the climate and clean energy bill in the fall.  Obama continues:

Insurance companies raking in the profits while discriminating against people because of pre-existing conditions and denying or dropping coverage when you get sick. It means you’re never negotiating about higher wages, because you’re spending all your time just protecting the benefits you already have.

It means premiums continuing to skyrocket three times faster than your wages. More families pushed into bankruptcy. More businesses cutting more jobs. More Americans losing their health insurance-14,000 every day. And it means more Americans dying every day just because they don’t have insurance.

But that’s not the future I see for America.

Scary stuff, immediately turned into his positive message.  I just don’t see why such fact-based messaging — sometimes called fear-based messaging by people on our side who don’t understand messaging and by people on the do-nothing side trying to stop us from using our best messaging strategies — is fine for health care reform but not energy reform.

The good news on health care is that Obama started framing health reform as delivering health security, as I and others had urged (see “Can Obama deliver health and energy security with a half (assed) message?“):

And, yes, we’re building an America where health insurance reform delivers more stability and security to every American-the many who have insurance today and the millions who don’t….

I see reform where we bring stability and security to folks who have insurance today….

Security and stability for folks who have health insurance. Help for those who don’t-the coverage they need at a price they can afford.

Nice repetition.  Security and stability.  Duh.  There’s a reason one of the most successful progressive programs of all time is called “Social Security.”  I only hope it isn’t too late for this message to take hold.

On the climate and clean energy bill, we’ve been pushing clean energy jobs and energy security all along, a message that has clearly broken through.  Now Obama just needs to deliver a rip roaring speech like this on climate in the fall — and use the whole damn message:

We’ve never been this close. We’ve never had such broad agreement on what needs to be done. The special interests are doing what they always do-trying to scare the American people and preserve the status quo.

But I’ve got a question for them: What’s your answer? What’s your solution? The truth is, they don’t have one. It’s do nothing.

And we know what that future looks like [see "An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water "].

Here a quiz:

1)  What’s worse from a messaging perspective, “the public option” or “cap-and-trade”?

2) Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says is the benefit of passing a health care reform bill.

3)  Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says happens if we fail to pass the climate and clean energy bill.

On health care, no simple, repeated core message exists, so the whole effort is a muddle.  Obama needs to delete and reboot.  Let’s hope he does so Wednesday night.

On climate, at least we have one positive message:  clean energy jobs, jobs, jobs.  That is a key reason public support has held firm even in the face of a multimillion dollar campaign of fraud and disinformation by the fossil-fuel-funded right wing (see Yet another major poll finds “broad support” for clean energy and climate bill: “Support for the plan among independents has increased slightly” and Swing state poll finds 60% “would be more likely to vote for their senator if he or she supported the bill” and Independents support the bill 2-to-1).

Normally, however, a winning campaign has four messages, as I discussed in this post from a year ago, “Can Obama win with half a messaging strategy?“  Since team Obama got its messaging act together pretty fast after its near-fatal lameness of August 2008, I’m hopeful they will do the same after the near-fatal lameness of August 2009, since I don’t think they can deliver health security and energy security with half a message (or less).

Let me repeat what I consider to be Messaging 101, which apparently has been lost again by team Obama and progressive leaders.

As psychologist and Political Brain author Drew Westen explained in Huffington Post during the 2008 campaign:

There is a simple fact about elections that has eluded Democrats in every presidential campaign they have lost in the last 40 years: that as a candidate, you have to focus first and foremost not on a litany of “issues” but on four stories: the story you tell about yourself, the story your opponent is telling about himself, the story your opponent is telling about you, and the story you are telling about your opponent. Candidates who offer compelling stories in all four quadrants of this “message grid” win, and those who leave any of them to chance generally lose.

I’d actually put it a little differently. You need a story about yourself and a story about your opponent. And you need a counterpunch to your opponent’s stories about himself and about you. Ideally, the stories can be boiled down to a catchy slogan (”it’s the economy, stupid”) or one or two words (”compassionate conservative”) that make use of the memorable figures of speech from the 25-century-old art of persuasion aka rhetoric (see “Why scientists aren’t more persuasive, Part 1“). Same for the counterpunch (”He was for it before he was against it.”).

The word “story” here is roughly equivalent to two other popular terms — “frame” (as George Lakoff uses the term) or “narrative.”  It is also equivalent to rhetoric’s “extended metaphor,” which I argue is the most important figure of speech in my not-yet-bestselling unpublished manuscript, Politics, Religion, and the English Language (see “How Lincoln framed his picture-perfect Gettysburg Address, 4: Extended metaphor“).

Good candidates will pound away with a strong positive extended metaphor of why you should vote for them and with an equally strong negative extended metaphor of why you should not vote for their opponents. Winning two-term candidates, like President George W. Bush with the help of Karl Rove, will have a counter-punch to their opponent’s positive and negative extended metaphors. The counterpunches always use the same figure of speech — dramatic irony, wherein someone’s words unintentionally mean something quite different from (and often opposite to) what they intended (see “How to be as persuasive as Abe Lincoln, Part 2: Use irony, the twist we can’t resist“).

The goal is to find a powerful dramatic irony in their opponents’ words or deeds that blow up the opposition’s own extended metaphor. That always makes a great story, since it is satisfying sport for people to be hoist with their own petard or for people to be uncovered as a hypocrite.

Think Michael Dukakis in an army tank, or President Bush on the aircraft carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background, or the Swift Boat ads run against John Kerry. Dramatic irony is the key to understanding both popular culture and politics — but that is another post.

What conservatives have figured out is that since the media doesn’t really police the truth in a meaningful fashion, you can pretty much take whatever your opponent says out of context and turn that into a defining dramatic irony. Or just make stuff up entirely.

The other point of having the four stories or frames or extended metaphors is that it makes responding to attacks very easy. If you know your messages, then whenever the other side launches a phony attack, you just frame the response with one of your narratives.

Of course, if your opponent has no positive plan, which is true in both health care reform and climate change (though not entirely true on energy), then your messaging job should be easier — but only if you are willing to be very blunt about what happens if we do nothing.  In the case of global warming, of course, many people on our side have been duped by dubious polling and focus groups and dial groups into polling their punches on the climate science message (see “Messaging 101b: EcoAmerica’s phrase ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’ isn’t going to replace ‘global warming’ — and that’s a good thing” and Mark Mellman must read on climate messaging: “A strong public consensus has emerged on the reality and severity of global warming, as well as on the need for federal action” — ecoAmerica “could hardly be more wrong”).

I won’t spend much time on health care.  Like the 99% of people who aren’t expert on health care reform, I have no idea what Obama’s plan is nor what it would actually do.  I do know that most people could care less about the uninsured — they just don’t want to join that group — and while people may say they want cost containment, in fact they don’t want their own costs “contained,” they only want their premiums lower.

What Obama needs to sell is health security.  I was glad to see David Axelrod repeat the word “security” in his health reform pitch on “Meet the Press” this morning.  That suggests to me they are starting to do some serious message polling.

In the next few weeks, I will lay out all four climate and clean energy stories.

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering,” President Franklin Roosevelt told an audience in Madison Square Garden in 1936. “They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.”

Can anyone imagine President Barack Obama saying anything like that? The nickname of Roosevelt’s successor in the White House, Harry Truman, was “Give-’Em-Hell Harry.” As the Republican minority, backed by an avalanche of special-interest money, mobilizes to thwart the health reform agenda of the Democratic majority, maybe the time has come for “Give-’Em-Hell Barry.”

The most dangerous deficit that the United States faces is not the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It is the Democrats’ demagogy deficit. Franklin Roosevelt, looking down from that Hyde Park in the sky, would not be surprised that conservatives are seeking to channel populist anger and anxiety, not against the Wall Street elites who wrecked the economy, but against reformers promoting healthcare reform and economic security for ordinary people. As he told his audience in 1936, “It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.” But FDR would be shocked by the inability of his party to mobilize the public on behalf of reform.

Michael Lind has a terrific Salon column today, with the subhead, “Why can’t Democrats mobilize the public for healthcare reform? Blame the demagogy gap.”  I’d replace demagogy with the less incendiary and more accurate “rhetoric gap.”

Demagogues are a dime a dozen, and demagogy isn’t inherently persuasive or winning.  But rhetoric is.  Rhetoric is what makes a great, successful President (see “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor”: How to be as persuasive as Lincoln, 3).

I blog about the health care debate in part because success there probably makes it more likely we’ll see a climate bill and in part for what it tells us about Obama’s messaging.  The ‘good’ news on the first front is that the American Enterprise Institute’s savvy centrist Norman Ornstein writes today that “The odds remain reasonable that a solid, if not dramatic, health reform bill can make it through this process and become law. Any bill, under these conditions, will be a major accomplishment. The odds have been improved, not damaged, by the president’s approach” — thanks to “Obama’s Health-Care Realism.”  We’ll see.

Although he has the eloquence to be an FDR — and his achievements in clean energy and climate to date are far greater than most progressives give him credit for (see “The Green clean energy FDR: Obama’s first 100 days make — and may remake — history“) — Obama can’t truly be the clean energy FDR if he doesn’t master FDR’s ability to fight rhetorical fire with fire.

Now, unlike health care, where the whole message is a muddle, team Obama has half of the energy and climate message right (see “Clean energy messaging 101: ‘Green’ jobs are out, ‘clean energy’ jobs are in“).

And that’s why they are doing better on climate than health care — having passed a bill through the house and still winning on the issue in the polls.

But team Obama has mostly given up half its message unilaterally.  As I wrote in July — and as subsequent conversations support — I’m told by multiple sources that the political operatives in the White House have bought into the ecoAmerica bullshit that we mustn’t explain to the public the serious threat posed by climate change (see Messaging 101b: EcoAmerica’s phrase ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’ isn’t going to replace ‘global warming’ — and that’s a good thing).  And bullshit it is (see Mark Mellman must read on climate messaging: “A strong public consensus has emerged on the reality and severity of global warming, as well as on the need for federal action” — ecoAmerica “could hardly be more wrong”).  That’s a key reason Obama didn’t even show up for the single biggest climate science announcement of his administration — the report on U.S. climate impacts — thus negating any impact it might have had on the debate (see here).

Of course, the White House doesn’t have any problem telling the public and the media day after day the myriad catastrophic consequences that await the country if we don’t act on health care (millions more without health care, a bankrupt economy, exploding premiums).  No, it’s only talking about the myriad catastrophic consequences that await the country if we don’t act on climate that is verboten.  That means most of the messaging will be on clean energy and jobs — which is a great message, one I’ve pushed for two decades now — but it hardly justifies or motivates a 42% reduction in CO2 emissions in two decades and an 83% reduction in four decades, along with all the extensive accompanying regulations.

Since the other side has no positive message on climate, this half-message may still may work.  But fundamentally, it is wrong headed, and I’ll lay out the full message this month.  Obama needs to give ‘em Hell and High Water.

I’ll end by excerpting the Lind piece at length because I think it makes some important points:

Liberal intellectuals, shocked by McCarthyism and the rejection by the voters of the urbane Adlai Stevenson for Dwight Eisenhower, concluded that the American people themselves were the problem. In “The Age of Reform” and other works, the influential liberal historian Richard Hofstadter argued that the Progressive and Populist movements, far from being the precursors of New Deal liberalism, were reactionary movements by downwardly mobile professionals or farmers suffering from “status anxiety.” Seymour Martin Lipset and other sociologists and historians including Daniel Bell and Peter Viereck argued that many members of the working class had “authoritarian personalities” and that populism here as in Europe could lead to fascism. Although more accurate historians and pollsters demolished their caricature of working-class Americans as proto-Nazis suffering from “status anxiety,” the damage had been done. The New Left of the 1970s and 1980s, clashing with socially conservative blue-collar “hard-hats,” were if anything even more hostile to the white working class, and sought allies instead among blacks, immigrants and various “social movements,” most of them staffed and run by members of the college-educated upper middle class.

Whereas progressives and populists alike had been able to invoke the people against the interests, the mid-century liberals and many of their successors on the center-left to this day fear the people even more than they fear the interests. They worry that if liberals rile up the crowd against Wall Street, the rampaging mob, like the torch-bearing Transylvanian villagers in the old Universal Pictures Frankenstein movies, might turn on the universities or carry out political pogroms against minorities. When passion and polemic are ruled out as uncivil, when appeals to the people and their tradition are ruled out by liberalism’s own theory of itself, it is hard to see how there can be a popular liberal politics, as distinct from a politics of brokering among interests or elite reforms from above. It follows that liberals should focus on keeping the public calm, while carrying out reforms on their behalf — but without their participation — on the basis of negotiations among politicians, public-spirited nonprofit activists, and enlightened interest groups. The Obama administration’s approach to healthcare reform has followed this script exactly.

The two arguments on which the administration has rested the case for healthcare are calculated to appeal to elites, not the general public. One argument holds that it is immoral to allow a substantial minority of Americans, who are disproportionately poor, to lack health insurance. This argument appeals to progressive Democrats in the academic and nonprofit communities for whom politics is a form of charity. The other argument is that healthcare cost inflation will wreck the economy in the future, unless it is brought under control. This argument appeals to the Wall Street donor wing of the party, symbolized by Robert Rubin, whose protégés, including Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner and Peter Orszag, surround Obama in the White House.

But if you are trying to mobilize public support for a sweeping healthcare overhaul, appealing to charity or the concerns of bondholders is not the way to go about it. “Vote your interests!” Harry Truman told Americans in 1948. Most Americans have employer-provided healthcare. They are worried about keeping it if they lose their jobs and about the rising cost of deductibles. Democrats should have sold healthcare reform as establishing a permanent, universal right to affordable healthcare.

You also can’t fight and win a war without naming your enemies. In the case of healthcare, the enemies of the American people — if I may be demagogic as well as accurate — include rent-seeking insurance companies, rent-seeking pharma companies, and overcompensated doctors and hospitals.

Last but not least, you need a narrative in which today’s campaign is not an isolated technocratic attempt to solve a particular public policy problem, but part of the ongoing story of progressive reform in America. In his 1964 Democratic convention speech, Lyndon Johnson invoked American history in laying out the vision of the Great Society: “The Founding Fathers dreamed America before it was. The pioneers dreamed of great cities on the wilderness that they crossed.” It’s hard to make that appeal if you agree with elements of the academic left that the Founders were self-seeking crooks, that the pioneers were genocidal monsters and that great cities on the wilderness are ecological disasters. The consensus liberals of the mid-20th century and the multicultural liberals of the late 20th century have been too busy exaggerating the anti-Semitism of 19th-century populists or emphasizing the racist attitudes of the 19th-century labor movement to invoke the ideals those precursors share with post-racist 21st-century liberals. But we can be inspired by the universal ideals that we share with our predecessors without endorsing or excusing their parochial prejudices.

A Rooseveltian or Trumanesque campaign speech, addressing the concerns of the American majority, invoking the heroic history of American reform and naming the enemy, practically writes itself:

You can read this excellent proposed speech in Salon.

I would note that, unlike health care, the public understands who the enemies are — the polluters, Big Oil, and the conservatives who have been kowtowing to them for years.  That’s another reason we’re doing better on climate than health care.

If Barack Obama can speak in accents like these, then he will be able to declare, like Franklin Roosevelt in 1936, “I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.”

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books….

I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts….

No, I’m not operating under the misimpression that my writing can be compared with George Orwell’s.  I know of no essayists today who come close to matching his skill in writing.  On top of that, bloggers simply lack the time necessary for consistently first-rate efforts.  I’ve written some two million words since launching this blog three years ago this week.  Perfection isn’t an option.

But operating under the dictum, “if you want to be a better writer, read better writers,” I took on vacation Facing Unpleasant Facts, a collection of Orwell’s brilliant narrative essays.  My life has been almost the exact opposite of Orwell’s.  Indeed, if you think you had a rough childhood, trying reading, “Such, such were the joys.”  Compared to Orwell, we’ve all been raised by Mary Poppins.

Orwell does have the soul of a blogger, as we’ll see.  He is solipsistic almost to a fault, but with a brutal honesty that puts even the best modern memoirist to shame.

Read about how his headmaster cured his bedwetting with a beating, a double caning with a riding crop in fact, after he foolishly announced that the first one “didn’t hurt.”  Or read “Shooting an Elephant,” with its gut-punching first line, “In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people — the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.”

Second, he has “a power of facing unpleasant facts,” which I think is perhaps the primary quality I aspire for here.

I joined the new media because the old media have failed us. They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts — see “What if the MSM simply can’t cover humanity’s self-destruction?” and “The media’s decision to play the stenographer role helped opponents of climate action stifle progress” and dozens more examples here.

Unlike Orwell, I knew from a very early age, certainly by the age of five or six, that I would be a physicist, like my uncle, and I announced that proudly to all who asked.

I knew I didn’t want to be a professional writer since I saw how hopeless it was to make a living that way.  My father was the editor of a small newspaper (circulation 20,000) that he turned into a medium-sized newspaper (70,000) but was paid dirt, even though he managed the equivalent of a large manufacturing enterprise — while simultaneously writing three editorials a day — that in any other industry would pay ten times as much.  My mother pursued freelance writing for many, many years, an even more difficult way to earn a living (see also “This could not possibly be more off topic“).

Why share this?  Orwell, who shares far, far more in his master class of essay writing, argues in “Why I write“:

I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in — at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own — but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, in some perverse mood; but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living.

Interestingly, I think there are more than four great motives to blog, at least for me.  But let’s start with Orwell’s:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one….  Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

No argument here.  On the bright side, I make no pretensions to be a serious writer.  I’m not certain that bloggers are journalists.  I think we are, however, journal-ists.  What is a log if not a journal?

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.

Again, inarguable.  I’m an auditory person, for those who know NLP, and I dictate all of my blog posts.  If you want to be a better writer, I suggest you read aloud everything you write.  For me the sound of a good phrase, the pleasure of a headline that works, is immense.  I wouldn’t blog just for that reason, and I’d rather have a widely-read substantive blog than a scarcely-read work of art, if such a thing even exists on the blogosphere.   Sometimes everything comes together, as in perhaps my best headline, the one Time magazine singled out in naming me a favorite environmental website:  “Debate over. Further delay fatal. Action not costly. This headline pretty much sums up Joe Romm’s message. Romm is a one-man anti-disinformation clearinghouse.”

I will take a clearinghouse over an arthouse any day.

(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

Even more so with a blog.  In the increasingly likely event we don’t avert catastrophic global warming, I do hope that the reporting and analysis in this blog, which evolves over time, will be of use to those trying to understand just how it is that, as Elizabeth Kolbert put it, “a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself.”  It will be a great source of bafflement to future generations, and I suspect that as they suffer through the misery and grief caused by our myopia and greed, there will be a growing literature aimed at trying to understand what went wrong, how we did this to ourselves.  Perhaps this web log will help.  That’s one more motivation for me to use as many links as possible to original sources.

(iv) Political purpose. — Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time. By nature — taking your ‘nature’ to be the state you have attained when you are first adult — I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties. As it is I have been forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer.

Pretty amazing that Orwell uses that last word.  The Wikipedia entry on “pamphleteer” asserts, “Today a pamphleteer might communicate his missives by way of weblog….”

Orwell explains the source of his evoluton:

The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one’s political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one’s aesthetic and intellectual integrity.

What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.

I couldn’t dream of saying it better than that if I worked on this post for a month.

Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.

I also blog for at least two other reasons.

Peace of mind:  I would be unimaginably frustrated and depressed if I didn’t have a way of contributing to the task of saving a livable climate, a way of responding in real time to the general humbug and sentences without meaning and purple passages of those who wittingly or unwittingly spreading disinformation aimed at delaying action on climate change.  I hope the comments section on the blog serves in some small way as a similar outlet for readers.

Personal growth:  The act of trying to explain the science and the solutions and the politics to a broader audience forces me think hard about what I’m really saying, about what I really know and don’t know.  It makes me much smarter, if no one else.  The rapid feedback and global nature of the blogosphere mean that I get to test my ideas against people who are exceedingly knowledgeable and equally articulate.  Through this blog I have interacted with people from every walk of life, with widely different worldviews, from many continents, whom I never would have otherwise known.  And all from the basement of my home, occasionally with my daughter by my side.

Like Orwell, I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know I wouldn’t be blogging this much if you all weren’t tuning in and writing your comments.  The readership of this blog has exploded — for those who follow my feedburner stats, they have gone through the roof since the website redesign, for reasons I don’t fully understand.  And I am in discussions to further syndicate the content, so it will reach many more people than who read it here or on Grist or Worldchanging or elsewhere.

Most of all, it boggles the mind that I have a profession that did not exist even a decade ago, but that is, in many respects, precisely what my father did, precisely what I never expected to do.

After my brother lost his home in Katrina, and I started interviewing climate experts for what turned into my book, Hell and High Water, I made a decision I would not pull any punches and would get “political” as Orwell defined the term.

If I have learned anything from the blog, it is that there is in fact a great hunger out there for the bluntest possible talk about the dire nature of our energy and climate situation, about the grave threat to our children and the next 50 generations, about the vast but still achieveable scale of the solutions, about the forces in politics and media that impede action  — a hunger to face unpleasant facts head on.   And that is possibly the most reassuring thing I have learned in the past three years.  Thank you all for that!

The Washington Post’s well-respected media critic Howard Kurtz made an impassioned case today that the the media isn’t really to blame — “Journalists, Left Out of The Debate:  Few Americans Seem to Hear Health Care Facts” — which is to say, the media is irrelevant:

For once, mainstream journalists did not retreat to the studied neutrality of quoting dueling antagonists.

They tried to perform last rites on the ludicrous claim about President Obama’s death panels, telling Sarah Palin, in effect, you’ve got to quit making things up.

But it didn’t matter. The story refused to die.

The crackling, often angry debate over health-care reform has severely tested the media’s ability to untangle a story of immense complexity. In many ways, news organizations have risen to the occasion; in others they have become agents of distortion. But even when they report the facts, they have had trouble influencing public opinion.

In the 10 days after Palin warned on Facebook of an America “in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel,’ ” The Washington Post mentioned the phrase 18 times, the New York Times 16 times, and network and cable news at least 154 times (many daytime news shows are not transcribed).

Now the first thing to say is that it is a central rule of messaging, rhetoric, and psychology: Don’t keep repeating a strong word the other side is trying to push (see “Memo to Gore: Don’t call coal ‘clean’ seven times in your ad” for a brief discussion of the literature on that subject”).

But from my perspective this is just another way of saying that once again, the progressive side doesn’t have its own simple message on this issue — like so many others, including global warming.  As the saying goes, you can’t beat the horse with no horse, and right now, progressives have banned some of their best horses entirely (see here) and are running a few hapless ponies that get trampled out of the starting gate by the conservative thoroughbreds.

Kurtz continues with his proof of the media’s innocence impotence:

While there is legitimate debate about the legislation’s funding for voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions, the former Alaska governor’s claim that government panels would make euthanasia decisions was clearly debunked. Yet an NBC poll last week found that 45 percent of those surveyed believe the measure would allow the government to make decisions about cutting off care to the elderly — a figure that rose to 75 percent among Fox News viewers.

Less than seven hours after Palin posted her charge Aug. 7, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann called it an “absurd idea.” That might have been dismissed as a liberal slam, but the next day, ABC’s Bill Weir said on “Good Morning America”: “There is nothing like that anywhere in the pending legislation.”

On Aug. 9, Post reporter Ceci Connolly said flatly in an A-section story: “There are no such ‘death panels’ mentioned in any of the House bills.” That same day, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks called Palin’s assertion “crazy.” CNN’s Jessica Yellin said on “State of the Union,” “That’s not an accurate assessment of what this panel is.” And on ABC’s “This Week,” George Stephanopoulos said: “Those phrases appear nowhere in the bill.”

Of course, the conservatives and conservative-leaning independents who swallow the disinformation from their trusted sources can’t be moved by journalists a don’t watch or don’t believe.

Consider these stats from Gallup polling over the past decade (see “The Deniers are winning, but only with the GOP“):

In 1997, some 52% of Democrats said the effects of global warming have already begun and 52% said most scientists believe global warming is occurring. In 2008, now 76% say warming had begun and 75% say most scientists believe warming is occurring.  It would appear that Democrats believe most scientists.

Few leading climate scientists or major scientific bodies would disagree with the assertion that the scientific case that the planet is warming and humans are the dominant cause of recent warming has gotten much stronger in the past 10 years.  That is clearly seen in the scientific literature — as summarized in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and as amplified by studies and increasingly dire warnings since.

And yet for Republicans, in 1997 some 42% said warming had begun and 48% said most scientists believe warming is occurring — a modest 6 point differential. By 2008, the percentage of Republicans saying the effects of global warming have already begun had dropped to a mere 42% (an amazing stat in its own right given the painfully obvious evidence to the contrary). But the percentage saying most scientists believe global warming is occurring had risen to 54% — a stunning 12 point differential.

In short, a significant and growing number of Republicans — one in eight as of 2008 — simply don’t believe what they know most scientists believe.

Now if you’re not going to believe what you know scientists believe, you’re certainly not going to believe what mainstream TV journalists say — as long as the right-wing media and pundits you do trust keep lying, which, as Kurtz makes clear, they do:

Still, some conservatives argued otherwise. On the Stephanopoulos roundtable, former House speaker Newt Gingrich said the legislation “has all sorts of panels. You’re asking us to trust turning power over to the government when there clearly are people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.”

And on Fox the next night, Bill O’Reilly played a clip of former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean saying Palin “just made that up. . . . There’s nothing like euthanasia in the bill.” O’Reilly countered that as far as he could tell, “Sarah Palin never mentioned euthanasia. Dean made it up to demean Palin.”

Ultimately, the media consensus was that Palin had attempted “to leap across a logical canyon,” as the conservative bible National Review put it, adding that “we should be against hysteria.” But the “death” debate was sucking up much of the political oxygen. President Obama kept denying that he was for “pulling the plug on Grandma.” On Aug. 13, the Senate Finance Committee pulled the plug on the provision, with Republican Sen. Charles Grassley saying the idea could be — yes — “misinterpreted.”

Perhaps journalists are no more trusted than politicians these days, or many folks never saw the knockdown stories. But this was a stunning illustration of the traditional media’s impotence.

Well, a certain kind of impotence — let’s call it factual impotence.  For conflict and drama-driven stories, the media is on Viagra — or perhaps Cialis, for misdirection lasting more than four hours.

The eruption of anger at town-hall meetings on health care, while real and palpable, became an endless loop on television. The louder the voices, the fiercer the confrontation, the more it became video wallpaper, obscuring the substantive arguments in favor of what producers love most: conflict.

Never mind if some of the fury seemed unfocused or simply anti-Obama. Katy Abram was shown hundreds of times yelling at Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter: “I don’t want this country turning into Russia. . . . What are you going to do to restore this country back to what our founders created according to the Constitution?” She later popped up on Sean Hannity’s Fox show, saying: “I know that years down the road, I don’t want my children coming to me and asking me, ‘Mom, why didn’t you do anything? Why do we have to wait in line for, I don’t know, toilet paper or anything?’ ”

Twenty members of Congress might have held calm and collected town meetings on any given day, but only the one with raucous exchanges would make it on the air. “TV loves a ruckus,” Obama complained more than once. In fact, after the president convened a low-key town hall in New Hampshire, press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: “I think some of you were disappointed yesterday that the president didn’t get yelled at.” There was a grain of truth in that. As Fox broke away from the meeting, anchor Trace Gallagher said, “Any contentious questions, anybody yelling, we’ll bring it to you.”

The only source of “information” that might change the views of Republicans is the leadership of the conservative movement itself — conservative politicians, conservative think tanks, conservative media, and conservative pundits.  As I wrote last year, until they not only reverse their position completely but also actively spread this reversed position to the faithful, this country will find it almost impossible to adopt the very strong government-led policies needed to avert humanity’s self-destruction aka Hell and High Water.

I do think that messaging aimed at swaying conservatives is pointless and certainly nothing I attempt on this blog.

What to do, then?

Right now, elections and policy campaigns are being won or lost by the 10% to 20% of voters in the middle, assuming a party can keep its base mobilized.  And right now, Dems are doing neither.  We have only one stallion on the team who can break through the pack and deliver the messages to move both the middle and progressives.

Having waited in vain for Obama to breakthrough with winning messages, I will trot out my messaging horses in the coming days.  Saddle up!

Related Post:

• The top 5 ways the ‘birthers’ are like the deniers

These days, the main “media” paying attention to Pielke, Jr. (as with Pielke, Sr.) are the global warming deniers (see “Uber-denier Inhofe gives big wet Valentine’s kiss to Pielke — go figure!“).  So it’s no surprise that Pielke Jr.’s latest distortion was immediately picked up by Swift Boat smearer Marc Morano, much as the main person pushing Pielke Sr.’s climate disinformation is anti-science blogger Anthony Watts (see “Like father, like son: Roger Pielke Sr. also doesn’t understand the science of global warming — or just chooses to willfully misrepresent it“)  What is (a little) surprising is that Pielke would utterly misrepresent something I wrote when everyone can plainly see what he is doing.

Normally I’d ignore this, but I need to set the record straight when Pielke falsely claims I called Democratic members of Congress “liars about the promise of [green] jobs” — and when Morano trumpets that lie.  I advanced the jobs message in the very post Pielke attacked and have blogged repeatedly about the millions of green jobs Democrats are in the process of creating — as Pielke knows.

Also, this post gives me a chance to praise the real leadership that Sen. John Kerry has been showing on the climate and clean energy bill — and his crucial understanding and articulation of both winning messages.

Last night I wrote a post that ended with a discussion of the need for pushing two key messages to advance legislation in the Senate — 1) the threat posed by global warming and 2) the clean energy opportunity.  I excerpted a January piece I wrote:

The Obama team needs to spend a considerable amount of time giving public speeches, holding informal meetings with key opinion makers, researching and publicizing major reports on the high cost of inaction and the relatively low cost of solutions.

Then I noted that the political operatives in the White House have been urging folks to downplay the first message (even though they don’t downplay the “high cost of inaction” message for health care).

[I should have added that President Obama himself has always spoken about the cost of inaction in his major speeches (as has Energy Secretary Chu), but the political operatives have generally succeeded in getting others to downplay the message.]

Then I noted “That means most of the messaging will be on clean energy and jobs — which is a great message, one I’ve pushed for two decades now.”  It is a great message — one I advance in a large fraction of the posts here as regular readers know.

But it is only half the message and anyone who only pushes that half is seriously undercutting the rationale for “a 42% reduction in CO2 emissions in two decades and an 83% reduction in four decades, along with all the extensive accompanying regulations,” as I noted.  Then I wrote:

Frankly, it is an insult to the public — and to members of Congress — to pretend that the overwhelming reason we are doing this bill is clean energy and jobs.

I think my meaning was 99.9999% clear.  The bill will create millions of clean energy jobs, but that is only one of the two key reasons we’re doing it — and we certainly wouldn’t be doing this cap-and-trade bill if not for global warming.

But there is always that one-in-a-million serial liar.

So if you go to Roger Pielke Jr.’s blog — which I can’t recommend to any non-masochists, although it is cleverly named “Roger Pielke Jr.’s Blog” — you’ll see this laughable post, “Joe Romm vs. John Kerry,” which I’ll repost in its entirety:

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) explains why passing cap-and-trade is so important:

…this bill is really a bill for the transformation of the American economy. This bill is about jobs — clean energy jobs that stay here in America, that pay people decent salaries.

Joe Romm explains that Senator Kerry is insulting his peers and the American public with his pretend arguments:

Frankly, it is an insult to the public — and to members of Congress — to pretend that the overwhelming reason we are doing this bill is clean energy and jobs.

That is all the Democrats need on cap-and-trade, their loudest cheerleader calling them liars about the promise of jobs. No green jobs? Say it ain’t so, Joe.

Honestly, Roger, is that the best you can do?  Or, rather, dishonestly, Roger, is that the best you can do?  It takes a certain kind of serial liar to take what I wrote and claim it means that the green jobs message is not true, that I’m calling Democrats liars, and that I’m saying their are “no green jobs.”

Pielke, Jr. knows I wrote in that very post that the clean energy and jobs messages is a great message and that I have blogged repeatedly on the millions of clean energy jobs the climate bill and the stimulus will create.  Indeed, I just posted a link to a major resource which details the hundreds of thousands of jobs already created by clean-energy investments and the many more that will be created (see “The Hub: Resources for a Clean-Energy Economy“).

Pielke, Jr. must know this since he apparently reads my blog obsessively.  After all, I put up my post at 8:28 pm (East Coast time) and his post is dated 8:03 pm (presumably Colorado time).

[No, I don't read Pielke's blog -- someone sent me an e-mail to an idiotic Morano post and I noticed Morano's post "Joe Romm vs. John Kerry on climate bill: 'Loudest cheerleader for Dems calls them liars about the promise of jobs' " and traced it back to the uber-liar.]

Anyway, I added an explanatory note to the original post for the willfully confused:

UPDATE:   We are doing this for two inseparable reasons, as anybody who reads CP — or even this blog post — knows.  We are doing this to transform our economy away from a catastrophically unsustainable emissions path onto a sustainable one and to create millions of green jobs.  But in fact the two arguments are inseparable, a point I’ve made many times — see “Climate competitiveness 2: When the global Ponzi scheme collapses (circa 2030), the only jobs left will be green.”

Let me also note that my post wasn’t even directed at John Kerry, since I know — and everyone else but Pielke knows — that he has never downplayed the climate science message.  Sure Kerry has been a leader in championing the jobs message — but even in the brief quote Pielke uses, it’s clear Kerry is talking about “the transformation of the American economy.”  Kerry has been a true leader in championing the science message.  Just last Monday, he wrote an article in the Providence Journal, “Global-warming disaster,” replying to Palin’s op-ed, that once again gives the lie to Roger Pielke, Jr.:

Yes, she manages to write about the climate-change action in Congress without ever mentioning the reason we are doing this in the first place. It’s like complaining about the cost of repairing a roof without factoring in the leaks destroying your home.

Hear!  Hear!  [I'm talking to you, political operatives in the White House, and you, Roger Pielke, Jr.]

The global climate change crisis threatens our economy and our national security in profound ways. Governor Palin need look no further than the view from her front porch in Alaska to see how destructive this crisis can be. The small native village of Newtok is being literally wiped off the map because of a melting permafrost and disappearing sea ice.

Around the world, the effects are already being felt. The Himalayan glaciers, source for almost all the major rivers of India and China, are shrinking, putting the future water resources of billions of people in doubt. Shifting weather patterns may turn the American “breadbasket” into a dustbowl. And stronger storms and rising sea levels can devastate coastal communities across our country and around the world.

All of these effects (and many, many more) will have a devastating effect on our economy and threaten our national security. For example, just imagine the situation in India and Pakistan if the rivers on which the region depends for agriculture dry up. Imagine how much worse the problems of poverty, terrorism, and instability would become in that situation.

Governor Palin’s Commentary piece sounds as if the only threats America faces are solely economic. But that’s not what our intelligence experts and military leaders tell us. Gen. Anthony Zinni, a rock-jawed military man and former commander of our forces in the Middle East, who is tough to peg as any sort of climate alarmist, warned that without action “we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll.”

We can’t afford to ignore this reality — in an op-ed column or in our public debate over an entire piece on legislation designed to meet these challenges. A Commentary on Guantánamo policy that fails to acknowledge the existence of terrorists would not be taken seriously. Neither should an op-ed on energy reform that fails to mention the irrefutable reality of climate change.

Precisely.

Nobody could possibly accuse John Kerry of pitching the climate bill only as a jobs bill — even though it is a jobs bill — nobody that is except a serial liar like Roger Pielke, Jr.

Related Posts:

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• Pielke in Nature: “Clearly, since 1970 climate change … has shaped the disaster loss record.”
• Why do deniers like Pielke shout down any talk of a link between climate change and extreme weather?

Obama devoted much of his radio address today to the House clean energy and climate bill (text and audio here):

Good morning. Over the past few months, as we have put in place a plan to speed our economic recovery, I have spoken repeatedly of the need to lay a new foundation for lasting prosperity; a foundation that will support good jobs and rising incomes; a foundation for economic growth where we no longer rely on excessive debt and reckless risk – but instead on skilled workers and sound investments to lead the world in the industries of the 21st century.

He is once again hammering home the notion that what we have been doing lo these many years is simply not sustainable (see similar quotes in “Is the U.S. consumption binge over?“).  Kudos for using two rhetorical figures of speech — alliteration and assonance — in the phrase “reckless risk.”  Kudos also for heavy use of the two most important figures in that opening paragraph — metaphor and simple repetition — in the triple use of “foundation.”

Visionary leaders and speakers use metaphors, simple as that — in part because metaphors are typically visual images.

Then Obama launched into his specific remarks on the importance of the Waxman-Markey bill and how it represents a coming together of different interests for the first time in US history to address our key energy and climate challenges:

Two pillars of this new foundation are clean energy and health care. And while there remains a great deal of difficult work ahead, I am heartened by what we have seen these past few days: a willingness of those with different points of view and disparate interests to come together around common goals – to embrace a shared sense of responsibility and make historic progress.

Chairman Henry Waxman and members of the Energy and Commerce Committee brought together stakeholders from all corners of the country –- and every sector of our economy –- to reach an historic agreement on comprehensive energy legislation.  It’s another promising sign of progress, as longtime opponents are sitting together, at the same table, to help solve one of America’s most serious challenges.

For the first time, utility companies and corporate leaders are joining, not opposing, environmental advocates and labor leaders to create a new system of clean energy initiatives that will help unleash a new era of growth and prosperity.

It’s a plan that will finally reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil and cap the carbon pollution that threatens our health and our climate.  Most important, it’s a plan that will trigger the creation of millions of new jobs for Americans, who will produce the wind turbines and solar panels and develop the alternative fuels to power the future.  Because this we know: the nation that leads in 21st century clean energy is the nation that will lead the 21st century global economy. America can and must be that nation – and this agreement is a major step toward this goal.

Note how he leads with health — “carbon pollution that threatens our health and our climate.”  Note how he doesn’t use the generic phrase “renewable energy,” but says wind and solar (see Clean energy messaging 101: ‘Green’ jobs are out, ‘clean energy’ jobs are in).  The word gurus say you shouldn’t use “alternative energy,” but I’m not certain what they say about “alternative fuels.”  Perhaps “clean fuels” would be better, but alternative is at least pretty clearly the alternative to oil.

One of his favorite figure-filled phrases is “the nation that leads in 21st century clean energy is the nation that will lead the 21st century global economy.”  The rest of us would be wise to commit it to memory.

He ends by characterizing this as a team effort (although this team doesn’t happen to include inside-the-Beltway conservatives):

I have always believed that it is better to talk than not to talk; that it is far more productive to reach over a divide than to shake your fist across it. This has been an alien notion in Washington for far too long, but we are seeing that the ways of Washington are beginning to change. For the calling of this moment is too loud and too urgent to ignore. Our success as a nation –- the future of our children and grandchildren -– depends upon our willingness to cast aside old arguments, overcome stubborn divisions, and march forward as one people and one nation.

This is how progress has always been made. This is how a new foundation will be built. We cannot assume that interests will always align, or that fragile partnerships will not fray. There will be setbacks. There will be difficult days.  But we are off to a good start. And I am confident that we will – in the weeks, months, and years ahead -– build on what we have already achieved and lay this foundation which will not only bring about prosperity for this generation, but for generations to come.

Exactly.

The eco-snipers can (misguidedly) attack this bill as a giveaway to polluters (when it is not — see the excellent press release from Markey’s Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming here).  Obama sees this instead as longtime opponents working together to solve one of the most complex and challenging problems the nation has ever faced.

Finally, Obama makes clear we simply can no longer focus on our prosperity to the exclusion of our children and grandchildren and generations to come.  That is a Ponzi scheme.

Related Post:

• Mark Mellman must read on climate messaging: “A strong public consensus has emerged on the reality and severity of global warming, as well as on the need for federal action” — ecoAmerica “could hardly be more wrong”

Some progressives seem unwilling to take yes for an answer.

Just as the long battle for public opinion on global warming is being won, along comes a well-meaning Bob Perkowitz and his ecoAmerica with a politically naïve, methodologically flawed and factually inaccurate study, which he apparently interprets as telling us that voters do not care about global warming.

He could hardly be more wrong.

In fact, most Americans believe global warming is real, is happening now and constitutes a serious threat, particularly to future generations.

Last week, I was very critical of ecoAmerica’s advice on climate messaging after sitting through the full two-hour presentation (see “Messaging 101b: EcoAmerica’s phrase ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’ isn’t going to replace ‘global warming’ — and that’s a good thing“).

Perkowitz, in the comments, questioned “What background do you have in the cognitive sciences or marketing?“  Although it is my full-time job — and has been my part-time job for nearly two decades — and although I have followed all the polling and messaging reports closely, I’m just a lowly messaging amateur.

On the other hand, Robert J. Brulle, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science, Department of Culture and Communications, Drexel University — and a widely published expert on environmental messaging — emailed me about my analysis:

I liked your blog post today.   I think we agree at about the 95% level across the board.

And now we have Mark Mellman, president of The Mellman Group, whose “current clients include the majority leaders of both the House and Senate.”  Mellman is one of the most respected pollsters and messaging gurus in the progressive world.  Here’s his take on the public view of global warming based on all the recent polling, including his own:

A survey we completed in March reveals that nearly eight in 10 voters believe global warming is either happening now or will happen in the future, with 53 percent seeing evidence that it is happening right now. Gallup uncovered similar attitudes, as 53 percent told them global warming has already begun, while just 16 percent are deniers, expecting it will never happe.

Over two-thirds of the electorate believes global warming constitutes a serious threat. In response to a different question, posed by researchers from Yale and George Mason universities, a similar number said they “worry” about global warming. A third believes it will harm them, while 61 percent foresee harm to future generations.

Perhaps more importantly, voters are demanding action to reduce the carbon pollution that causes global warming. In the Yale/George Mason poll, two-thirds urge Congress to do more on the issue, and in our survey, 77 percent favor action to reduce carbon emissions. In an April ABC/Washington Post poll, 75 percent supported federal regulations on the release of greenhouse gases.

In short, a strong public consensus has emerged on the reality and severity of global warming, as well as on the need for federal action.

Put another way, most of the public gets this — and in particular they understand things are going to get much worse on our current emissions path.  That’s why it is so crucial we keep messaging on climate science and impacts, and keep warning people about what is to come — although we can definitely do it better and smarter, as I’ll discuss in future posts.

Mr. Perkowitz devalues that consensus, suggesting Republicans stand outside it because they express less concern about the problem than Democrats and independents. That is true and lamentable, but Republicans are also less concerned about jobs and we have not shied away from trying to create them, nor started calling them “income generating opportunities” in a desperate attempt to solicit GOP support. Republicans also care less about healthcare than other Americans, but no one is using that as an excuse to avoid action.

Indeed, part of the Republicans’ problem with the majority of America is their failure to take seriously voters’ real concerns on issues ranging from jobs to healthcare to energy and global warming.

While some Republican leaders, like John McCain and John Warner, have been forthright in recognizing the need to reduce global warming, others, who deny the problem and discourage solutions, are out of touch with their own base.

Yes, Democrats are more concerned about the problem than are Republicans, but that does not mean Republicans are unconcerned. Far from it — as Mr. Perkowitz’s own data conclusively demonstrate. While 90 percent of Democrats believe global warming is happening, so does a 54 percent majority of Republicans. While 84 percent of Democrats believe global warming is harmful to people, so do 56 percent of Republicans. While 87 percent of Democrats call it their “duty” to stop global warming, 60 percent of Republicans also feels duty-bound to join the battle.

When 84 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of independents and 56 percent of Republicans think global warming is harmful to people; when 86 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans favor action to reduce the carbon pollution that causes global warming — it is time to take yes for an answer; it is time for elected officials to recognize the consensus and act, instead of heeding those who, inexplicably, regard a nearly unprecedented level of public unanimity as a prerequisite for legislative accomplishment.

Hear!  Hear!

If you wonder why I keep blogging on this, consider that the Wall Street Journal (subs. req’d), reported on Tuesday:

Seeking to bolster public support for climate legislation, the Obama administration is consulting pollsters who advocate avoiding phrases such as “cap-and-trade” and “global warming.” On Monday, the White House Council on Environmental Quality was scheduled to meet with Robert Perkowitz, president of ecoAmerica, a Washington-based nonprofit that uses “psychographic research” to “shift personal and civic choices of environmentally agnostic Americans,” according to its Web site.

“We’re trying to give them phrases that work,” Mr. Perkowitz said in an interview. He said that in a survey of some 2,000 Americans conducted by his group in March and April, less than half of the respondents said they would support a “cap-and-trade” policy, and that only 24% said they knew what the phrase means. “If you call it ‘clean energy dividend’…almost anything other than ‘cap and trade,’ you’ll get people responding a lot more favorably,” he said.

Now E&E News PM (subs. req’d) did report later that day:

Veteran Democratic pollster Mark Mellman will meet tonight with the entire House Democratic caucus to outline strategies for how the party should engage with the public on energy and climate change issues….

Mellman’s presentation comes a day after a White House Council on Environmental Quality official met for the second time with Washington-based nonprofit ecoAmerica to discuss communication strategies on climate change. CEQ spokeswoman Christine Glunz said the meeting was one of many with outside groups, adding, “The administration is not making any changes in the way it communicates about climate change.”

Mellman also met this morning with Senate Democratic leaders to present polling work on climate and energy.

I will add that I have credible sources who tell me that some White House political types have been urging progressives politicians not to talk about climate science.  So far, Obama has ignored them, and hopefully Mellman will prove persuasive with Congressional leaders.

Now is not the time to be back on our heels.

Now is not the time to be self-censoring — the status quo media does enough of that for us!