By Alan Caruba
Have you ever wondered why hardly a day goes by without your reading or hearing about some Green program? It’s not just happenstance. The environmental movement has one of the most varied and impressive public relations programs extant. And it spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on it.
Take, for example, a $250,000 contract that Fraser Communications, a Los Angeles PR and advertising firm, just secured to promote the Presidential Climate Action Project. It is described as “an academic, government and interest group push to make climate change a priority for the next U.S. president.” Think about that, we haven’t even had a primary yet, but this program is already thinking about how to bring pressure on whoever is elected to continue dealing with climate change or, as it used to be known, “global warming.”
About the only person still using the term “global warming” is the gaseous former Vice President, Al Gore. He has, despite his Nobel Prize, evolved into a laughing stock for his near-term predictions of global catastrophe.
The Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) has an “advisory committee” that includes the Johnson Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and the National Wildlife Federation, among other groups.
One almost instantly wonders why a governmental agency like NOAA that presumably takes its direction from Congress is involved in trying to influence a future president? Isn’t that just a tad inappropriate? Unethical?
As to the others, from the beginning when the environmental movement first took off, it has been leftist foundations that have provided the funding, so there’s no surprise in that. Here again, however, one wonders what the National Wildlife Federation’s interest in climate change is all about? Since the Green mantra is that climate change is manmade, the result of human activities, why is a group devoted to bison, bunny rabbits, and other furry creatures involved?
The whole object of this endeavor and the charge that its PR firm will undertake is to apply “public persuasion” strategies related to policy and the environment. The key goal is to “set the stage for candidates running for public office in 2008 to take positions on specific proposals to address climate, energy, and national security.”
Whoa! The name of the project is “Climate Action”, but it turns out that this Green project is also about energy and national security.
One can understand “energy” because the primary goal of the Greens is to cripple the ability of the U.S. to acquire the energy resources it requires to maintain our economy and our lifestyle. Using the Endangered Species Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, and every other means, the bottom line is to insure that no coal-fired electricity utilities be built anywhere and to continue to slow any progress toward nuclear facilities. As for oil, they hate it. That’s why they have conspired to limit access to the billions of barrels of oil untapped in ANWR, Alaska’s North Slope, and 85% of our nation’s continental shelf.
You want national security? You better be able to fuel our Air Force squadrons, our Army’s tanks, and our Navy’s carrier fleets. You better cut our current 75% imports of oil and become more self-sufficient.
But somehow I suspect that PCAP’s agenda is about influencing presidential candidates to take positions that they genuflect to the myth of global warming. That means a President who will sign off on carbon dioxide limits on every industry and activity that might emit CO2. And that includes backyard barbeques.
Alan,
ReplyDeleteYour post on the Presidential Climate Action Project is filled with new insights on the global warming debate.
We were amazed to learn, for example, that the various organizations concerned about climate change spend more money on "public relations" than the coal industry, the oil industry, the automobile industry and the disinformation industry. The disinformation industry, as you know, is made up of that collection of think tanks, blogs and soldiers of the status quo who spread ridiculous rumors to distract us from serious discussions about global warming. For example, you've just wasted some perfectly good electrons to complain that the Presidential Climate Action Project uses the term "global warming" (who cares?) and that the environmental movement wants to confiscate everyone's barbecue grills.
That is ridiculous, of course. The environmentalists I know don't want America to sacrifice its standard of living. The goal is to live smarter -- smarter cars, smarter buildings, smarter appliances -- so that we spend less money on $100-a-barrel foreign oil and prosper without suffering the downsides of global warming, oil addiction, mercury pollution and the like.
On your other points:
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has nothing to do with the Presidential Climate Action Plan. We're honored that one member of the project's advisory committee is a former administrator of NOAA. We’re also honored to have people like Ted Roosevelt IV, one of several prominent Republican advisors, and many others who believe that the atmosphere is non-partisan.
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The National Wildlife Federation is concerned about global warming because the loss of habitat attributed to climate change is accelerating the migration and extinction of plant and animal species. That's why the Bush Administration nominated polar bears for the list of endangered animals and why a growing number of hunters and fishermen are calling for climate action.
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We're sorry you're shocked that our plan for climate action addresses energy and national security. It might help to understand that 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from burning fossil fuels,that some of the money you and I pay for gasoline goes to countries that support terrorist organizations, and that global warming is increasingly recognized as a national security issue. Earlier this year, a panel of 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals published that conclusion. The federal government currently is conducting a national intelligence estimate to elaborate on how global warming threatens national security. Watch for its report next spring.
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You suggest that reducing America's oil imports will ground our Air Force squadrons, Army tanks and Navy ships. Actually, it's our military's dependence on oil that threatens to ground our planes, tanks and ships. Getting oil to the battlefield is a huge logistics nightmare, both expensive and dangerous. That's why the U.S. military is among the most aggressive organizations in the United States today in looking for alternative energy technologies.
To learn more about the facts, we invite you read the Presidential Climate Action Plan. Or, if you'd like to talk to one of the many reformed skeptics who now accept that climate change is real, call Newt Gingrich. Or call Frank Lunz (check out http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1912828.htm) I gather from your post that Frank now works for free.
Meantime, thank you for the attention. We prefer our publicity pro bono. And while you stand guard over your barbecue grill, try not to worry about the future. We're on it.
Bill Becker
Executive Director
Presidential Climate Action Project