Roman Around

The term “global warming,” which for a period of time had been unofficially replaced in the American lexicon with the phrase “climate change,” just doesn’t play well with a lot of people anymore. That the world is neither warming (and hasn’t been for several years) nor behaving in any way inconsistent with the cyclical climactic nature of its four billion year life span seems to be irrelevant to those attempting to determine why this is so.

According to John Broder of the New York Times, the term “turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes.” The reality that people may actually be tired of being bombarded day and night with nonsensical threats of a bogus global warming catastrophe doesn’t seem to enter into the minds of the people at EcoAmerica, the “nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm” that conducted a recent poll on the matter.

Rather, it is all in the packaging.

Thus, as liberals are wont to do when evidence, history and facts shatter their contrived calamities and political agendas, they change the label in the hope that the people will buy into the product.

Broder writes:

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”.”

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.

…

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. (Robert M.) Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.

Arrogance, thy name is environmentalism.

A question … The fact that “environmental issues” consistently rate near or at the bottom of polls couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that most people understand that the hysteria of impending doom that environmentalists like Al Gore peddle to the masses is pure hogwash, could it?

The idea that most people are not operating in red-alert panic mode over the preposterous claims that the planet is on or near the brink of irreversible devastation absolutely infuriates the greenie-wacko set. The problem, according to EcoAmerica, is that they just haven’t hit upon the right catchphrases, slogans or angles to sell their haggard agenda well enough.

If “global warming, as Mr. Perkowitz suggests, is perceived as a code phrase for “progressive liberals,” who exactly is to blame for that? If today’s environmentalism is associated with “progressive liberalism,” it’s because they are the ones who consistently and repeatedly latch onto crisis after phony crisis, hysteria after hysteria, doomsday scenario after doomsday scenario, with the fate of the planet and humanity hanging in the balance. There isn’t a crisis they won’t promote … or one they have gotten right. From global cooling to overpopulation, from resource depletion to the threat of heterosexual AIDS, from global warming to second-hand smoke, each new challenge is a threat to the very existence of humanity – and ultimately, the earth itself.

They’re batting 1.000.

They’ve been wrong every time.

It makes one wonder what the “perfect” temperature is, or what the “correct” number of people on earth would be, to today’s enviro-warriors.

If “global warming” was anything but political fodder for the Left, why would a name change even be necessary at all? Why would “campaigns” and “strategies” need to be devised to convince people of its very existence? The fact is, years and years of environmentalist screeching about the dangers of human activity and the effect it has on the climate ring less true to more and more people as global temperatures continue to go down – just as they always have after a warming trend. In other words, if the Left (and a few misguided rightists) genuinely believe that the danger facing the planet was clear-cut and irrefutable, why would their agenda need to be prettied up with more favorable focus-group-friendly phraseology?

This isn’t just a matter of finding the right bumper sticker slogan for an unknown product that needs public exposure. Anyone who has been alive and cognizant anywhere in the developed world over the past decade-and-a-half has heard the phrase ”global warming” and knows what the phrase implies.

That many have rejected the product  – with many more doing so each day – is proof that clarity of thought is not yet dead – only victims of lefticide.

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