Eco-Speak and “Green” Propaganda
The New York Times reports that it recently received accidentally by email a copy of the latest findings and recommendations by the environmental marketing/messaging (i.e., propaganda) firm ecoAmerica. The firm “and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration” to re-cast global warming terminology because the public is not buying the scare-mongering of a climate crisis. Of course, political propaganda campaigns are nothing new, but the various interest groups pushing fervently for climate corporatism don’t want to lose what they consider their great opportunity now under an Obama White House.
Indeed, another New York Times article has reported that, “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.”
Instead, according to ecoAmerica those seeking to build public support for environmental central-government planning should simply alter their communications to the following more soothing terminology:
- Old: “global warming”
New: “our deteriorating atmosphere” - Old: “carbon dioxide”
New: “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past” - Old: “energy efficiency”
New: “saving money for a more prosperous future” - Old: “the environment”
New: “the air we breathe, the water our children drink” - Old: “cap and trade”
New: “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund”
As further reported by the Times, ecoAmerica counsels that environmental communications should be kept vague with as little pertinent information as possible:
Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology.
Of course, the “old” terminology was earlier concocted as environmental propaganda as well, and it has fallen short not because of misperceptions by the public, but because most environmental fear-mongering has repeatedly been shown to be either greatly exaggerated or completely unfounded and bogus.
For propaganda-free environmental analysis, stay clear of political spin-doctors and instead see the following Independent Institute books:
- Re-Thinking Green: Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy, edited by Robert Higgs and Carl P. Close
- A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth, by Wilfred Beckerman
- Plowshares & Pork Barrels: The Political Economy of Agriculture, by Ernest C. Pasour, Jr., and Randal R. Rucker
- Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate, by S. Fred Singer
