NOTE to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta): Do not be
afraid to play the Planet card. The US electorate
understands it better and resonantes with it more than
"conventional wisdom" gives them credit for...Play
"Global Warming" as another CREDIBILITY issue (THEY
LIE ABOUT THE SCIENCE), and play it also as another
SECURITY issue (Ask, "Are you safer today than four
years ago?") Yes, Clinton-Gore understood both
terrorism and global warming. But the _resident took
us backward to Iraq and Big Oil and we have lost four years we
could not afford to lose...Your proposal to transition 20% of the US's energy consumption to renewable resources by 2020 is a laudable beginning, but do not miss this opportunity to define the _resident as once again failing the CREDIBILITY test and also as weak on science.
Antony Barnett, Observer: Among the memo's assertions
are 'global warming is not a fact', 'links between air
quality and asthma in children remain cloudy', and the
US Environment Protection Agency is exaggerating when
it says that at least 40 per cent of streams, rivers
and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or
swimming.
Save the Environment, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0404-01.htm
Published on Sunday, April 4, 2004 by the Observer/UK
Bush Attacks Environment 'Scare Stories': Secret email gives advice on denying climate change
by Antony Barnett in New York
George W. Bush's campaign workers have hit on an
age-old political tactic to deal with the tricky
subject of global warming - deny, and deny
aggressively.
The Observer has obtained a remarkable email sent to
the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen
advising them what to say when questioned on the
environment in the run-up to November's election. The
advice: tell them everything's rosy.
It tells them how global warming has not been proved,
air quality is 'getting better', the world's forests
are 'spreading, not deadening', oil reserves are
'increasing, not decreasing', and the 'world's water
is cleaner and reaching more people'.
The email - sent on 4 February - warns that Democrats
will 'hit us hard' on the environment. 'In an effort
to help your members fight back, as well as be
aggressive on the issue, we have prepared the
following set of talking points on where the
environment really stands today,' it states.
The memo - headed 'From medi-scare to air-scare' -
goes on: 'From the heated debate on global warming to
the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our
nation's waters to the convolution on air pollution,
we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on
the environment - Republicans can't stress enough that
extremists are screaming "Doomsday!" when the
environment is actually seeing a new and better day.'
Among the memo's assertions are 'global warming is not
a fact', 'links between air quality and asthma in
children remain cloudy', and the US Environment
Protection Agency is exaggerating when it says that at
least 40 per cent of streams, rivers and lakes are too
polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming.
It gives a list of alleged facts taken from
contentious sources. For instance, to back its claim
that air quality is improving it cites a report from
Pacific Research Institute - an organization that has
received $130,000 from Exxon Mobil since 1998.
The memo also lifts details from the controversial
book The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg.
On the Republicans' claims that deforestation is not a
problem, it states: 'About a third of the world is
still covered with forests, a level not changed much
since World War II. The world's demand for paper can
be permanently satisfied by the growth of trees in
just five per cent of the world's forests.'
The memo's main source for the denial of global
warming is Richard Lindzen, a climate-skeptic
scientist who has consistently taken money from the
fossil fuel industry. His opinion differs
substantially from most climate scientists, who say
that climate change is happening.
But probably the most influential voice behind the
memo is Frank Luntz, a Republican Party strategist. In
a leaked 2002 memo, Luntz said: 'The scientific debate
is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is
still a window of opportunity to challenge the
science.'
Luntz has been roundly criticized in Europe. Last
month Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David
King, attacked him for being too close to Exxon.
Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace condemned the messages
given in the Republican email. He said: 'Bush's spin
doctors have been taking their brief from dodgy
scientists with an Alice in Wonderland view of the
world's environment. They want us to think the air is
getting cleaner and that global warming is a myth.
This memo shows it is Exxon Mobil driving US policy,
when it should be sound science.'
The memo has met some resistance from Republican
moderates.
Republican Mike Castle, who heads a group of 69
moderate House members, senators and governors, says
the strategy doesn't address the fact that pollution
continues to be a health threat. 'If I tried to follow
these talking points at a town hall meeting with my
constituents, I'd be booed.'
Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, who left the Republican
Party in 2001 to become an independent partly over its
anti-green agenda, called the memo 'outlandish' and an
attempt to deceive voters.
'They have a head-in-the-sand approach to it. They're
just sloughing off the human health impacts - the
premature deaths and asthma attacks caused by power
plant pollution,' Jeffords said.
Republican House Conference director Greg Cist, who
sent the email, said: 'It's up to our members if they
want to use it or not. We're not stuffing it down
their throats.'
He said the memo was spurred by concerns that
environmental groups were using myths to try to make
the Republicans look bad.
'We wanted to show how the environment has been
improving,' Cist said. 'We wanted to provide the other
side of the story.'
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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