The Phoenix Sun

Update – 1/23 Frank Luntz comments on my True/Slant piece…

…but ducks the hard questions: Where’s the data that shows he conducted a creditable poll on climate change? My guess is he’s still playing the “parlor games” that caused the rift with the National Council on Public Polls. You can read his comment, and my reply at True/Slant, here.

Spinning, spinning, spun.

Maybe it’s the illusion of getting the real inside information, the dope that only a double agent can provide, that has led green groups to buy into Frank Luntz’s con-game. This is the guy, after all, who advised the Bush administration to magnify scientific disagreements about climate change as a way to avoid actually doing something about the real problem. Never mind that sowing doubt had been the propaganda tool of choice for industries like Big Tobacco going back decades.

Which headline do you think will sell more papers?

Word Guru Shapes White House Policy

or:

Man States Obvious

Sadly, some green groups are buying Luntz’s snake oil. And the media misses the real story — that Luntz has been twice admonished by professional polling organizations for sub-standard (and in one case, unethical) work. Not too surprising when you realize that Luntz’s study on communicating about climate change was commissioned by the News Corporation, parent company of Fox News.

Read the sordid details of Luntz’s scam here.

With all eco-eyes focused on the action (or, more properly, inaction) on a climate bill, other critical components of a clean energy economy can be overlooked. That was the case on Monday as the dominant news story concerned speculation about whether Republican members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Public Works would show up for Tuesday’s climate bill markup session (they didn’t).

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Dan Reicher, at the National Clean Energy Forum in 2008.

Google’s director for Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Dan Reicher, told the Senate committee considering climate change legislation that “It is essential that Congress address this serious energy R&D short-fall by incorporating President Obama’s goal of $15 billion per year in federal energy R&D spending in final climate legislation.”

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