El 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.

Sunrise from Space Shuttle Discovery, 2008 (NASA)

It’s Always Sunrise Somewhere

On its return to Earth from a mission to the International Space Station in 2008, an unnamed crew member aboard the space shuttle Discovery took this picture of sunrise. The bluish line in the upper atmosphere is unrelated to the dawn. Called “airglow,” this light is always present, the product of a chemical reaction.

The Discovery is seen here from the Space Station as it’s about to dock on July 6, 2006.

Discovery, 2006 (NASA)

The LA Times weighed in today on the controversy over California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s bill to make large areas of the Mojave Desert “no build zones” for solar power plants. (I’ve covered the story here and in OnEarth magazine.)

Parabolic trough system in desert

The Times editorial began:

“From an aesthetic perspective, vast solar arrays stretching for thousands of acres across the desert aren’t pretty. But what they do for the environment and for U.S. energy independence can be downright beautiful. Which is why, though we’d be happy to see about 1.5 million acres of the Mojave Desert preserved under a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, it’s disappointing that the California Democrat didn’t include more meaningful support for renewable energy.”

I have a question for the Times editorial writer:

Why begin the editorial with aesthetics?

That’s not Feinstein’s emphasis, at least not in the bill summary, the official statement released by her office, or in the bill itself.

Energy, Conservation & the Media

Could it have something to do with the incestuous amplification of the news media? After all, in the New York Times, the article about Feinstein’s bill was given the headline, Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power.

Feinstein stresses conservation as her primary motivation in drafting the bill, and while the “viewscape” is a component of conservation, it’s hardly the most important one. Most conservationists probably consider habit or ecology as the primary value they want to conserve.

Who doesn’t enjoy a beautiful view? But to frame the debate in those terms is to trivialize both the Feinstein bill, and, more important, a topic that is complex — and crucial to our time.