Good news: MoveOn.org has selected the climate crisis as one of its top goals for 2009.
Specifically, MoveOn has decided to focus on "building a green economy and stopping climate change."
This is great news. In my view, building a green economy is the number one opportunity we have before us. It's not just about the environment, either.
Access to cheap, efficient energy is perhaps the single most important component of economic growth. Even in California, where energy usage per capita is the lowest in the nation, overall energy usage has increased -- because its population just keeps on growing.
I do, however, have one nit to pick with MoveOn.org -- the use of the phrase "climate change" instead of "global warming."
"Climate change" is a phrase preferred by right-wingers who want to portray global warming as a natural phenomenon on which humans have no impact.
Frank Luntz (who now concedes global warming is real) wrote an influential memo for conservatives in which he argued:
We have spent the last seven years examining how best to communicate complicated ideas and controversial subjects. The terminology in the upcoming environmental debate needs refinement, starting with "global warming" and ending with "environmentalism". It's time for us to start talking about "climate change" instead of global warming and "conservation" instead of preservation.
"Climate chanpe'' is less frightening than "global warming. " As one focus group participant noted, climate change "sounds like you're going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale." While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.
I'm not one of those people who thinks you're "bad" if you say "climate change" -- in fact, I'm sure I say it a fair amount myself, and it's used by U.N. panels and other organizations.
But MoveOn.org is a political organization, and when you're phrasing a core mission statement for a political campaign, you probably should use the words that will be most helpful to achieving your cause (not to mention, the most accurate). There's no need to embrace the preferred language of your political sparring partner.
Anyway, don't get me wrong, I'm glad MoveOn is heading in this direction, and that's obviously the most important thing, but if they change their language, they'll find the challenge ahead just got a little easier.
© Jed Lewison