It certainly helps when you do not have climate doom hysterics caterwauling, freaking people out, eh?
Climate advocates finally won in WA. How? By not talking about climate
Midway through the $16 million political campaign this fall to defend Washington’s far-reaching climate change law, University of Washington professor Aseem Prakash noticed something very unusual.
“They weren’t talking about climate change,” he said. “Climate change is the purpose of the law, and they weren’t focusing on that, at all.”
It’s true, and pretty remarkable. A review of the 10 television and digital ads that made up the crux of the “No on I-2117” campaign shows that the word “climate” was never uttered once by the farmers, mothers, firefighters, a rocket scientist or Bill Nye the Science Guy, who all appeared in the ads.
Nor did words like “climate change” or “global warming” ever appear.
Ah, so, it is more about misdirection, much like the Inflation Reduction Act?
So this time around, two things changed. One is that lawmakers wrote the Climate Commitment Act so that some carbon fees were reinvested in visible infrastructure projects around the state — such as in transportation. And two is that the campaign focused heavily on that spending, dropping any talk about saving the planet or stemming climate change.
Prakash said it was genius. Focus groups and polling have shown that the mere mention of the phrase “climate change” can reduce support for a government project or program by double digits, he said.
“The reason is the words ‘climate change’ are a trigger for some, they can ignite a culture war,” Prakash said. “The words also raise the issue that the benefits can be global, and therefore out of sight to the average voter.”
In other words, they know that bringing this stuff up is like listening to a Scientologist or member of Heaven’s Gate. Pure cult and drives people away. Regardless, it will be fun when the people who voted for this realize their taxes, food, gas, housing, and overall cost of living is going up.
