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The US Republican party is changing tactics
on the environment, avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it
is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable.
The memo, by the leading Republican consultant
Frank Luntz, concedes the party has "lost the environmental communications battle" and urges its politicians to encourage
the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.
"The scientific debate is closing [against
us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science," Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained
by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organization.
"Voters believe that there is no consensus
about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled,
their views about global warming will change accordingly.
"Therefore, you need to continue to make
the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."
The phrase "global warming" should be abandoned
in favor of "climate change", Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as "conservationist" instead of "environmentalist",
because "most people" think environmentalists are "extremists" who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behavior.. that turns off
many voters".
Words such as "common sense" should be used,
with pro-business arguments avoided wherever possible.
The environment, the memo says, "is probably
the single issue on which Republicans in general - and President Bush in particular - are most vulnerable".
A Republican source, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said party strategists agreed with Mr Luntz's conclusion that "many Americans believe Republicans do not care
about the environment".
The popular image is that they are "in the
pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle manically [sic] as they plot to pollute America for
fun and profit", Mr Luntz adds.
The phrase "global warming" appeared frequently
in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during 2002, when the memo was produced.
Environmentalists have accused the party
and oil companies of helping to promulgate the view that serious doubt remains about the effects of global warming.
Last week, a panel of experts appointed at
the Bush administration's request to analyze the president's climate change strategy found that it lacked "vision, executable
goals, clear timetables and criteria for measuring progress".
"Rather than focusing on the things we don't
know, it's almost as if parts of the plan were written by people who are totally unfamiliar with where ecosystems science
is coming from," panel member William Schlesinger told the Guardian.
Mr Luntz urges Republicans to "emphasize
the importance of 'acting only with all the facts in hand'", in line with the White House position that mandatory restrictions
on emissions, as required by the Kyoto protocol, should not be countenanced until further research is undertaken.
The memo singles out as a major strategic
failure the incoming Bush administration's response to Bill Clinton's last-minute executive order reducing the permitted level
of arsenic in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion.
The new administration put the plan on hold,
prompting "the biggest public relations misfire of President Bush's first year in office", Mr Luntz writes. The perception
was that Mr Bush "was actively putting in more arsenic in the water".
"A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate,
can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth," Mr Luntz notes in the memo.
©
Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 | 
