— By Kate Sheppard | Fri Jan. 22, 2010 3:00 AM PST

Republican pollster Frank Luntz—the brains behind Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” and the man who coined politically potent phrases like the “death tax”—wants to help environmentalists in their push for legislation to combat climate change. His advice? Stop talking about climate change.

The environmental community is “fighting the wrong battle,” Luntz announced on Thursday at an event to mark the release of a new report by his polling firm, The Word Doctors, outlining strategies to help marshal public support for a climate bill. “The least important component of climate change is climate change.”

Luntz’s report, “The Language of a Clean Energy Economy,” finds that the majority of the public across the political spectrum is convinced that global warming is happening and caused at least in part by humans. But, Luntz says, talking about the problem won’t win support for the legislation that would solve it. Among both Democrats and Republicans polled by his firm, addressing climate change was the least important reason to support a cap-and-trade policy.

Here Harper begins to use language that was actually made in America. The Republican spin doctor Frank Luntz was in Kingston, Ontario, in May 2006, speaking to the Conservative-linked Civitas Society and making time on the side for a personal meeting with Prime Minister Harper. (The prime minister confirmed in the House of Commons a couple of days later that he and Luntz had been acquainted ‘for some years.’)”

Hoggan, James. Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. (p.182 paperback)

A 2004 memo from Steve Miller, CEO of a coal industry lobby group to the CEO of Peabody Energy, details the public relations and lobbying strategies being used to deal with issues ranging from climate change to Mercury.

Frank Luntz Memorandum to Bush White House, 2002

If you think Republicans honestly believe that their policies are wrecking the environment and endangering the quality of life of their children and grandchildren, you are more cynical than I am. The problem is that they actually believe environmental risks have been seriously overstated, that government is no good at anything, that environmental laws will cause massive unemployment, etc.

The problem is that ideology (of any kind) can make people misperceive facts – as well as be willing to massage facts in support of ideology.

The document is also notable in terms of ways in which the general message has changed (or remained constant) in the period between 2002 and now.

I find this preposterous – how could you have neglected to infer this isn’t exactly what their strategy would have been? It’s just beyond doubt that this is the kind of thing an internal document to say. it’s being leaked is an embarrassment, but it doesn’t give any strategic information.

Published: April 28, 2005

A WORLD, or at least a state, apart from the precisely articulated contours of facial hair forms like the goatee, Vandyke, mustache or soul patch, a full beard suggests an aloofness from tonsorial obsessiveness. Nonetheless, almost all of today’s beard wearers succumb to some degree of grooming. Kris Kristofferson of “Convoy” may represent the suavely bearded rebel, but Dan Haggerty of “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” lives a little too close – aesthetically at least – to the Unabomber.

“Coupled models are becoming increasingly reliable tools for understanding climate and climate change, and the best models are now capable of simulating present-day climate with accuracy approaching conventional atmospheric observations,” said Reichler. “We can now place a much higher level of confidence in model-based projections of climate change than in the past.”