DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

We lost the most recent* ANWR vote, but apparently it’s still not too late to prevent oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

Check out the Earth Day Virtual March. Sign up today; have your signature delivered to your senators on Earth Day (April 22).

The Virtual March is a joint project of Care2.com and Defenders of Wildlife. So far, over 15,000 people have signed up.

(See: Talking Points on ANWR)

*Remember that Bush’s desire to drill for oil in the wildlife preserve has been beaten numerous times before. He won the most recent vote, but that’s only one of many. Common sense may yet prevail.

The latest issue of earthwise, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, contains a mission statement that even the folks from the red states would support:

The UCS is motivated by deeply held values that cross party lines: that allpeople have a right to clean air, water, and land; that we should pass on to our children a world that can sustain them and their children; that decisions affecting our future ought to be guided by an honest assessment of the best available science.

I’ll be the first to admit that as a recovering Midwesterner and ex-political-conservative, my viewpoint is biased, but I really don’t see anything too unreasonable there. I mean, nobody wants to breathe toxic chemicals, do they?

Yet the people who continue to win elections are, in the opinion of scientists at organizations like the UCS, working hard to enact laws that will result in additional environmental poisons. How is this happening?

George Lakoff would argue that the Republican Party won the election by superior “framing” — in a nutshell, by describing ideas in terms that evoke beneficial associations and feelings, even if these terms are not accurate or true. “Clear Skies” is a perfect example, in that (despite its warm and fuzzy name) it would have caused more toxic pollution than allowed by current law. For the GOP, this was an effective frame, but fortunately for all of us not effective enough to carry the bill through Congress.

This is a tired rant. I’m wallowing briefly because it sets up the good news to follow.

Kevin Knobloch, UCS president, notes in this latest earthwise that the UCS has begun following George Lakoff’s advice. Rather than simply reporting facts and attempting to appeal to readers’ logic, the UCS will begin actively framing its positions in order to appeal to readers’ emotions. In a sense, this is about spin. But I’m learning from Lakoff too, so instead of spin I’ll call it “effective communication.”

If that doesn’t sound like a big deal, consider how effective framing can be. You may be one of the roughly 53% of voters who think George Bush is doing a fabulous job by rolling back pollution controls and setting up an oilfield in a wildlife preserve, and you may believe that all the Republican Party’s pronouncements are morally right and just and true. I’d invite you to wake up and smell the toxins. The “reckless Right” has out-framed the moderates, the progressives, the Greens, and the liberals for five years. They’ve set the rules. It’s about time we started to play their game.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has prepared a print ad in response to the Auto Alliance’s recent ridiculous claim that modern cars are “virtually emissions free”, which I deconstructed last Wednesday.

The UCS weighs in with additional objections to the automakers’ misleading ad on their new Automakers vs. the People campaign.

Unfortunately, the UCS doesn’t have the budget of the big auto makers. Pronounce “money” as “reach.” Throw a few dollars their way by following the link at the bottom of the campaign page.

The Bush Administration’s assault on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge continues. You can do one small thing to help save it: sign the Citizens’ RollCall to voice your dissent.

ANWR “talking points” from John Kerry:

• The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 19 million acres comprise one of the last places on earth where an intact expanse of arctic and sub arctic lands remains protected.
• Drilling in the Arctic Refuge can’t make even a small dent in meeting America’s energy needs. U.S. Geological Survey scientists estimate that there is very likely only enough oil to supply America’s needs for six months. And oil companies admit that, even that, won’t be available for at least 10 years.
• An irreplaceable natural treasure, the Arctic Refuge is home to caribou, polar bears, grizzly bears, wolves, golden eagles, snow geese and more. Millions of other birds use the Arctic Refuge to nest and as a critical staging area on their migratory journeys.
• Of course, the Arctic Refuge supports more than wildlife. For a thousand generations, the Gwich’in people of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have depended on it and lived in harmony with it. To them, the Arctic Coastal Plain is sacred ground.

See also my previous entries about ANWR.

The Union of Concerned Scientists’ latest campaign points out a stunningly offensive advertising claim from the auto industry: “Autos made today are virtually emission-free.”

As with most environmental-impact statements made by big industries (and, in fact, the Bush Administration), there’s a nugget of truth used to disguise the ugly reality. The truth is that in lab testing, the average car today runs cleaner than the average car of 30 years ago. But the ugly reality is that we’re still in much worse shape than ever before.

According to a 1996 study, EPA lab tests show a 96% reduction in vehicle emissions since the mid-1960s. However:

[C]ars in actual use emitted only 75 percent less CO and HC, while Americans drove twice as many miles per year — resulting in a roughly 50-percent net drop in actual auto emissions. Vehicle travel is growing so rapidly that the trend of decreasing total emissions could reverse without additional regulatory steps.

The Auto Alliance’s claim is a smart marketing ploy. Telling consumers their vehicles are “virtually emission-free” seems to remove the auto industry from any discussion about environmental toxins. But in fact the auto industry should be at the center of any discussion about environmental toxins. According to a consortium of environmental groups, “Burning gasoline in cars and trucks is responsible for 27 percent of global warming pollution in the U.S.”

How do you get from being “virtually emission-free” to being responsible for 27% of global warming pollution? That’s not a question the Auto Alliance is likely to answer. In my opinion, the Auto Alliance is guilty of greenscamming. They’d like new car buyers to feel good about emission levels, when in fact auto emissions are still a major source of toxic pollution. The Auto Alliance’s ad ignores these factors:

• There are more cars on the road than ever before.
  
• People keep cars longer than ever before.
  
• People drive more miles per year than ever before.
  

So, in summary, new cars run cleaner than old cars, but there are more old cars on the road, and more total cars on the road, and everybody drives further than they used to.

Add to that the fact that overall fleet fuel economy is in decline. It’s counter-intuitive — reduced emissions implies better fuel economy, you might think — but the fuel efficiency of our national vehicle fleet peaked in 1988 and is now lower than it was 10 years ago.

Add to that the fact that although there are more models of SULEV and PZEV vehicles available, 24% of all vehicles sold in the US are SUVs. Although there are SULEV SUVs coming on the market, how many years will it be before they’ve penetrated the market sufficiently to have an impact on either overall fleet fuel efficiency or emissions?

The bottom line is that the Auto Alliance has picked out one partial truth and used it in a way that misleads consumers, to their own ill health.

The UCS provides a convenient mechanism for responding: Petition the FCC to investigate the Auto Alliance claim and issue appropriate sanctions.

The UCS provides a convenient summary of the problem, including scary statistics on C0₂ emissions from automobiles, on the main campaign page: Automakers Pollute the Press