The impression I get from this is that environmentalists are never happy. Get people talking about climate change...it's not good enough. Some major corp decides to try the green route...It's not good enough. etc etc etc.

1. "It is philosophically wrong minded to propose to manage climate aggressively."

The quick answer to this is "too late!" We have already been conducting a planetary engineering project/experiment by dumping all this CO2 into the atmosphere without thinking. It's time to stop the experiment because it is causing some serious problems.

2. "Environmentalists want to send more jobs to China."

Again, "too late!" Where have these people been? Its conservative globalization policies that have been outsourcing U.S. jobs for years. Tackling Climate Change at home offers new jobs in finding solutions to the problem. If we wait the rest of the world will develop the alternative technologies and get the jobs and growth before we do.

3. "Environmentalists want to follow the EU's "socialist" approach of mandating cut backs and manipulating the market."

This is just a howler, the alleged "socialist" approach is actually a market based approach supported by American companies such as GE and ALCOA. This approach, "a cap and trade" system, was successfully used in the U.S. to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and combat acid rain.

4. City based environmentalists want to take away your trucks and your guns.

Nope, environmentalists just want trucks that get good gas mileage, and eventually run on CO2 free or CO2 neutral fuels, don't you? Gov. Schwartzenegger is advocating hydrogen powered Hummers.

Guns and Climate Change? I haven't seen any Climate Change proposals banning guns, have you? Last time I checked Arnold doesn't want to take your guns away, but he is leading the nation in combating Climate Change.

And as far as the first comment, I have no idea why one would be surprised that "talking about climate change" is not good enough. We have to *do* something about it, and not mere green-washing half measures. It won't be good enough until the CO2 levels start going down. And guess what, they're not.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/

I love how people are constantly trying to paint environmentalists as communists. Was Teddy Roosevelt a communist? Barry Goldwater? Look at his photographs of New Mexico sometime. He was an artist who deeply loved our wild places.

A lot of this anti-environmentalism has populist flavor, because altruism is an unaffordable luxury to a lot of people. The green urban sophisticates and bird-watchers have to reach out and let their neighbors know that this effects the nation's future welfare, and their grandchildrens' quality of life. No one wants their children to grow up around pollution and human misery.

Doing something altruistic gives you good feeling, just like running three miles or doing yoga.

The Ayn Rand readers love to dump on altruistic people, but Randoids are lonely and cynical, and in my personal experience, they ALWAYS, ALWAYS repent. It has never not happened.

I am confident that all the blather will pass, because most of it is done by paid media assassins, and they have fewer and fewer people willing to pay them. News Corp is going carbon neutral, GE and Dow Chemical have made productive noises, and even Exxon has a LOT of people who personally acknowledge reality, but just aren't in charge.

Keep it practical and optimistic.

"Environmentalists want to send more US jobs to China."

I recently did some research on coal miners for a presentation, and all I have to say about coal and jobs is that a) coal is bad for the environment no matter where it is mined (obviously) and b) in China 4746 died in accidents in 2006, compared to 47 in the US. That's an average of 13 deaths a day and 80% of all coal deaths, despite producing only ~35% of the world's coal. Environmentalist or not, anyone who values human life would not propose further coal mining in China.

I like to call this The Politics of Ceaseless Old Man Bitching.

And I'm tired of it. No matter what positive directions we take, somebody steps up to the plate to bitch, either out of naked self interest (like Mr. I Care About Birds up there) or out of ignorance fostered in a large part by a media who operate with a concern for their own bottom line. That is, a media who likes to gin up controversy so people will watch and ad revenues will go up.

Nuclear will kill us, wind eats birds, biofuels mean more starving babies, fuel efficiency means Communism . . . the list goes on and on and most everyone (us included) gets sucked in. Then we waste our time arguing about it instead of finding solutions.

I'm tired of it. I declare war hencefoth on Old Man Bitching, and invite all to join my cause.

For the last one, Bill Richardson fits the build. Wants to raise MPG standards to 50, but supports gun rights.

While the 'wedgie' idea is amusing, it does represent a real challenge as the climate debate shifts to implementation debates (though the fight that climate change is an issue is still unfortunately being waged - ie G8 summit).

In a way winning debates in the implementation phase may be harder. Such debates do already exist on policy, and on technologies. Implementation is messy and difficult with lots of uncertainties. Educating people and refuting arguments will take some skill.

Examples:
Bioenergy - many examples of the debate over land use change, net energy impact, impact on food prices etc. The UN has a recent report that is useful about framing the other side impacts. http://esa.un.org/un-energy/

Emissions trading - the Europeans got it wrong/messed up - the price of credits crashed... emissions trading is political as market rules are determined by governments and there were some strong industry/country lobbying, politicians did cave in somewhat, so it is somewhat unsuprising that prices crashed. the current phase is called a learning phase for a reason - and some of the problems are now being fixed

CDM makes money for banks and brokers with little going to the actual project or that emission reduction would have happened any way or the cost of making reductions is a lot less than the current price. (see http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2093815,00.html)
CDM is an early market so the cost of finding and setting up projects is of course going to be higher.

Technology challenges - a promising technology has problems, higher demand increases costs due to limits in the supply chain (ie silicon and PV), a program to encourage renewables does not meet targets, as the use of wind power increases the challeges of grid integration and grid reliability increase plus other examples. Of course starting new technologies and businesses and ways of doing this is difficult and costly and might take longer than expected...what else is new.

these and other examples point to the coming debates over implementation. they are difficult debates but can be won, but advocates and activists might need to be realistic in wht they promise the government can do if it just passes this law. Once the law is passed and even with skilled and supportive bureaucrats, there can be problems down the road - maybe leading to 'I told you so' from opponents. Just be realistic with your pledges, be prepared for surprises and realize there are always side effects that cannot always be controlled - though we need to get better at doing so.

Murray wrote "these and other examples point to the coming debates over implementation."
I agree, and would like to further that implementation debate will also have to be supported by sound and current measuring and monitoring systems. how can we say that anything is sustainable unless we are sure that it is, and on all the counts of Environmental, Social, Cultural and Economical sustainability.
The challenge for our politicians and parties looking to further implementation of sustainable practices and technologies will be to prove that their policies are actually making a difference. Monitoring , Measuring and allowing for change should policies go awry will be the key to sustainable growth in this world, for our generation and more importantly for those to come.

One of the best ways to stave finely tailored rhetoric is to appeal to the targeted demographic in such a way as to not appear too alien and obscure, and to take the rhetoric by the horns and defeat it on its own ground (i.e. in its own language). Learn the culture and try to re-capitulate the values of that culture in a way that makes the idea of environmentalism seem less foreign. If they want to tailor their message, so should environmentalists; however, it doesn't mean one must change the core message.

In the onslaught of the last decade, or since 1994, really, the forces of darkness have used every arrow in their quiver. Shame, cynicism, scorn, patronization, rhetorical trickery, bribery, ANYTHING to get you to doubt the rightness and power of your own convictions, honestly arrived at.

At the end of all their assaults on reason and the commons and our most basic values, I, personally, remain MORE convinced than ever that we were rigth ALL ALONG. True, environmentalism had a snobby tone to it, a bit preachy, and political correctness is an annoying etiquette more than anything, but to quote George Smiley:

"I'd rather be MY kind of fool than HIS."

So, John, what manner of discussion would you suggest? Adopting the Nike-esque attitude of "just doing it" can easily put more carbon into the environment and sink our collective ship all the faster. These are complex problems with complex solutions.

I agree that talk is cheap, but many of the proposed solutions carry costs as well - economic and environmental. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away. Addressing them is the only way to make progress of any sort.
=== author's response follows ===
In the late 60's people marched and shouted on the streets to make their voices heard. Doesn't work much any more for a number of reasons. Blogging seems to offer some opportunities for shaming the shills and propaganda artists. But it is still nearly impossible to penetrate and effect the extremely unbalanced venues of the back halls of Congress, cable news, talk radio, and WSJ op ed columns - where captive audiences are driven to back useless or downright destructive public policy making.

My gut says that only truly massive youth GOTV campaign can turn things around in Congress.

My rational mind tells me that aligning with industries that are pushing the green entrepreneurial spirit for all its worth will help drive change from the top down as well.

Taking the time to respond to ill informed letters to the editor might be helpful with print media.

But I still am at a total loss about what to do about broadcast media and their abject avoidance of fact based reporting.

In the long haul, and the long haul is what we're in for, it's optimism that works, and a plan. Very few people WANT to live in a dystpian Blade-Runner future. Maybe Bill O'Reilly, but that's about it.

If you have a plan, if you have brains, people eventually desert the charismatic camp, out of self-preservation and curiosity. The charasmatic camp rarely has a plan, although they may have an hallucination.

This requires us to acknowledge that people are fundamentally good, and will listen to reason eventually. And be prepared for people to pour scorn on you for suggesting such heresy, because if people are fundamentally good, authoritarianism won't work.

We're pretty safe calling the bluff of anyone who scoffs at altruistic efforts that help everyone. I think anyone who REALLY prefers we not change in the face of hazard is, by definition, insane.

It has been clear to me for some time that there are individuals who often post comments under TH articles with the objective to try to stop the environmental movement from pushing a certain agenda, to try to stop the the environmental movement from coalescing around a certain belief. I have no doubt that some of these people are paid to do so. And some probably are simply just anti-environmentalists who wish to stick it to environmentalism and environmentalists.

Those that are paid to distort the conversation are usually intellectually lazy. They have no coherent framework of belief behind their arguments - since they are paid to confuse the issue, they simply use whatever argumentative tactics seem to work. Their job is not to convince committed greens, but rather to confuse the issue as much as possible to prevent a majority of people coalescing around a 'green' belief or solution.

This is one reason they are prone to discrediting tactics. Discrediting tactics are a common argumentative tactic used throughout society by individuals who are unwilling or incapable of holding up their positions through moral, reasoned logic. It is so much easier to say 'These people are communists who want to destroy our economy' than to argue 'A carbon tax will not be an effective tool against global warming because or reasons A, B, C, ...' Discrediting tactics don't try to refute the arguments they are against; they try to refute the individual(s) making the argument. If a society hates communists, then the easiest way to get that society to distrust the arguments of individuals whose arguments you wish to stymie is simply to do a convincing job of labelling them as communists or to label a carbon tax a communist tool or to label the arguments themselves a communist argument. Somehow to attach the label communist to the whole thing to get that society to wince at the whole thing. I automatically distrust posters who rely exclusively or primarily on discrediting tactis such as insults, labeling and misdirection. Reasoned arguments don't work against this type of tactic. The people using them are not out to convince the person they are trying to discredit so that persons reasoned arguments will have to effect on their continued discrediting tactics. The easiest most effective and efficient thing that someone in this position can do is to make clear to the readership that this individual is using discrediting tactics, rather than reasoned argument, and that there must be a reason. If someone comes to TH and call you a green extremist or communist (or whatever) for reasonably arguing that a carbon tax is needed, for example, the easiest thing to do is to wonder aloud why someone who hates greens would bother to come to a green site and insult greens when they make a reasoned argument about the need for this or that (could it be for money or because they work in that industry). Another tactic is to simply make clear to them and to all the readers that such discrediting tactics are silly; how do you do that? Play their game better than they play it. They call you a communist, then tell them that only a McCarthyte goes around needlessly and immorally calling people communists.

Another tactic which these people use is misinformation - simply putting out false, misleading or exaggerated information. The tobacco companies did this for years. Put out bad information to counter good information. Just like some individuals tried to put out bad science to counter the good science of global warming. Usually it is simple to spot bad info; all you have to do is check the source of the information. If an oil company is being lambasted for its actions and suddenly a scientific report shows that their actions are actually socially beneficial, it doesn't take a genius to figure that non-profit organization's 'scientific' results are bogus if they are getting most of their money from the oil industry. To counter disinformation of any kind, just point our where the information comes from. Or how the information has been taken out of context. Or how the information has been exaggerated. Or provide the same information that counters the fake information but make sure your info comes from a widely known and trusted source.

There are other tactics they use as well. Like pitting one moral issue against another and trying to convince that it is either this or that when in reality it isn't. Make it clear: it is NOT either or. For instance, it is NOT either the economy or the environment. Or they try to sidetrack the argument and mix it up with something unrelated and try to convince against our arguments by convincingly and reasonobly arguing for or against something having to do with the issue that has nothing to do with what we are discussing. For instance, that a certain presidential candidate is a right-winger doesn't automatically mean he is not an environmentalist or that China isn't tryin to improve human rights does not mean it isn't trying to improve the environment. Make it clear: this has NOTHING to do with that. And numerous other confusion tactics. Keep the argument straight and don't let them confuse the issue.

As for those few individuals trying to debase environmental reasoned and logical arguments using truly reasoned and logical arguments, the reaonable course is the reasoned course. Listen, think, learn and change your arguments when they show weakenesses in them. If they show your arguments to be completely wrong, then admit it to yourself, then admit to others, and then completely rethink your arguments. If they show them to partially wrong, rework your arguments to incorporate the new ideas or information so that your arguments become more rational and reasoned. If they are somehow correct, then they are correct. It wrong to try to ignore correct arguments. Use them to improve your thinking and your arguments.