Climate and energy have entered mainstream dialog. They’re being discussed on op-ed pages and cable news, by ordinary people around the water cooler (do they still have those?), outside of environmental and policy-wonk circles. Hell, Rory’s grandparents bought her a Prius on Gilmore Girls. Or so I hear.
This is all to the good: these are extraordinarily important issues, and every concerned citizen should be at least minimally educated about them.
Problem is, there are lots of folks out there with a vested interest in confusing people and derailing these discussions. They are armed with misleading factoids and bogus rhetorical tricks, and seek to kick up enough dust to convince the public that it’s all just too complex and they should leave it up to politicians — politicians bought by the very vested interests in question. There are massive misinformation campaigns afoot, and your average Joe or Jane is outgunned.
So, I’m starting a series of posts called Talking Points. The idea is to provide short bits of ammunition for y’all to take out into the public square. I want to collect arguments or ideas or notions or turns of phrase that might be useful when talking to people about climate- and energy-related matters. I’ll try to avoid wonkiness and scientific jargon.
And of course I’d love it if you left your own talking points in comments, or emailed them to me.
Stay tuned.
