Democrats Make Environmental Debate 'User-friendly'

Democratic presidential candidates are expanding the environmental debate to include social justice, national security and morality.

1 minute read

July 3, 2003, 6:00 AM PDT

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


"Democratic presidential candidates are putting a new emphasis on making environmental issues more voter friendly. Instead of talking abstractly about ozone levels or the Superfund budget, they speak of the children whose asthma is aggravated by smog...Implicit in the Democrats' new approach is a recognition that environmentalism has too much political potential to be left to the environmentalists...The White House had been well aware that it was losing what Republican strategists called 'the environmental communications battle'...Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster...urged them to use the term 'climate change' instead of 'global warming,' because, he wrote, while global warming connotes something catastrophic, 'climate change sounds like a more controllable and less emotional challenge.' Over the last several months, the Republicans have subtly altered their language."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan

Saturday, June 28, 2003 in The New York Times

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