Comments sbest has made

It's not the package, it's the product, stupid.

Sure George Lakoff is the brilliant thinker de jour. But the problem for the environmental movement is not "framing," which is just another word for "packaging," "spin" and "propganda."

The problem is that the major Enviro groups (not the local grassroots organizations) don't have a product worth framing. Namely, they don't have any--or at least not enough--political relevance to influence public policy. And, until they learn  how and have the courage to effectively wield all of the latent political power in their supporter bases and budgets, they will remain merely meaningless political background noise.

It is appalling that the largest Enviro groups on the planet which raise and spend almost $7 billion a year and enjoy the support and trust of millions of Americans cannot influence US federal environmental policy one whit.

The Lakoffian values of the major groups are clear, because values are expressed in what groups actually do and accomplish. With that in mind it's worth noting that between 1970 and today the major Enviro groups grew in money and members by 5000%. In that same period, the global environment degrade by a further 40%. A clearer expression of the true values of the major Green groups could not be made.

Before Sierra Club and other major groups have anything worth framing, they are going to have to use the enormous power they, in fact, have and demonstrate as much influence over environmental policy as the NRA has over gun laws.

Isn't it about time that the major Enviros begin to act in a way that it commensurate with the life and death envirornmental issues we are facing? We are all dying and Carl Pope, who has the power to do something about it, is worried about framing.

The major Enviro groups, like Sierra Club, are now so impotent, while at the same time controlling over 70% of the Green movements members and resources, that they are now the major obstacle to an ecolgocially sustainable, just, and human global economy.

The enviromental movement as expressed by the major groups is not dead, it's a degenerative disease that's slowling helping to kill us and the planet.

I say this as friend of the enviromental movement which I've been working in since the early 70s.

RegardsOn Enviros recruit Lakoff for reframing project, but concerns mount that he might abandon them posted 4 years, 8 months ago 9 Responses