Tom Nelson with some entertaining emphasis on this Guardian excerpt.
Obama targets US public with call for climate action
Climate impacts report warns of flooding, heat waves, drought and loss of wildlife that will occur if Americans fail to act on global warming….
The Obama administration is poised for its most forceful confrontation with the American public on the sweeping and life-altering consequences of a failure to act on global warming with the release today of a long-awaited scientific report on climate change.
The report, produced by more than 30 scientists at 13 government agencies dealing with climate change, provides the most detailed picture to date of the worst case scenarios of rising sea levels and extreme weather events: floods in lower Manhattan; a quadrupling of heat wave deaths in Chicago; withering on the vineyards of California; the disappearance of wildflowers from the slopes of the Rockies; and the extinction of Alaska’s wild polar bears in the next 75 years.
Today’s release is part of a carefully crafted strategy by the White House to help build public support for Obama’s agenda and boost the prospects of a climate change bill now making its way through Congress….
Americans have already been living with evidence of changing climate, the report said. Over the last 30 years winters have grown shorter and milder, with a 2.1C (7F) rise in winter temperatures in the midwest and northern Great Plains. Hurricanes have become deadlier….
Today’s release of the report was part of a methodically planned media roll-out by the Obama administration.
Scientists who have seen the report said the administration spent several weeks honing the language and graphics to make it accessible to non-scientists and to sharpen its core message: America must act now on climate change.
As part of the PR surrounding the release of the report, the administration approached the San Francisco consulting firm, Resource Media, which specialises in environmental campaigning, to oversee the release, and produce a shorter and more digestible brochure of today’s report for wider public distribution.
On the morning of 16 April, at a meeting in Washington (pdf), more than 30 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administratation scientists, climate change experts from a number of universities, environmental activists and media strategists discussed how to engage various communities with the findings of the report – town mayors, religious groups, even kindergarten pupils.