*Video: msnbc bjorn lomborg interview november 11 2010

(Click to play video)  MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan interviewed Bjorn Lomborg last week, a former “climate change skeptic” and now a guy who thinks that telling the blunt truth about climate change is the wrong approach. He feels the right approach is to emphasize clean energy. He may be right, but not for the reasons he’s stating. Clean energy is really all we have left in this political “climate” (no pun intended.) Since the anti-science Republicans have taken over Congress, the United States will probably not do anything about ending greenhouse gas emissions this year and next that doesn’t include support for American business. That means we will still be supporting and using coal, gas and BP oil. There is just no other realistic expectation.

But it’s misleading to say that “scaring people” doesn’t work, especially when the background for this show claims that the world is not going to end. I don’t know of anyone who is saying that in the first place, and trying to de-emphasize the emergency situation we are in with climate change does no service to anyone. It’s accurately described by climate scientists as a “crisis”.  Scaring people is warranted when a serious threat exists for real, and we aren’t doing much about it, as with climate change. And scaring people through communications has been proven to work. That’s the only reason there are so many negative campaign ads every election season.  It’s the reason the American public supported a war in Iraq that didn’t need to be fought.  Negative ads and scare tactics work, but that have to be used honestly and only when necessarily.  Obviously, the fear of higher taxes has worked on the American public lately more than the fear of climate change.  So, fear tactics only work when the conditions are right, and they don’t always work.  Education would be better, in a world where people were open to being educated.  (That’s a problem of another kind.)  And yet another problem — lying to the American public about climate change, which is what a lot of very rich people are doing.

What is worse – sugar-coating climate change or being straight with the public about it?

Climate Progress Guest blogger Josh Nelson is New Media Director at the Alliance for Climate Protection and its Repower America campaign.

Koch Industries, “the biggest company you’ve never heard of,” first among a final four in online poll.

From Climate Progress.

To spread the word about Koch Industries and its long history of working to deceive the American people about climate change, we’ve launched a new website: http://www.KochIndustriesFacts.com.

Three weeks ago, we asked our members to nominate the worst corporate polluters of 2010. Our goal was to identify organizations that have hijacked our democracy, devastated our environment and denied the science of climate change — all while reaping massive profits. The response was overwhelming. In just a few days, [...]