And Richard, indeed, you’ve got to walk the talk and pretty messaging must be backed up with content. At this point, the Dems aren’t backing up their peppy messaging. However, despite the fact that Pelosi’s content verges on fibbing in this press statement, as Jesse alluded to, it’s what she chooses to fib about that got me thinking to write this post. She used 1 Sky-esque messaging to mask a weakened bill, suggesting that she and her leadership team liked the positive vision. She’s chomped down on the bait, we now need to hold her to it.

We definitely do not mean “optimism” in the sense that we’re optimistic it’ll all just work itself out, that “Technology” or “the Market” will simply fix our woes while we sit on the couch and watch reality TV…

I agree that it is important to frame our message in terms of what we’re fighting to protect and create, not the worst-case scenarios we’re trying to prevent. We must make sure that optimism presents a vision of a brighter future contingent on substantial changes in the decisions we make collectively (policy) and our whole cultural paradigm with respect to consumption.

But the question remains: will the tendency develop for curtailing the CO2 emmissions by the changes of the labour cpmmotment to consumer demands? Yes, the government needs to arrange the wealth to self-relization in production sustainment along the lines of labour unions deciding many of the goals, BEFORE they meet with some of the major companies such as the car com[anies.

kris Krajewski

Pelosi’s messaging is great. Of course the substance that she is talking about – the stripped down energy bill that finally passed – isn’t quite as great. What was signed by President Bush today was merely the first small step on a very long path to a sustainable, just, and prosperous future. Pelosi and the gang – including many big enviro groups – have been quick to laud this bill as a “historic victory.”

This is from DailyGrist today: “Nevertheless, legislators weren’t shy about talking up the bill’s significance. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared the bill “groundbreaking in what it will do.” And House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said, “This legislation is a historic turning point in energy policy.”

Groundbreaking? Historic turning point?

The bill Pelosi passed out of her chamber looked a lot more like an historic turning point – it set us on a more efficient path forward in electricity and transportation, and just as critically, it would have begun the reprioritization of our public support for energy away from the dirty and depleting energy sources of the 19th and 20th centuries – coal, oil, nuclear – and re-invested in the clean energy solutions that will form the cornerstone of a sustainable, just, and prosperous 21st century.

But as what was passed and signed was an incremental victory in what must be a truly transformational effort.

This quote sums it up pretty well: “This is a problem of economic transformation, not environmental regulation,” said Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. “The transformation needed will require far more than just passing one law or signing one treaty. It will require the same level of focus and initiative that the Bush administration is devoting to the war on terror. No political leader in the U.S. is approaching this issue yet with anywhere near the seriousness required.”

So let’s make a pact: we’ll let Pelosi and the Dems celebrate their victory. But we in the youth climate movement know what’s truly at stake – for it is our very future on the line – and we will not be fooled into complacency by incremental victories and we will not rest, will not let our leaders off the hook, nor will we declare “mission accomplished” until we complete the truly transformational Power Shift towards a sustainable, just, and prosperous future we desperately need!

I may be a messenger, but there is a word for those who embrace a message but not the substance. It isn’t very polite.