Melissa Ross
In politics, language can make all the difference.
For example, famed political consultant/public opinion guru Frank Luntz made his reputation by turning oil drilling into “energy exploration” and changing the estate tax into the “death tax.”
“It’s not what you say,” went his famous slogan, “it’s what they hear.”
Luntz also advised clients not to use the term “global warming,” but instead to talk about “climate change.”
These days, though, the politics concerning climate have become so polarized that even that term is loaded.
So what are policy planners to do?
In Florida, the vulnerable state surrounded by water, it seems they’ve taken a page out of Frank Luntz’s playbook.
“We talk about sea level rise,” says Brian Teeple, CEO of the Northeast Florida Regional Council. The organization is a planning council for seven North Florida counties.
“When we do that, we clearly get a lot of traction. We get people to talk about the issue. And we don’t get that negative buzz that happens when you approach it purely from a climate perspective.”
“Overwhelmingly, the feedback we’ve received from the region shows that’s what people are concerned about,” said council Policy Director Margo Moehring.
The NFRC has laid out a Regional Action Plan looking at the risks associated with sea level rise, which state climatologists call considerable and have been warning about for a while now.
The problem has been getting anyone to listen.
Teeple says the buy-in from Florida business leaders is critical to changing that dynamic. And the language that’s used is important.
“Business people will make the private investments that will be needed to mitigate this issue. They will have a long-term stake in the game,” he said.
“When you show them the data, it’s clear. They get it. We’ve got hard data that the seas are rising. The only question is, how fast and how far are they going to rise?”
In the state surrounded by the seas, it’s a question now vexing not just policy planners, but entities ranging from the Army Corps of Engineers, to municipalities in South Florida now seeing regular flooding.
Teeple: “Just about everyone in Florida can relate to rising waters, so if we can get folks to look at that, then we can probably begin to see some movement on the issue.”
