A few years ago, when liberals were wandering in the wilderness bereft of ideas, lost and directionless after the fall of communism and the apparent triumph of liberalism (real liberalism), they turned to marketing. Since they had no ideas and didn't want any, they devoted themselves to selling the same old ideas with slick marketing. They'd change the words and paint smiles on dead eyed frozen faces, hoping to fool the public into buying goods long past their sell-by dates.

They tried "framing" to conceal what they were really selling. It didn't work but eventually the blundering of the right allowed the left back into power though it still had nothing to offer. Nothing has changed.

The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.” The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes . . .

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

Of course there's not really any cash back or refunds, quite the opposite, and it doesn't matter in any case since we don’t control the global supply of carbon. If the USA ceased to exist tomorrow the atmosphere would barely notice since the vast majority of the world would carry on as before, and more so.

What the eco-left and authoritarian fellow travelers are selling is merely ever larger government consumption of resources while producing nothing at all. The resulting spiral into poverty and desperation will produce dirt and pollution on a scale that dwarfs the present, but they don't actually care about that. You care about that, we care about that, but they just use our concerns as leverage to frighten us into buying their tired old ideas. They will happily burn the world down to grasp ever more power. The greatest threat to the environment is, and always has been, environmentalists.

The research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to “green” their images with consumers and sway public policy.

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

Nothing can be accomplished to improve the “the air we breathe, the water our children drink” through marketing or politics. That's the hard truth that politicians don't want to face. Trying to rebrand and use stealth marketing methods won't change that. Their products suck, and those who are fooled into buying them feel cheated when they see what they got for their money. It's buyer's remorse. We have that now as people come to understand that the latest political change brought in a bunch of screw ups and empty suits.

The problems we have and the threats we face are not new. Keeping the cave warm and the stew pot full without choking on the smoke or running out of fuel and food is basic housekeeping. We invent ever better ways to do that, but the task remains. The scope and scale of our concern is larger now - we speak of planetary scale housekeeping and are even getting concerned about space litter after a few decades of hurling stuff into orbit - but the problems are the same as ever.

There have always been uptight martinets screeching about strict order and discipline, insisting that everyone do as they command, but they never have any useful ideas and life is ugly when such people gain influence or power. The problems don't go away and having such creeps in control just makes things more unpleasant.

Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”

He said the approach was cynical and, worse, ineffective. “The right uses it, the left uses it, but it doesn’t engage people in a face-to-face manner,” he said, “and that’s the only way to achieve real, lasting social change.”

Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant, prepared a strikingly similar memorandum in 2002, telling his clients that they were losing the environmental debate and advising them to adjust their language. He suggested referring to themselves as “conservationists” rather than “environmentalists,” and emphasizing “common sense” over scientific argument.

We would do well to become more sophisticated about sales resistance. A true public service organization would be working to undermine the various sales campaigns of the left and the right, exposing their deceits and agendas in plain language. If we had a useful press or honest and honorable academics this is something that they would be doing already. Instead they have joined the marketing teams, trivializing themselves and earning public disdain.