A radical environmental group uses millions of dollars from liberal dark money groups to try and teach climate activists how to talk like human beings.
The organization, Potential Energy Coalition, a 501(c)(3), says it “creates and executes marketing campaigns grounded in deep analytics and human-centric stories that are proven to persuade.”
One of Potential Energy’s projects is the “Talk Like a Human” campaign, an attempt to change messaging on climate change. A slide of this presentation obtained by The Daily Wire shows the group encouraging people not to use words like “climate change” or “warming,” and instead use “extreme weather” and “over heating [sic],” respectively. The group also suggests people no longer use the term “sacrifice” when talking about the subject and instead use words like “enjoy,” suggesting a more positive future than the doom and gloom typically associated with climate change activism.
Potential Energy Coalition slideshow
The organization also features a series of slides telling participants not to exaggerate and explains that while “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” work for people who are already terrified of climate change, it doesn’t work for people who are not. The slides also suggest keeping the phrasing tied to where a person lives rather than globally and talking about fighting pollution rather than climate change.
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Potential Energy slideshow
Potential Energy slideshow
Potential Energy slideshow
The organization was once a sponsored project of the Arabella Advisors dark money network’s Windward Fund before it spun off into its own separate nonprofit.
Still, Potential Energy continues to rake in millions of dollars from Arabella-managed groups, including $17.5 million in grants from the Windward Fund between 2021 and 2022, and another $13 million in 2023. The Windward Fund paid Potential Energy nearly $2 million in consulting services between 2020 and 2021.
Also in 2021, Potential Energy joined other dark money groups, Climate Power and League of Conservation Voters, on a more than $10 million advertising campaign to urge President Joe Biden and Congress to pass a spending bill directed toward climate change. In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, which allocated billions toward climate change initiatives.
Also in 2022, Potential Energy brought in $38.6 million in revenue, nearly doubling its 2021 revenue. Its spending also nearly doubled.
Despite this effort, polls continue to show people aren’t willing to give up oil and gas. An American Enterprise Institute poll from October asked participants whether they wanted to “use a mix of energy sources including oil, coal, and natural gas along with renewable energy sources” or “phase out the use of oil, coal, and natural gas completely, relying instead on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power only.” By a 3-to-1 margin, participants backed the all-of-the-above approach.
Two-thirds of respondents in a September New York Times/Siena College poll said they supported a policy of “increasing domestic production of fossil fuels such as oil and gas.” And an NBC poll from October found that 67% of respondents said they were more likely to support a candidate who wanted to expand fossil fuel production.