David Roberts is right that the anti-renewable right is likely to turn Solyndra into the next “Climategate”, an exaggeration of a minor or non-existent scandal into a major attack. One contribution to blunting this would be if “Climate Hawks” would agree on a single talking out of the many true things that could be said. My choice:
“If no DOE innovation fails, DOE is being too cautious.”
My reason for that choice:
1) It is short enough for twitter, with characters left over.
2) Unlike comparisons to military or oil scandals, we are not reinforcing the scandal meme by comparing it to other scandals, but are instead being positive, saying that in innovation occasional failures are critical to success.
3) The idea that innovation proceeds through a lot of mistake making is already embedded in our culture. By invoking that we are appealing to common ground, common belief. The ancient Romans knew about invoking commonplaces, but that does not stop it from being effective in the 21st century.
We need to agree on a single short talking point. I don’t insist that this is it, though I think it would be a good choice. If you disagree, please feel free to leave a better one in comments.
