This tactic works best when the job is to stop something from happenining, especially if it involves construction of a thing that is big. Between ESA, NEPA and the courts, we’ve got good tools for that. Some would argue they are too good and a little too indiscriminate in their ability to delay.

Most of the public communications problems we face are when we are trying to make something good happen. Most of the challenges we face are not big projects, but the cumulative effects many, many little projects.

Somewhere along the way, we also became the establishment. We are the proposers of projects others are trying to stop. We are the experts that believe fervantly in the benefit of our projects. Anti-environmental activists have been most effective when they wave signs and try to come off as the disenfranchized counter-culture little guys that are taking on the big, bad government and all their out-of-touch, ivory tower experts. They use staged protests to create a sense of conflict and division over regulations or restoration projects they oppose. The have also done a lot of damage with citizens initiatives. The term astro-turf arose from efforts of large corporations to generate synthetic grass-roots movements to use theis tactic in opposition to regulation, or in the protection of a cherished entitlement.

I think the gaame today is how to counter these tactics in a post mass-media world.