A week ago I argued that Obama had gone back to a losing message (see “Campaign update: If you’re not attacking, you’re losing“). But a week is a lifetime in politics.

Now I think they have found the winning counterpunch. I have posted a discussion of this elsewhere: Obama Nails the Winning Message… But Does He Know How to Win with It?

If they repeat this message until you are sick of it, I think they’ll win.

The American Clean Skies Foundation, a greenwashing front group for natural gas giant Chesapeake Energy, is celebrating its “newly renovated offices and studios” on Capitol Hill. And you’re invited:

ACSF is selling the message that natural gas, also known as methane, is “clean energy” on its 24-7 Internet video station, CleanSkies.TV. Launched on Earth Day, CleanSkies.TV features professional reporters interviewing politicians, energy analysts, and environmentalists on topical issues — surrounded by advertisements for natural gas. In an email interview with the Wonk Room, Sierra Club press secretary David Willett praised ACSF for “going out of their way to have the environmentalist perspective represented.” CleanSkies.TV prominently presents Sierra Club videos and documentaries in a non-exclusive deal. “If natural gas wants to foot the bill to host our completely unedited message,” explains Willett, “that’s fine with us.”

Since June 8, ACSF has been producing “Clean Skies Sunday,” a weekly infomercial in the guise of an energy news program that runs on WJLA-TV, the Washington DC ABC affiliate.

Billionaire ACSF founder and Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon is now using the popularity of the Pickens Plan to promote taxpayer subsidies for compressed natural gas for cars, in a joint campaign with T. Boone Pickens called CNG Now. McClendon and Pickens are making this push as California considers Proposition 10 to subsidize CNG vehicles.

The Conservation Report’s Buck Denton responds:

Undoubtedly, wind power and natural gas should be part of the energy mix of the future, but natural gas shouldn’t be a solution at the expense of cleaner renewable resources, and natural gas shouldn’t be wasted on vehicles when more efficient and cleaner technologies exist. Furthermore, cleaner gasoline engines and the almost similar greenhouse gas emissions between natural gas and diesel vehicles are factors that make an aggressive push towards natural gas seem ridiculous from a policy standpoint (more information regarding these claims can be found here).

Natural gas, like all other fossil fuels, comes with a huge health and environmental footprint, from drilling to burning. The natural gas industry is responsible for 18.6% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Praising natural gas for being less cancerous and less polluting than coal should only underscore how dirty a fuel coal is — not promote the false impression that natural gas is “clean.”

On Friday, National Wildlife Federation (NWF) climate scientist Amanda Staudt explained to viewers of KTBC-TV in Austin how Hurricane Ike is part of a new era of more destructive storms, fueled by global warming. She explained that we’ve seen an increase of about fifty percent in the destructive power of storms, even as we’ve let our infrastructure decay:

As a researcher who’s been looking at global warming and hurricanes for several years now, it’s really hard to see one of these big storms play out in real life my heart goes all to all the folks who are dealing with the effects right now. There’s definitely a contribution from global warming to the storm activity and the intensity of storms that we’ve seen over the last few decades and we expect to see in the coming century.

Watch it:

Hurricane Ike’s deadly path has claimed at least 31 lives in the United States from Texas to Indiana. It devastated the Caribbean, killing 61 people in Haiti, 57 of them in one town destroyed by floods from the storm.

NWF is leading efforts to help Americans connect the dots on the real and present threat of global warming, sounding a “Wake Up Call” this year on the Midwest floods, California wildfires, and tropical storms.

UPDATE: At the ThinkProgress mothership, Amanda Terkel notes that the “media is restricted from covering Hurricane Ike’s devastation.” Watch it:

Why is the ignorance of national conservative pundits on energy and climate issues so important? Why do I spend time debunking the Krauthaumers of the world?

Because a large number of conservatives rely on them in forming their opinions on complex issues like global warming. After all, who among us has time to be expert on every subject? The role of conservative pundits is doubly dangerous because they don’t merely spread misinformation to the conservative base, they tell them it is not an important or first-tier issue worthy of their attention. They preach malign neglect.

A good example of how this plays out is an interview my brother Dave did with a Melinda Fredericks, a delegate to the Republican National Convention — see here or use the new widget:

The whole interview is rather long, but the climate stuff is relatively early on:

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The oil industry has figured out what I’ve been saying for weeks: The Senate Gang-of-20 swap of limited offshore drilling for lots of clean energy is something for nothing. I hope Congressional Dems figure that out, too, and vote for the darn thing in droves.

The key fact to bear in mind is that the Congressional moratorium on offshore drilling expires at the end of this month! If no compromise deal passes either as a stand-alone bill or glommed into the catchall spending bill needed to keep the government going past September 30, then the moratorium ends and “that would allow drilling within three miles off all coasts,” as the Washington Post explained Sunday.

But the Gang-of-20 bill (233-page Discussion Draft here) severely limits offshore drilling to a handful of Southeastern states that must opt in and moves the drilling boundary to 100 miles offshore (from its current 200 miles) “with states given the option to set it at 50 miles.” So now Big Oil whines:

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