But for the fossil fuel industry, winning over public opinion was no easy feat. As the new millennium dawned, the general public was broadly in favor of environmental regulations. As late as 2003, over 75 percent of Republicans supported strict environmental regulations, according to polls. For help on their public relations campaign, in 2002 the opponents of carbon regulations hired Frank Luntz, who warned that “the environment is probably the issue on which Republicans in general—and President Bush in particular—is most vulnerable.” To win, he argued, global warming deniers had to portray
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