What can a Republican political strategist tell us about the environment? Quite a bit, if you read this engaging column over at Grist.

Amanda Griscom Little gets GOP strategist Frank Luntz to give his quick comments on creating an environmental communications strategy. Three points stand to me.

One, that for a message to work, it's gotta have a symbol: he points to the Polar Bears as this decade's Bald Eagles.

Secondly, that a story needs to be told visually to have impact, so kudos to Al Gore's video.

Third, it's got to connect with other issues, whether energy security, energy independence - these are all bigger than environmentalism persee because they reach other interest groups.

But what I found most curious was that this GOP heavy considers himself sympathetic to the cause, which goes to show you how much this issue has crossed over. The big failure, he maintains, has been the inability of environmentalists to capitalize on sentiment out there.

Why?

Because they're too mean ... or so he says.

The column seems to follow in the spirit of keep your friends close, but your enemies closer...