T’is the season – again, still – for “reframing,” the phrase du jour in the climate change (there, we said it!) public policy debate.

Amidst the understandable, necessary, and riveting 24/7 live-cam\spill-cam “Breaking News” media focus on the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, its eventual and inevitable ecological legacy, and its political impacts …

the nation’s Orator-in Chief, President Barack Obama, zeroed-in on the notion that goopy/gloppy images from southern Louisiana’s invaluable marshes and wetlands can help make the visual case that America’s “old energy” days must give way to a cleaner energy future, whatever, precisely, that may consist of.

Advocacy interests likewise targeted their TV commercial buys to point out the contrast between the oil-age images of greased and oiled marshes and wildlife and the view of a cleaner and implicitly low-carbon future.

And alas there appears, at least temporarily, to be an emerging critical mass, a “consensus” taking root: The messaging to the American public must shift to issues unrelated to one’s understanding of or support for the dominant scientific perspectives. Accept or deny the conclusions of IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and virtually all of the learned society groups (AAAS, AMS, AGU, ESA, the Geological Society of America, many more), this reasoning goes, and the public at large in either case supports a number of energy strategies unrelated, but helpful, to addressing climate change.

To wit:

• People want to conserve energy and spend less money filling their tanks.
• They want to support prudent public investments in research and technology on energy-efficient alternatives.
• They want to reduce American reliance on oil supplies coming from, and too often enriching the bottom lines of, largely unfriendly foreign powers.
• They want to avoid putting more and more American troops in harm’s way in dangerous oil-rich countries inconveniently controlling the valves to the world’s energy supplies. And, incidentally, often not so fond of America in the first place.
• And so forth.

The BP oil spill and its aftermath Is it all an obstacle, or an opportunity, for focusing the public’s and policymakers’ short attention spans on long-range climate change and energy issues?

The Sierra Club, for one, saw an opening. It took to the Web to promote conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh as its “top fundraiser” for his on-air rant that Sierra pay the tab for the BP spill.

“Everybody’s focused on BP, Halliburton, and Transocean,” Limbaugh bellowed, while the Sierra Club and other “greeniacs” had forced oil production “way, way, way out there, offshore” with the attendant higher costs and greater risks.

“Donate $10 today to make Rush Limbaugh our ‘Top Fundraiser,’ Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an e-mail blast. “What the heck – we’ll even offer him a backpack (but probably not one of the really nice ones).”

On a perhaps more serious note …

… With Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), the Majority Leader, now saying he plans for a June floor debate on energy (and climate, without, of course necessarily using that term) …

… With an incumbent administration and its congressional cohort facing a challenging electoral season and an itchy public mood generally …

… With concerns that a congressional focus on “long-term” climate challenges may appear inconsistent with the public’s concerns for the short-term (and long-term) Gulf crisis …

… With the clock running on any serious congressional action prior to the summer months and upcoming elections “silly season” … and

… With full-throated climate contrarians and skeptics rattling their sabers as aggressively as ever…

The challenge may come down to who can make the most of the opportunities presented by the current and sometimes bizarre and topsy-turvy political and public attitudes mosaic.

Or perhaps instead to who can do the most to avoid the ample pitfalls and quagmires that same mosaic poses.