Anti-Science Heartland Institute launches murderous billboard campaign
How low will the Heartland Institute go to shame climate change "believers?" Very low, it appears. In it's most recent billboard campaign, which is running in Chicago, Heartland, an anti-science organization famous for climate change denial, compares those who accept climate science to mass murderers, like Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden.
The Heartland Institute is a conservative public policy "think tank" based in Chicago, Illinois. It claims to conduct research on things like healthcare, tobacco, and global warming, but is known for fabricating results to support its clients' bottom line. The institute is probably best-known for its work with Philip Morris in their mission to question the science connecting second-hand smoke and health risks, and to lobby against public health reforms. The New York Times describes the Heartland Institute as "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism."
The Guardian broke this murderous billboard story this morning, and calls it "quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns." You might actually recognize this tack from the meat industry's "Hitler was a vegetarian" campaign, which suggested that only fascists don't eat meat. (By the way, we don't suggest you give up meat to reduce your carbon footprint, just be smart about the meat you eat!)
In Heartland's description of the billboard campaign, they say:
The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.
But let's be clear, thousands of scientists are not the "radical fringe." Over 95% of actively publishing climate change scientists agree that:
• The earth is getting warmer,
• The warming is due to human activity, and
• If greenhouse gas emissions continue, the warming will accelerate
So, does this billboard convince you otherwise?
Update: 1:30pm ET
Jocelyn Fong from Media Matters writes:
I asked Heartland spokesman Jim Lakely today to clarify which of the following is the position of his organization:
• The planet hasn't warmed in recent decades
• The planet has warmed but humans didn't contribute to it
• Humans contributed to warming but it's not a crisis
His response: "Heartland doesn't take official positions." Lakely forwarded my question to James Taylor, Heartland's senior fellow for environmental policy, who said "The best way to summarize the issue is that global warming is not a crisis." Taylor wouldn't say manmade global warming doesn't exist, even though the billboards and the accompanying press release make that very claim.
Update: 4:30pm ET
Brian Vastag, Science reporter for the Washington Post, has tweeted:
"Heartland Institute's President Joe Bast says they are taking down the Ted Kaczynski global warming billboard. Details to come."
From the Washington Post:
4 p.m. update: Heartland Institute President and CEO Joe Bast has issued the following statement:
We will stop running [the billboard] at 4:00 p.m. CST today. (It’s a digital billboard, so a simple phone call is all it takes.)
The Heartland Institute knew this was a risk when deciding to test it, but decided it was a necessary price to make an emotional appeal to people who otherwise aren’t following the climate change debate.
Angela
Reader Comments
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Personally, I think it's going to backfire.
18:15 GMT le 04 mai 2012
It seems that the denialists are becoming increasingly desperate as even the veneer of scientific plausibility slips away from their arguments, shot down one-by-one by the continuing scientific research and increasing evidence to the contrary.
James Taylor is a senior fellow at heartland.
JAMES TAYLOR, Heartland Institute: We have seen that soil moisture globally has improved. We have seen that droughts have become less frequent and less severe. We have seen expansion of forests. We've seen crop production reach record levels.
We've seen tornadoes and hurricanes -- to the extent that we can ascribe trends, we've seen that they have become less frequent and less severe. Across the board, we've seen that warmer climate, warmer temperatures have always benefited humans, and continue to do so.
19:59 GMT le 04 mai 2012
Yes, I waited to post this for a while this morning because I wanted to see if something would come out saying that Heartland was hacked (or something similar). I just couldn't believe it was real. But instead, we just got confirmation and support from the institute's spokesman.
20:07 GMT le 04 mai 2012
Anheuser-Busch
AT&T
Comcast
Eli Lilly & Co.
General Motors
Microsoft
BB&T
PepsiCo, Inc.
Time Warner Cable
ExxonMobile
Pfizer
Philip Morris
Wal-Mart
20:26 GMT le 04 mai 2012
http://heartland.org/about
20:33 GMT le 04 mai 2012
Brian Vastag, Science reporter for the Washington Post, has tweeted:
"Heartland Institute's President Joe Bast says they are taking down the Ted Kaczynski global warming billboard. Details to come."
Below is the wikipedia definition of Agnotology:
Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.
And just because I don't want to give them extra traffic:
Board of Directors
Robert J. Buford
Chicago, Illinois
Joseph Bast
Chicago, Illinois
Richard Collins
Indianapolis, Indiana
Paul Fisher
Chicago, Illinois
Dan Hales
Winnetka, Illinois
James Johnston
Wilmette, Illinois
Jeff Judson
San Antonio, Texas
Robert Lamendola
Cape May, New Jersey
Chuck Lang
Indianapolis, Indiana
Jeffrey Madden
Chicago, Illinois
Arthur Margulis
Chicago, Illinois
Mike Rose
Washington, DC
Harrison H. Schmitt
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Herbert Walberg
Chicago, Illinois
Relevant Senior Fellows
Dennis Avery
Director, Center for Global Food Issues
Craig Idso
Senior Fellow, Environment
Jay Lehr
Science Director
Eli Lehrer
National Director and Vice President
S. Fred Singer
Senior Fellow, Environment
James M. Taylor, J.D.
Senior Fellow and Managing Editor, Environment and Climate News
Watch or listen to the shows. Watch the ads especially. Jot down those companies' names. That'll be some of those paying.
As with every action and event, first ask, cui bono?
Nice of them to give us a list.
The next very important question is cui malo?
It seems we will have to make our own list to answer that question.
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.c om/files/%281-15-2012%29%202012%20Fundraising%20Pl an.pdf lists folks who got tax-write-offs for funding Heartland.
As a reminder on 501(c)(3):
http://www.desmogblog.com/fake-science-fakexperts -funny-finances-free-tax PDF p.8:
(quoting http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/rp_1986-43.pdf , Rev. Proc. 86-43, 1986-2 C.B. 729 )
%u201CEducational Purpose%u201D section:
%u2018SEC. 3. CRITERIA USED TO DETERMINE WHETHER ADVOCACY BY AN ORGANIZATION IS EDUCATIONAL %u2026
.03 The presence of any of the following factors in the presentations made by an organization is indicative that the method used by the organization to advocate its viewpoints or positions is not educational.
1 The presentation of viewpoints or positions unsupported by facts is a significant portion of the organization%u2019s communications.
2 The facts that purport to support the viewpoints or positions are distorted.
3 ==> The organization%u2019s presentations make substantial use of inflammatory and disparaging terms and express conclusions more on the basis of strong emotional feelings than of objective evaluations. <==
4 The approach used in the organization's presentations is not aimed at developing an understanding on the part of the intended audience or readership because it does not consider their background or training in the subject matter.'
Of course, given Heartland's ~20-year tobacco connection, I suppose nothing is surprising.
----------
above is from
http://hot-topic.co.nz/poisonous-heartland-twiste d-billboards/#comments
01:28 GMT le 05 mai 2012
...and this group 'The Heartland Institute' is considered a "charity" by the U.S. government for tax purposes?
I guess that means I can create an organization proposing the world is flat and pocket the money from all those willing to donate to the proposition of such.
Wow, that's a nice tax shelter concept!
Meanwhile, the propaganda geniuses at Heartland have spread their message to millions in Chicago and billions across the world, and will use the hate from this campaign to fuel their image of martyrs to the cause.
The cause of stopping the evil liberal intelligentsia from preventing Joe Blogs from spending twice his annual salary yearly on the products of the megaconglomerates of his choice.
I say Heartland wins this round.
We the People have helped to create this situation by pushing lots of people who do not have independent wealth into the sciences, and then denying them the public purse for their efforts.
Without the ability to be disinterested, scientists have nothing to offer society - and only the financially independent can afford to be truly disinterested.
Practically every university scientist has to - has to - find non-university monies to pay his salary, never mind conduct any research, and We keep shrinking (relative to costs) the available public monies for this purpose.
What's left are private monies - and the Faustian bargains that come with them.
05:27 GMT le 05 mai 2012
What the hell are Melinda and Bill thinking! They have have become such great philanthropists, I can only imagine they were duped in some way to provide financial assistance to this crackpot organization.
As outrageous a the billboard is...the press release is worse....it's just untrue...
I've met Jeff Masters...he doesn't strike me as a murderer, tyrant...or a madman.....although he is quite tall....
Heartland.org must be getting desperate. The evidence in favor of global warming is everywhere.
Oh, I suppose we could take a charitable point of view. Perhaps Heartland is celebrating the one thing that Kaczynski got right. :o)
(bloggers name witheld)
Liberalism, Definition
(Omitted for space)
New, Updated, Simplified Definition:
Of Satanic origin; Pure Evil.
19:41 GMT le 05 mai 2012
"The Heartland Institute does not speak for Microsoft on climate change. In fact, the Heartland Institute’s position on climate change is diametrically opposed to Microsoft’s position. And we completely disagree with the group’s inflammatory and distasteful advertising campaign."
But he went on with this unconvincing dodge:
"Heartland did participate in our global software donation program in 2010, as did thousands of other nonprofit organizations. It’s important to point out that hundreds of environmental and conservation groups also took advantage of the same program, and received over $13 million in free software to pursue their missions."
A comment there about the taking down of the billboard~ President Joseph Bast wrote, "We do not apologize for running the ad."
The writings of Josef Goebbels and other propagandists, Nazi (far right, of course), Communist, and etc., are freely available online, for example at http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/. The similarities between these writings and those of present-day American propagandists, on both sides of the political spectrum, are striking. And terrifying. I consider them to be essential reading, and the sooner the better, lest we prove, once again, that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
..............................Arthur Schopenhauer
..to fight,
for da plannnnnnnnnn-et !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I look upon Heartland no differently than the scrapings under my boots after I've stepped in something nasty.
actually produce something like this: -Link-
You know there had to be meetings and strategy sessions on something as involved as this.
And the mess they leave behind for us to clean up: -Link-
AGW website would never do something similar: -Link-
Who tried to make it disappear from the web: -Link-
And the analogies to history: -Link-
And the Lies: -Link- (Hint: scroll down to question/answer 6)
Racist people: -Link-
Deliberately exaggerating the evidence to get the public stirred up: -Link-
We need to do something legally: -Link-
Get them fired: -Link-
Nuremberg type trials: -Link-
Yup, despicable....
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