UPDATE5: 5/5/10:30AM Donna Laframboise pulls out of the conference.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/05/05/why-i-wont-be-speaking-at-the-heartland-conference/
Instead, those of us who had accepted Heartland’s invitation to take part in its conference found ourselves blindsided – a mere two weeks before the conference is set to begin – by a torrent of negative press. Suddenly, we were all publicly linked to an organization that thinks it’s OK to equate people concerned about climate change with psychopaths.
Blindsided is right. AFAIK, not one attendee was given the courtesy of weighing in on the billboard campaign beforehand, and if I had been given that courtesy my answer would have been a resounding NO. Instead, I believe we all got the notice after the fact.
UPDATE4: 7PM PST Heartland issues a press release ending the billboard
May 4, 2012 – The Heartland Institute has pulled its global warming billboard starring Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber whose manifesto expressed his belief in catastrophic man-caused global warming. The digital billboard ran for exactly 24 hours along the Eisenhower Expressway near Chicago in the suburb of Maywood, Illinois.
The following statement by Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast may be used for attribution. For more information, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org or 312-377-4000.
“This provocative billboard was always intended to be an experiment. And after just 24 hours the results are in: It got people’s attention.
“This billboard was deliberately provocative, an attempt to turn the tables on the climate alarmists by using their own tactics but with the opposite message. We found it interesting that the ad seemed to evoke reactions more passionate than when leading alarmists compare climate realists to Nazis or declare they are imposing on our children a mass death sentence. We leave it to others to determine why that is so.
“The Heartland Institute doesn’t often do ‘provocative’ communication. In fact, we’ve spent 15 years presenting the economic and scientific arguments that counter global warming alarmism. No one has worked harder, or better, on that task than Heartland. We will continue to do that – especially at our next International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago from May 21 – 23.
“Heartland has spent millions of dollars contributing to the real debate over climate change, and $200 for a one-day digital billboard. In return, we’ve been subjected to the most uncivil name-calling and disparagement you can possibly imagine from climate alarmists. The other side of the climate debate seems to be playing by different rules. This experiment produced further proof of that.
“We know that our billboard angered and disappointed many of Heartland’s friends and supporters, but we hope they understand what we were trying to do with this experiment. We do not apologize for running the ad, and we will continue to experiment with ways to communicate the ‘realist’ message on the climate.”
========================================================
UPDATE3: 3:15PM PST I saw this private letter to Joe Bast earlier from Ross McKitrick, and I agreed with Ross in a reply. He has posted it on Climate Audit so I’ll share an excerpt here:
He wrote: “This kind of fallacious, juvenile and inflammatory rhetoric does nothing to enhance your reputation…”
“…hands your opponents a huge stick to beat you with, and sullies the reputation of the speakers you had recruited. Any public sympathy you had built up as a result of the Gleick fiasco will be lost–and more besides–as a result of such a campaign. I urge you to withdraw it at once.”.
UPDATE2: 1PM PST
From Joe Bast via email:
We will stop running it at 4:00 p.m. CST today. (It’s a digital billboard, so a simple phone call is all it takes.)
UPDATE: I’ve added a simple poll at the bottom to gauge opinion on this issue. – Anthony
There’s a disturbance in the farce. Tom Nelson captures these:
Do you believe global warming is real, poses risks to the environment, and needs to be addressed? The Heartland Institute, a think-tank based in Chicago which has promoted climate skepticism, wants you to know you’re in some sinister company.
Twitter / @eilperin: In new ads, the Heartland …
In new ads, the Heartland Institute suggests only terrorists believe in the link b/w human activity and global warming: wapo.st/IOUuEI
Predictably, ThinkProgress/Climate Progress is all bent out of shape.
But Joe Romm and Brad Johnson (who now also runs “Forecast the Facts” to hassle TV weatherpeople) think nothing of making a similar comparison about “deniers”.
Speaking of “mass murderers and madmen”….
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/07/25/277564/norway-terrorist-is-a-global-warming-denier/
Romm of course will be unable to embrace his own hypocrisy, because he’s reportedly paid a six figure sum by the Center for American Progress to write the hateful detritus he produces daily.
That said, I’ll be blunt; I think Heartland’s billboard campaign is a huge misstep, and does nothing but piss people off and divide the debate further. IMHO it isn’t going to win any converts, and had they asked me I would have told them that it is a bad idea that will backfire on them.
Here’s what they have issued in a press release about it:
May 03, 2012May 3, 2012 – Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world’s most notorious criminals say they “still believe in global warming” – and ask viewers if they do, too.
Heartland’s first digital billboard – along the inbound Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) in Maywood – is the latest effort by the free-market think tank to inform the public about what it views as the collapsing scientific, political, and public support for the theory of man-made global warming. It is also reminding viewers of the questionable ethics of global warming’s most prominent proponents.
“The most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists,” said Heartland’s president, Joseph Bast. “They are Charles Manson, a mass murderer; Fidel Castro, a tyrant; and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Global warming alarmists include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010).
Bast added, “The leaders of the global warming movement have one thing in common: They are willing to use force and fraud to advance their fringe theory.” For more about the billboards and why Heartland says people should not still believe in global warming, click here.
Ugh. Ugly.
There’s more than enough climate ugliness to go around. Though, it seems harder and harder to find this ultimate warmist embarrassment.
Anybody that can help with Donna’s suggestion?
And there’s many more examples of climate ugliness from the left that we’ve seen.
On another note, the serially mendacious commenter known as “Dorlomin” left this comment over at the Romm shop:
dorlomin says:
I thought I should clear this up. First, “dorlomin” of course is all about smear, that’s his MO, and the MO of the many anonymous cowards who purvey such things without having any integrity or courage themselves.
Second, the simple fact is that I didn’t know about the association of the person making the claim that “Climate skepticism could soon be a criminal offence in UK
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/19/climate-skepticism-could-soon-be-a-criminal-offence-in-uk/
Third, when I learned who was behind the story, I immediately took it down because it was an inappropriate source, just like I don’t post videos from LaRouche and other fringe organizations.
Of course “dorlomin” and left foot forward would have you believe that I consort with these folks and have them over for drinks and dinner, rather than the fact that once I learned more, I found them offensive and immediately deleted the story. It was my mistake for not checking sources further.
“dorlomin” is of course playing the very hate game he rants about, and is hypocritically blind just like Romm. The only difference is that one is paid to produce propoganda and the other is a coward.
But will Climate Progress delete their offensive story about climate deniers and terrorists? Not likely, it would hurt their sales figures image.
POLL:
Note: multiple anti vote stuffing features are enabled in this poll. I’ve made the questions simple so that editorial bias in the questions is minimal.
Poor little trolls are working very hard on this one but there’s a sense of desperation about them nowadays. Enjoyable.
Pointman
Amino Acids in Meteorites wrote:
When politicians ask for the expertise of scientists based on the scientists’ research, then scientists can get involved in politics. But this wasn’t the claim. The actual claim was that the research done by scientists at GISS was based on a political and ideological agenda they would follow. This is a different claim than the first one.
Pointman says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:12 am
Indeed.
I get what Heartland was trying to do with its ad. When I was in grad school, one of my professors, a man so green he had roots growing out of his head, mentioned that a number of people had come up to him, after the Unabomber’s Manifesto had gone public, to tell him TK sounded exactly like him! So, no question, the Unabomber is a hard line green in many respects, which means the intellectual connection Heartland was trying to draw between the CAGW crowd and him is actually valid. I also understand the crocodile tears people like Joe Romm, as slippery a character as you are going to find, are going to try drowning us in. Nevertheless, there are problems with the ad, no matter how much the other side may do things like that. Throwing mud back and forth never solved any problems that I know of.
First problem: who in the world has read the Unabomber’s Manifesto? No one. So most folks who see the billboard will view it as some sort of ad hominem. They will not get the underlying message. Secondly, Heartland simply threw away the moral-intellectual high ground. Talk about unforced errors! In puttingt up this stupid billboard, Heartland, in one fell swoop, has given credence and legitimacy to the whackiest of its critics. Now we’re going to have the old moral equivalency thing going again. Just what we all need. I think Bast ought to fall on his sword. And judging from his defense, he sounds like he still doesn’t get the damage he’s done.
There they were in the Red Zone, Heartland. Then some goof QB needlessly, stupidly, threw the ball up for grabs and now the other team is marching up the field. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Mr. Perlwitz says:
“Based on giving another meaning to the word “proof” you falsely equalize scientific proof and mathematical proof.”
No, that is exactly what Mr. Perlwitz was doing. He contradicts his own statements so much I’m getting dizzy.
And here a comparison of model predicted trends of the temperature, ocean heat content, and Arctic sea ice with data from the real world, updated for the year 2011:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
100% prediction failure rate? I wouldn’t say so.
Bruce Houston, you wrote:
You asserting something about what I have been allegedly doing, but you are not providing any proof.
[SNIP: This is just pouring oil on troubled fires. Please don’t go this route. -REP]
– – – – –
John West,
I am enjoying our continuing dialog.
This discourse that HI has setup for us (thank you HI) is significant. I disagree most of your comments about the HI billboards but will withhold further return comments to you because I do not want to be diverted yet until Donna Laframboise has an opportunity to respond to my question to her.
I would like to see Donna Laframboise answer my question about why she doesn’t go to ICCC-7 and be the famous fearless investigative reporter that, up to yesterday, I thought she was. She was a reporter I had previously admired in public.
John
Eli Rabett says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:47 pm
“Cooling of the stratosphere”
The stratosphere has not cooled since 1995. Try again.
Jan P. Perlwitz says:
May 6, 2012 at 6:55 am
“Based on giving another meaning to the word “proof” you falsely equalize scientific proof and mathematical proof.”
What a cop out. Proof is proof. The only question is how high a level of certainty one demands. When you are talking about the certitude of casting millions, even billions, into poverty, disease, and death, versus the vague possibility of minor disruption down the road, the standard is and should be very high.
From Eli Rabbet (Joshua Halpern) , http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/04/heartlands-billboards-and-joe-romms-stunning-hypocrisy/#comment-977596.
You posted a link that you claim supports your statement that the Stratosphere is cooling but the very first chart in the link shows the cooling stopped around 1995 and flat ever since.
The previous 20 years or so show cooling ONLY after a large volcano eruption occurred then flattens out.Whatever caused the cooling appears to have stopped back in the early 1970’s since the only time it cooled to a lower lever was right after those two eruptions of 1982 and 1991.
Since it appears that it stopped cooling way back in the early 1970’s CO2 can be safely exonerated.
[Moderator’s Note: Let’s get back to the topic of the thread. -REP]
courtenay – you are embarassing.
proof is a logical concept.
logic, not math and not science – logic.
logic is the art of non-contradictory identification – the labelling of identities.
it does not require numbers or labcoats.
now go back and learn to use words as words – they are distinguished from grunts by having definitions, without which you can not perform logic.
[Moderator’s Note: This discussion is off-topic for the thread and is starting to get nasty. Give it a rest. That means no Perlwitz-bashing, too. Stick to the topic. -REP]
[SNIP: This discussion is ended. -REP]
****
Babsy says:
May 5, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Every time I hear of “Coal Trains” Hansen I can’t help but think of Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on “The Dukes Of Hazzard”.
*****
Now we finally gonna git them duke-boys, boss!! Kyug, kyug, kyug….
Jan P. Perlwitz says:
[SNIP: Sorry, but I said this discussion was done. Please address the topic of the thread. -REP]
Please hold the e-mails announcing each comment!
[REPLY: Hu, this is nothing we did and we can’t stop it. I think Anthony is working on it. When you comment on a new thread, just make sure the check box is cleared. If you are already receiving e-mails from a thread, clearing the box on a second comment does not stop them from coming. The best you can do, for the moment, is just set up a spam rule in your e-mail client and let them get sent to trash. -REP]
Please hold the e-mails announcing comments here!
(Thanks to Nick Stokes, I have deselected the newly-default notification option.)
Anders Breivick is a false friend. Just because he thinks CAGW is a scam does not mean that everyone who thinks CAGW is a scam is a neonazi. He might have good reasons to think that or he might be against it because the left is for it. It doesn’t matter because of his terrorist actions. That will always cut off any rational debate. The same goes for Ted Kaczynski and all the other extremists. Heartland was incredibly wrong to go this route.
Heartland is a false friend. Does Heartland oppose CAGW because the left is for it? We don’t need that kind of friend. Heartland’s efforts seem like a waste of money to me. The conference may be the exception, but any benefits of that conference are trashed by Heartland’s anti-CAGW advertising.
Jan P. Perlwitz:
Firstly, I owe you an apology. [SNIP: Richard, I’ve already requested that this discussion on this thread be ended. It is getting too personal and heated and adds nothing to the thread topic. There will undoubtedly be future opportunities. -REP]
REP:
I understand your decision to stop the discussion. However, my note was a polite, factual and logical rebuttal of accusations posted above by Perlwitz that
I “presented a straw man’,
I “invented statements that [Perlwitz] made”
I am “a falsehood disseminator”.
Natural justice says I should at very least have the right to show those accusations are lies. At present they stand on the blog and remain unrefuted.
Richard
anybody else had a message from wordpress asking:
First time I’ve seen that
Let’s see.
Many, with one notable exception (Dr. Curry, if I recall), have advocated:
The establishment of re-education camps
Nuclear war
Tracking, harassing, and (almost) killing “denialists”
The extinction of the human race
Fraud, both scientific and economic
Theft and libelous misrepresentation
What is, in effect, one world government complete with global taxing powers (carbon credits), as if the governments we have are not remote enough
and so on.
They control most of the media involved in the debate, the UN via the IPCC, a substantial number of educators, and have considerable influence over the relevant policies of powerful national governments (e.g. Australia, UK, US)
The Heartland institute ad was politically incorrect. It was, looking at things, also dead accurate.
Arguing scientific truth is all well and good, but there is an uncomfortable social truth as well that needs to be addressed, and perhaps not in whispers.
The consensus here is that Heartland were winning. The sad fact is that they were not. War is a deplorable and debasing business – being nice and forthright and honorable is strictly for Hollywood. When the chips are down, one has no option but to be near as beastly as the enemy if one,and one’s family, are to survive. One can argue in favour of gentlemanly debate only if one has never been in a firefight.
Steve McIntyre censored the following comments with a silly explanation that the word Nazi appears in them. As you can see I was not calling anyone a Nazi but poinnting out that James Hansesn did that
Comment 1:
John, the emphasis in my comment was not on “oversensitivity”, but on “selective oversensitivity”, i.e. the fact that McKitrick is extremely concerned about Heartland behaving badly, but apparently not in the least about Hansen or Greenpace behaving badly. The Heartland adds comparing the AGW to the terrorists are inexcusable, but Hansen’s constant comparing the skeptics to the Nazis and calling for their persecution for war crimes are of no great concern. If Hansen accepted the invitation to go to the Heartland conference McKitrick would not have any problems attending.
I think that this sentence from McKitrick’s letter to Heartland best describes the real reasons behind this puzzling asymmetry:
“I have just been cc’d on an email from someone who wrote to both my dean and university president, expressing his outrage that a UofG professor is party to such billboards.”
So I appeal to you and to all other McKitrick’s cheerleaders to have this in mind and to don’t play the “useful idiots” for the bad guys.
Comment 2:
I was not saying that McKitrick agrees with Heartland agenda. On the contrary; I was asking what is the source of a strange double standard that McKitrick is very upset about Heartland’s bad behavior, but not upset at all about say Hansen’s bad behavior. Let’s assume that James Hansen, a man who repeatedly compared the skeptics to the Nazis and called for their persecution as war criminals on a Nuremberg-style trial, offered to McKitrick to co-author a paper on climate science with him? Would have mr McKitrick refused that on the same grounds he refused to be associated with Heartland billboards:”I don’t want to associate with a guy who says such “fallacious, inflammatory and juvenile” things”. Any thoughts? I am on record doubting that.
And I am directing to your common sense this passage from Mckitrick’s letter to Heartland as an to explanation as to why:
“I have just been cc’d on an email from someone who wrote to both my dean and university president, expressing his outrage that a UofG professor is party to such billboards.”
P.S. Steve, since you deleted my previous comment you should have deleted the critiques of it by other readers as well. This way, it is not clear what they are reacting to.
Comment 3 (still “in moderation”)
Steve, I was not calling anyone a “Nazi” but rather emphasized a simple fact that Hansen compared the skeptics with the Nazis repeatedly!!! Is pointing this well known fact also “inflammatory, juvenile and fallacious”?
With all due respect Steve, I think that you just found an convenient excuse to prevent dissemination of inconvenient views on your blog. You are doing your best to emulate the Real Climate type of censorship.
Andre_ob:
Yes, all you say at May 6, 2012 at 11:52 am is true, but at issue is how to inform politicians and the public of the scientific, social, economic and political ‘truths’ of AGW.
As you say, many attacks have been made and orchestrated against those (including me) who have tried to assuage the AGW-scare. But so what?
Some AGW-skeptics acknowledge the attacks which you mention and say, Fight Fire With Fire. This is an understandable reaction, but we need to consider if its net effect would be beneficial in informing the politicians and public of the AGW-skeptic positions.
The mass media control the message which is most loudly put before the public, and they shout the AGW-scare (because ‘No scare is not news’). And governments fund the AGW-alarmists (to a total of over $5 billion p.a.) while AGW-skeptics mostly rely on their own time and money. In these circumstances AGW-skeptics need to be effective in what we do.
Please note that in the US – but nowhere else – AGW is a party-political issue. Therefore, we need to assess what is effective everywhere and to pay especial attention to the unique circumstance in the US.
The present debate is about the effects of the HI ‘Unanbomber ad.’.
One obvious effect of the ad. has been to divide AGW-skeptics. This division has been a gift to the AGW-alarmists because the skeptics are not opposing the scare when they are spending their time and effort to argue among themselves.
Finding unity among the skeptics has always been difficult (especially in the US) because the skeptics include people of all religious, political and theological adherences who are only united by their rejection of the AGW-scare. In particular, the AGW-skeptics are united in their rejection of the poor ‘science’ used as an excuse to promote the AGW-scare. (Moderators, please do NOT snip the remainder of this paragraph.) Promoters of the scare know this and some – notably Rabbet and Perlwitz – have ‘piled-in’ to this thread with clear attempts to exacerbate divisions. But that gave several on this thread an opportunity to address the poor so-called ‘science’ used to bolster the AGW-scare.
However, unity is not an end in itself. We AGW-skeptics need to be clear about what we need to be united to do. This thread exposes that we lack that clarity.
In my opinion our best tactic is to unite around exposing the so-called ‘science’. This has been working, and it ended political justification for the scare in Copenhagen some years ago. So, governments’ funding of the scare can be expected to dwindle as time goes by. Indeed, cuts in subsidies for ‘renewables’ are already resulting in bankruptcies of wind and solar companies.
And we need to avoid ‘crawling in the gutter’ with the alarmists. That will disunite us and cause our views to be discredited among the public. At present our views are not well known, but that is not as bad as having our views discredited because the ‘messengers’ decided to destroy each other.
We are winning. It would be a disaster if we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Richard
Regarding the email announcements, all you have to do is click on the link at the bottom of the email where it says: Want less email? Modify your Subscription Options. You can then uncheck the box for the auto email announcements.