Guest Post by Joe Bast
In a December 28 post, blogger Greg Laden, a self-described “biological anthropologist and science communicator,” ranked The Heartland Institute’s efforts to expose global warming alarmism as one of the “top climate stories of 2012”. I suppose we should be flattered, but his error-filled explanation for including us in the list requires some corrections:
- Heartland isn’t a “climate denial ‘think’ tank.” Last time I checked, no Heartland spokesperson ever denied the existence of the climate, or even climate change.
- Heartland didn’t “implode” or “suffer major damage” in 2012. In fact, we increased receipts by about 15% from 2011, increased the number of donors nearly four-fold, more than doubled the number of policy advisors (to 237), and set records for press attention and online traffic for our sites. 2012 was a breakthrough year for us, thanks in no small part to the attention generated by our work on global warming/cooling.
- We have never tried to “prove that cigarette smoking was not bad for you.” We do argue that taxes on smokers are too high and second-hand smoke is not the public health threat that anti-smoking zealots claim.
- We were not “caught red handed trying to fund an effort explicitly (but secretly) designed to damage science education in public schools.” That description is based on a fake memo circulated by disgraced water scientist Peter Gleick. We announced the curriculum project in our members newsletter and explained there that our intent is to help de-politicize the issue. How is that a bad thing?
- We did run a billboard about global warming, but it did not “equat[e] people who thought the climate science on global warming is based on facts and is not a fraud with well-known serial killers.” The billboard simply pointed out that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, still believes in global warming, and asked viewers if they do, too. We know why lefties went nuts over it – Kaczynski, after all, is one of their own – but it wasn’t inaccurate or offensive.
- We lost a few corporate donors who couldn’t stand the heat when liberal advocacy groups, using a donor list stolen by the aforementioned Peter Gleick, circulated online petitions demanding that they stop funding us. But as already mentioned, we gained many more donors than we lost and had an exceptionally good fundraising year.
- Laden ends by saying The Heartland Institute, “which never was really that big, is now no longer a factor in the climate change.” He’s right that we aren’t very big – about $6 million a year – but he’s wrong about the role we continue to play in the international debate. Our Eighth International Conference on Climate Change, held in Munich on November 31-December 1, 2012, was a huge success. We’ve got projects on climate already lined up for 2013 that make 2012 look like a dress rehearsal.
In short, Heartland played a major role in shaping the debate over global warming in 2012, and we expect to play an even larger role in 2013. Sometimes it takes a little controversy to break through media bias and public indifference. Heartland achieved this in 2012.
Joe Bast is the president of the Heartland Institute
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Note to get a window into the strange and hateful mind of Greg Laden, all you need to do is read his about page here and scroll down. Pity the soul that lives in Texas or West Virginia.
– Anthony
Eli Rabbett – Heartland does not say second hand smoke is not bad – they say it is not as bad as claimed. There is not enough specificity to render an informed opinion on their second hand smoke stance. I’m a non-smoker and I agree second hand smoke is not as bad as claimed. Missing from that statement, of course, is how bad I think it is, how bad I believe it is claimed to be, and how bad it actually is. Fact is I think it is pretty bad having grown up around it through my teens. And now I’m 67 and still don’t like being around it.
Texas I can possibly understand, but what on earth does Laden have against West Virginia?
” A state is a democracy”? Is that what one can expect nowadays from a Harvard-trained anthropologist-biologist-sociologist? Evidently Greg Laden’s extensive “field work” didn’t encompass election rigging…
artwest says: December 31, 2012 at 2:56 am
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Agree, agree, agree. Well said.
Hartland have taken the wrong tack, in emulating the slurs and threats of the Alarmists.
Alarmist slurs do not make Skeptics change their mind, and nor will Skeptic slurs make Alarmists change their mind. The only thing that will make the General Public think again, is pointing out the lies, disinformation and selective reporting from the Alarmist camp.
A much better poster campaign would have been to post a graph of:
Increasing Antarctic sea-ice, with a strap line saying “why did you not know this?”
Cooling Antarctic temperatures with a strap line saying “why did you not know this?”
Static world temperatures with a strap line saying “why did you not know this?”
Increasing polar bear numbers with a strap line saying “why did you not know this?”
Or in Britain, post one of the marvelous ‘scientific’ quotes about more droughts (we are having the wettest year ever).
Or in the USA, post the marvelous ‘scientific’ quote saying snow will be a thing of the past.
These are the posters and headlines that will make people think – not a picture of a Unibomber, who even I did not know as a Climate Alarmist, and whose crimes are a world away from the friendly TV weatherman who is saying the world will warm forever.
It is the weatherman and the TV news anchor that we need to counter, not the Unibomber !!
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Gail Combs says: December 31, 2012 at 7:38 am
Pascal Lamy launches new LSE programme London School of Economics and Political Science: launch of LSE’s new Global Dimensions programme.
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And just to let you know whose side Lamy is on, the LSE’s faculty of politics was being funded by slush-money from Saif al-Islam, the son of Colonel Gaddafi. This is the tune that these people are dancing to, and why they have a keen interest in destroying the West.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15966132
Saudi Arabia does much the same thing, funding fundamentalist Wahabi schools all over the West. The King Fahd School in London was teaching the British children there that Christians and Jews were apes and pigs:
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To further correct the thread troll “trafamadore” – he’s obviously trying to use the name of the fictional planet from the Kurt Vonnegut novel “Slaughterhouse Five” which is properly spelled “tralfamadore”.
No surprises here. The mainstay of the left is the lie.
Robert says:
December 31, 2012 at 7:46 am
@ur momisugly DaveyInUk says: December 31, 2012 at 3:35
When dogma is being seen as science, when people believe that they have absolute knowlegde with no test in reality and aspire to the knownledge of gods. Arrogance, ignorance, the push button order and the beliefs that the end justifies the means.
People should head the warning given to us by Jacob Bronowski.
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Further to Bronowski’s narration (From Wiki):
“Cromwell’s rule, named by statistician Dennis Lindley,[1] states that one should avoid using prior probabilities of 0 or 1, except when applied to statements that are logically true or false. For instance, Lindley would allow us to say that ; Pr(2+2=4)=1
The reference is to Oliver Cromwell, who famously wrote to the synod of the Church of Scotland on August 5, 1650 saying;
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”[2]
As Lindley puts it, one should “leave a little probability for the moon being made of green cheese; it can be as small as 1 in a million, but have it there since otherwise an army of astronauts returning with samples of the said cheese will leave you unmoved.”[3] If the prior probability one assigns to a hypothesis is 0 or 1, then, by Bayes’ theorem, the posterior probability (probability of the variable, given the evidence) is forced to be 0 or 1 as well; no evidence, no matter how strong, could have any influence.”
I admit I was critical of Heartland’s billboard for the same reasons artwest and others have expressed, but let’s consider what would have happened if Heartland hand put an inconvenient fact on the billboard instead. Nothing would have happened other than a few motorist seeing it. The controversy brought the issue to a larger audience. Perhaps a few people went to the Heartland website out of curiosity and then found something like the Spencer-Denning debate that planted the seed that perhaps this CAGW thing isn’t settled after all.
Eli, the 600k number for deaths due to 2nd hand smoke is so high, I have a lot of trouble believing it. Children dying from 2nd hand smoke simply does not happen without some sort of underlying major respiratory or other health issue. I do not and never have smoked and I hate 2nd hand smoke with a passion but that reported mortality number is so high it is simply unbelievable. As in, I don’t believe it…
I think Heartland now should retry, using Dr. Suzuki quotes ( Humans are maggots, and the science was in by 1988, Those leaders disagreeing with him on that, should be jailed)
Parncutt has retracted, so it’s a bit late to use him.
Greg Laden [snip] even had 10 tweets and 6 likes on one of his blog posts. I read all six comments (2 were his).
To the Moderators:
I have been a long term poster, do not spam, and post civilly. Yet it seems my posts are not being approved. My e-mail address is valid. If there is some line I have every crossed, please advise.
REPLY: I haven’t seen your comments, and there is nothing in the que, so I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes the comment form simply fails. Try a machine restart. – Anthony
The second hand smoke argument makes us look silly so please stop it. From personal experience I know of a close relative that died of lung cancer who never smoked. I also know that her husband smoked like a chimney. I think a small women sitting in a small room with a man smoking continuously for a few decades is not a good or healthy.
I think to clarify the second hand smoke campaign (its off-topic nontheless) but for anyone who understands statistics just remember that correlation never proves causation and that it does not EVEN imply causation. To put it bluntly, anyone who says that second hand smoke caused “X deaths” is just misinformed and do not know what they are talking about. I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to find me EVEN ONE death CAUSED by second hand smoke. I bet you can’t.
That is the problem with mis-using statistics which is also a common theme in global warming nuttiness.
Now back to on-topic discussions which do not include second hand smoke or other nonsense. Let’s discuss the billboard since that always seems to come up.
Lets look at the facts: The billboard was up less then one day. The number of people who actually saw it is so small that its just comical. The only reason people heard about it was news from elsewhere. If you have a problem with it, fine. But don’t pretend like it was a huge deal. It wasn’t. The only reason its a big deal is because warmist fools as I call them like to point out everything and anything that is negative about sceptics. Don’t let them do it! Keep them on the ropes.
Others claim that the billboard no longer allows sceptics to use the high road. So be it. The mud slingling will continue from the warmists as evidenced by loons such as Hansen, Laden et al. If they are going to sling mud and people are going to listen to them, we sceptics will only lose if all we do is go off on what common people call “boring facts.”
People want interesting discussions, not the same old boring “he said she said” nonsense. We are correct of course, but If you want to convince the population, you will have to sling mud. On the bright side, The link below shows that the warmists are already crazy so all we have to do is tell the truth. So yes, we can sling mud AND tell the truth. So do it. And stop thinking you are taking the high road by not pointing out facts. Are warmists like the unabomber? I would argue yes that most are. Perhaps they aren’t quite as insane, but tell me if you can tell the difference between the philosophy of the unabomber and Al Gore? I know I couldn’t….and if the philsophy is that similar, how do we know Al Gore wouldn’t do the same thing if he thought it would help his cause? Its an argument much like AGW which is the ironic part….prove me incorrect in other words. Prove that the general typical warmist wouldn’t commit crimes? I know they already have….so the only question is asking ourselves how far the greens will go in the end?
http://www.crm114.com/algore/quiz.html
“So yes, the billboard is enough.”
Not really. The only reason the Heartland billboard is brought [up] every time Gleick is mentioned is to take the spotlight off of Gleick’s disreputable con job. And yes, contributions to Heartland are tax deductible. I have made several — beginning after the billboard was put up.
As for the bunny’s defense of the Lancet second hand smoke study, that ‘study’ has been thoroughly debunked, just like many other Lancet studies were. To date, there has been no credible study of the effects of second hand smoke. DaveyinUK’s inductive example is typical of second hand smoke ‘reasoning’. I don’t like smoke, but our bodies were made to handle some smoke. Otherwise every cave or tent dweller would be dead in short order.
@D Böehm
I know it is anecdotal but try telling any member of my family. I also believe that sitting in a cave with smoke for several decades could potentially kill you. I would also say that trying to win a pointless argument is pointless. Second hand smoke is pointless. Leave it to others to fight for the cigarette companies. We need to focus on an issue that could kill millions in the west because it could destroy our economies.
Roger Knights says: “…. but it was a loser because it cost you the “high road” position in the debate in the eyes of others. …”
Huh? What exactly is this “high road” you speak of and who are the ‘others’? How high of a road were those slick eco-terrorism “No Pressure” ads done by 10:10? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE3g0i2rz4w ?? (Those had to have cost some $$$ to produce too because they appeared to be of very professional quality, costing a LOT more than a billboard. )
I think the message was clear enough, kowtow to our righteous cult, BE INCLUDED AS ONE OF US, believe our fundamental message like ‘everyone’ else or – you are as good as dead. It can’t get much lower than that…
To my mind, this thread demonstrates perfectly WUWT’s strengths and also its Achilles Heel. I am a UK-based, left leaning non-smoker. I don’t believe the science supports the second hand smoke argument and I was disgusted when the then UK government implemented a smoking ban despite the totally equivocal nature of the evidence. I would never have heard of the Heartland Institute if it hadn’t, when researching the issue, seen it cited as a nest of tobacco funded, rabid Neo-Con lunatics by the anti-smoking lobby. (Thanks to whoever posted the link to the suppressed WHO study by the way – I’d been looking for a copy for months).
Similarly, the climate debate seems to have fractured quite cleanly along right/left lines. I don’t believe the ‘warmist’ line and come here for reasoned, informed opinion. However…. at some point the comment threads always end up with someone throwing in a ‘warmunist, left-wing world domination, tree hugging nut job’ comment. It doesn’t take much thought to see that if you want to influence opinion this is not helpful. The data has no political affiliation and it makes no sense to alienate half the planet by making them think that they’re getting into bed with a bunch of ‘foaming at the mouth, ultra-conservative, NRA affiliated nut-jobs’ by questioning the AGW proponents’ line.
Even if you think the IPPC has a socialist agenda there’s no need to bring that into the argument, simply argue the science; if you win on that basis…. you win.
I believe Silver Ralph is right, a poster campaign advertising one inconvenient FACT is more likely to lead a non-committed person to examine the science than a thousand telling him/her that the warmists must be wrong because they’re all Fidel Castro in disguise.
I’m off to get drunk now – Happy Hogmanay and a guid new year to everyone!
“603 000 deaths were attributable to second-hand smoke in 2004, which was about 1·0% of worldwide mortality.”
So given ‘second hand smoke’ is such a massive killer that governments all over the world have used it as justification for banning smoking even in places where almost everyone would be smoking, presumably you can point to the massive reduction in deaths in those countries as a result of those new laws?
Or could it just be another example of using a dubious scientific claim to push a political agenda?
MarkG,
True dat. If secondhand smoke was really killing children and other innocent people, governments everywhere would have completely banned cigarettes.
But they haven’t. Governments are every bit as addicted to tobacco taxes as smokers are to cigarettes. But I doubt that even rapacious governments would deliberately allow children to be killed, when the solution is so simple.
Conclusion: governments know the second hand smoke canard is overblown hype. But they use it to extract ever more taxes from smokers. For the smokers’ own good, of course.
Wow! Gail Combs you have said all the right stuff, I think I’m in love.
Horse says: December 31, 2012 at 11:30 am
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Your point is well taken. I am conservative, yet I deplore the casting of science issues into political terms as some do here at WUWT. This is unfortunate, I think, but it is the consequence of the issues of science being precipitated into the public arena. There is no question that this was deliberate and that it was not done by skeptics, whose posture is essentially defensive.
mpainter
The Warmists are *practically* allowed to smear, lie, commit fraud, and insult.
You have disallowed yourselves the ability to as much as *point that out* in public – as opposed to on friendly blogs.
Seriously, stay home. It will cost you less effort and you’ll lose either way.
@Skiphil December 31, 2012 at 2:45 am
Re the blog post by Stephan Lewandowsky (Winthrop Professor, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia):
Note the sponsors at the bottom of his posting: three Australian universities.
This worries me a bit because I have (and have taken pride in) an MEngSc from Melbourne Univ…..
IanM