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
==============================================================
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
“I am conservative, yet I deplore the casting of science issues into political terms as some do here at WUWT.”
Science has been politicised ever since governments became the major source of science funding. If you want to de-politicise science you’ll have to start by getting government out of science.
And it’s not as though this is any great surprise, Eisenhower warned of the threat of the Government-Science Complex over fifty years ago.
Horse says: December 31, 2012 at 11:30 am
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.
______________________________________
You are both right, and wrong.
In the UK:
The Warmists are represented by: The Independent, The Grauniad, and the BBC.
Those on the fence include: The Times.
Those who regularly oppose the Warmists are: The Daily Mail and The Torygraph (sorry, The Telegraph).
See a trend here?
Unfortunately, the climate is now a political issue, and the reason is not hard to fathom. If you indulge me with a generalization:
The left-leaning fraternity are traditionally idealists, thinking that people and the world are wonderful, and wouldn’t it be nice if we could all live together and only work on Thursday afternoons (they normally work in government agencies and suck the government teat, so money grows on trees).**
The right-leaning fraternity are often businessmen and independent tradesmen or even those who work piece-time, and know the value of hard work; and also know that not everyone is nice or has the same social or cultural values.
Thus environmental issues and values were a natural fit with the Liberal Left, much more so than it was with the Rationalist Right. There are exceptions, of course, like the husky-hugging David Cameron, but he is an exception in the Tory Party. Hence, the Climate is now a political issue, and is being fought along party lines.
.
** Remember the old joke: The best political system in the world is Liberal-Socialism – until they run out of other people’s money….
.
Wyguy says:
December 31, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Get in line! (No cuts in the Combs-queue!) 8<)
“Unfortunately, the climate is now a political issue”
Actually, ‘global warming’ has been a political issue at least since Margaret Thatcher realised she could use it as another justification for closing down coal mines. The left at the time opposed it and pointed out what nonsense it was, until they realised they could use it to control industry and raise taxes.
The funny part is that many people I know in the British left complain about Thatcher closing coal mines while simultaneously demanding that the country reduce CO2 emissions to stop ‘climate change’.
MarkG says:
December 31, 2012 at 2:15 (closing UK coal mines)
The decline in coal output, in percentages:
11 years of Thatcher: 33%
11 years before Thatcher: 45%
11 years after Thatcher (Major and Blair): 72%
11 years of New Labour (Blair and Brown): 64%
Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good myth whatever you do.
VANNEVAR BUSH
By promoting a closer relationship between government, science, and industry, Bush helped increase the military-industrial complex significantly. Ironically, he was never comfortable with big government during the post-WWII years or with the increased military influence over science. But by then the changes he had fostered had eclipsed his power to control them.
http://www.doug-long.com/bush.htm
Eisenhower
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
MarkG says: December 31, 2012 at 2:15 pm
====================================
Thatcher wished to close the mines which were uneconomic. This led to the famous confrontation betwen Arthur Scargill and the government. Scargill ordered the miners out on strike without a vote of union members. The strike received very little support elsewhere and collapsed after a few months.
Wikipedia on Scargill:
Scargill has become more politically outspoken since stepping down from the NUM presidency, he is a Communist sympathiser[12] and has gone on record as a supporter of Joseph Stalin, saying that the “ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin” explain the “real world”.[13] Scargill had long criticised Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement for its attacks upon the communist system in Poland, which Scargill saw as deformed but reformable.
Seems to be no end to these types.
I don’t know why you guys haven’t learned from the AGW debate that what you are spouting, with regard to the “billboard” is your opinion and not a fact. You may have thought it was a bad idea and you are entitled to that. Some of us thought it was brilliant and deposited money in Heartland’s account to show our support. Just because you have a perspective doesn’t make it so. Get over yourselves.
at 8:00 am – thisisnotgoodtogo said:
“Heartland’s ad required me to play defense when the shoe should have been on the other foot.”
Then you made of mistake of choosing the wrong strategy.
I thought the billboard was fantastic. The Gleick’s, Laden’s et al, have a long, long list of vile crimes, frauds, lies, statements, etc.
If you can’t come up with a list of 1000 to offset whatever “damage” you think the billboard did, you’re not trying too hard.
i have no knowledge about this — but Greg Laden probably calls himself a strong femininst becasue he lets his wife support him. i would love to see their tax returns. People like Laden always adopt stances that are extremely self-serving.
Eugene WR Gallun
Not much of a comment. I will try to do better in the new year.
Gail Combs
I like your posts. Guess if I were male I’d join the queue too! 🙂 “Follow The Money” is indeed crucial to understanding the underlying issues, as I have learned, mainly here.
Now I’d like to recommend you watch the video “Thrive” if you have not already done so. It is not perfect, and there are two characters there whom I would not trust. But its great strengths are that
* it explains “follow the money” with beautiful clarity
* it explains the serious cover-up that exists concerning the real energy alternatives (over-unity motors, LENR with or without Rossi, etc)
* it recognizes the fraudulent nature of current official Climate Science and the IPCC – with reasons behind this fraud which Monckton would recognize very well, and probably you too.
Its stance in general will appeal to many tenderhearted sensitive greens whom we so often find siding with the warmists. So it is potentially a bridge-builder, and an exit route for cornered rats despite my above-stated reservation.
It would be good to have a post at WUWT / other skeptics blogs / on this video. I reckon it is an important piece of work.
[Snip – Video has OTT language ~mod]
Inciting a mob is and always has been a crime. It is important we all remember that we would have never, under any circumstances, put up with government employees telling us to shut up, if we weren’t all huddling together temporarily as we expunged and evaluated effective cultural threat from Al Qaeda et al.
Al Gore ran a terrorist threat war inside the American cultural combined agreement to huddle down and not break ranks with our government no matter what.
He illegally swayed markets and does so today threatening people with destruction of property and even human life if the people didn’t go ahead and ignore the election,
and install the policies he wants, and buy the products he sells; because as he put it,
He as an Occidental Oil Baron was vested in the world’s third largest oil company but half it’s holdings were in alternative energy so, his Oil was actually Patriotic OIl and Other Oil Baron (Bush Oil) Oil, was actually Terrorist Oil.
In roughly as many words, that’s what he said, and he further informed the world that in this case, using his place amid the presidency – Vice Presidency is a place amid presidential politics:
Oh yes, it is –
was fighting terrorism.
Terrorism George Bush’s oil paid.
Al Gore Occidental Oil Baron: patriot
George Bush, ‘Regular Old’ Oil Baron, terrorist.
It’s very important we remember how this got this way.
It was a vicious, criminal, publicity stunt by Al Gore, Occidental Oil Baron, getting even with George Bush, Regular Old Oil Baron
who ‘robbed’ him of ‘his turn.’ This was all basically a weather scam to stop cutting of funds during the Clinton years and as Hansen got dug in he kept up his ‘Tropopause Asploding’ malarkey.
Hansen was running a criminal, vicious (vicious means associated with vice, in case you don’t know reader and in this case of course the vice is a lunging lust for power, more publicity, and money)
publicity stunt to justify his Asploding Tropopause crank science to stop funds cutting as the Cold War bureaucracy was pared back to normal need levels,
When Al Gore uncovered it knowing the wheels of law enforcement could be held off a long time, he ran his own criminal scam to punish his employees – he views the citizens as his helpers – in a ‘Cause’ – for him losing the election. His excuse at judgement day will be to shake his head and say, ‘people are sheep. I gave them a cleaner environment. They wanted one. It came at cost of taxing the air a woman’s child breathes out, but who’s countin’? They can peel the law back till it fits.’
It’s another in a long line of historical instances of a man just drizzling his own musky ‘I Own You’ marker all over the heads of anyone associated with him for not making him happy.
He’s peeing on he heads of his constituents as well as his political enemies knowing he’s gotten away with the biggest heist in history. At the cost of the prestige of all mankind in trying to look out for itself. But Al doesn’t care, because he has the venerated position of FDR who was the great governmentalist of HIS time. He’s closing himself off from publicity and doling out the millions upon millions in manipu-money he functionally printed for himself as a going away present for losing the presidency.
Apologies for poor editing.
Lucy Skywalker says: * it explains the serious cover-up that exists concerning the real energy alternatives (over-unity motors , ……
Fred Singer is well known for his skeptical position on second hand smoke (ETS). He doubts the claims routinely made by the rabid anti-tobacco-ists who often turn out to be the same people as the climate alarmists. So when you bring up his name about the CAGW fraud they almost always will pile on that those who deny CAGW are believing people like Singer who also deny the association of ETS to lung cancer. (see my NIH.GOV link above)
In both of those arenas we have hard data on our side to suggest we are correct while the fraudsters have nothing but manufactured/purchased opinions and models.
I’m proudly comfortable be associated with someone like Fred Singer because he strives to base his opinions on scientific facts. In stark contrast however, I am about as comfortable being associated with anyone who claims to have ‘harnessed’ perpetual motion as I am being associated with 911 ‘truthers’ because none of them have ever demonstrated their machinery to work in a verifiable scientific setting, (closed box). Just like CAGW hoaxsters, they supply their own manufactured ‘proof’ and purchased testimonials because their only real intent is to swindle people.
Don’t be fooled, no one has ever demonstrated that they know how to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics within the confines of the limited universe in which we live.
“Our Eighth International Conference on Climate Change, held in Munich on November 31-December 1, 2012, was a huge success.”
Wow! I would call it an amazing success if Germany managed to squeeze an extra day from November to support that meeting in Munich. Here in the USA our November usually gives us only 30 days
@ur momisugly Lucy Skywalker:
Well, I’m hoping RGB will overview the violations of the laws of physics such devices would have to accomplish in order to work as claimed. I’ll just bring up a more economic objection. If there were a device that I could run my house off of indefinitely then that product would be a competitive advantage for the first company to patent and bring to market. So, besides the perpetual motion problems, I would have to believe that several companies would sacrifice a competitive advantage for sales in order to preserve an industry. I don’t find that likely at all. For example the widely rumored carburetor that allows pretty much any car to get 70-100 MPG, why wouldn’t Ford (or any other car manufacturer) take advantage of such a technology? To preserve Exxon’s sales? Why would Ford care about Exxon?
I was terrifically impressed by Dr. Laden’s ability — perhaps something he learned at Hahvahd? — to write at length without saying anything much of consequence.
@ur momisugly Lucy Skywalker
The video also claims that it is almost a certainty that there’s other intelligent life in the universe (or Universe). While I sincerely hope that we aren’t the hope of the universe it is possible that we are. Consider that there is an infinite number of whole numbers, yet only one 42. Taking 42 as representing Earth and all the variables that went into producing intelligent life, nobody knows if 41 or 43 would be close enough or not. My personal opinion is that we’ll find microbial life relatively common, multicellular life less common, but intelligent life exceedingly rare in the Universe; there’s just so many variables that have to align for intelligence to evolve.
While I’m on the subject of sets that include infinity (for RGB) there’s an infinite number of whole numbers and an infinite number of real numbers between each whole number such that something larger is contained within something smaller. (eh?)
Such is the wonderous mysteries of the Universe and numbers.
December 31, 2012 at 6:07 pm Robert in Calgary said
“at 8:00 am – thisisnotgoodtogo said:
“Heartland’s ad required me to play defense when the shoe should have been on the other foot.”
Then you made of mistake of choosing the wrong strategy.
I thought the billboard was fantastic. The Gleick’s, Laden’s et al, have a long, long list of vile crimes, frauds, lies, statements, etc.
If you can’t come up with a list of 1000 to offset whatever “damage” you think the billboard did, you’re not trying too hard.”
Robert, sure I could come up with some stuff and I did, quite easily.
The problem is that the ad made the comparison of views held, between Ted K. and the viewer – not between Ted K and Dr. Suzuki, as it should have.
In the wake of the Gleick hacking and smearing, Heartland was able to position itself as an injured innocent. It could play the victim card, which provides “one up” status. It threw that PR advantage away by its billboard ad. The court of public opinion automatically marginalizes any proponent who analogizes the opposition to terrorists and murderers. It’s a violation of Godwin’s Rule, and a sure loser. Now Heartland has, in the minds of the majority, lost the ability to complain about being the victim of out-of-bounds behavior, because Heartland is viewed as an out-of-bounds player itself. The ad has enabled Heartland’s enemies to effectively portray it as an extremist and dirty fighter.
This foot-shooting PR-effect is easier to see when warmists commit the same sort of mistake of going too far and getting too vitriolic, as in the No Pressure TV ad campaign. Comments here in the wake of such over-egged alarmist statements and accusations (e.g., “death trains”–a borderline Godwinism) often point out how self-defeating such tactics are, and how we ought to welcome them as undermining their credibility and likeability.
“Perhaps a few people . . . ” Great. That’s outweighed 10,000 to 1 by the loss of Heartland’s victim card in the court of public opinion and in the MSM-mediated public conversation.
Those ads do not represent the tactics of mainstream warmism–not remotely. If one allows oneself to be drawn into matching low blows with low blows, one may have some temporary satisfaction, but the general public will shrink from you for not taking the high road. Gandhi recognized that positioning his movement on the high road was essential, despite temptations to adopt eye-for-an-eye tactics, and he was right.
No, I said that Marc Morano could do so safely–by which I implied in public on TV—or on a billboard, come to think of it. By implication, so could any of half a dozen other contrarian organizations. (I’d suggest the poster child for warmism should be Mugabe and Chavez, though; or maybe Patchy dressed in a red and black Satan-suit, holding a pitchfork and saying, “Buy my pardons or things will get warmer for you, Ha-ha-ha,”– he already has the Mephilostopholean (sp?) beard. Such an ad would have the charm of lightheartedness, which is more attractive than vitriol.)
It’s a mistake to preach to the choir if the audience you want to influence is an “unchurched” majority that is unaware of the context and that will see your defense as an unprovoked attack.
Roger, nicely explained.
I had to defend because a family member who can appreciate, say a McIntyre demolition, and will consider collusion between interested parties as a possibility, and admit that a Pachauri is…well, you know – that family member who is not terribly interested in the whole debate, knew about the ad but not about Gleick’s forgery.
The ad tipped the scales heavily against Heartland and skeptics, and made the forgery an easy sell to the public.
It allowed the public to disbelieve Heartland on the forgery issue. Complete wipeout unless Gleick was carefully explained.
Roger Knights says:
““Perhaps a few people . . . ” Great. That’s outweighed 10,000 to 1 by the loss of Heartland’s victim card in the court of public opinion and in the MSM-mediated public conversation.”
Do you have any evidence to support 10,000 to 1 or is it really just perhaps 10,000 to 1? Look, the MSM already had plenty of ways to paint Heartland in a bad light from supporting big tobacco to funded by big oil. It doesn’t matter whether any of that is true or not, the MSM controls the headline message which is all most people notice. There was no way they were going to allow the Gleick incident to put Heartland in a favorable light in the headlines. No matter what is buried on the continued on page of an article the headline “Evil Conservative Think Tank Frustrates Angelic Scientist into Heroic Action for the Earth’s Future” tells most people all they think they need to know. The way we win over people is for people to look for information outside of the MSM. That is how most of us became skeptics. However is best to induce enough curiosity to go seek additional information is what I’m in favor of. Somehow I doubt it’s the same for everyone, some may respond to the high road approach, others may respond to the low road approach.
We at Heartland appreciate all the interest in this post, as well as the support we’ve received from Anthony and many commenters on this thread. That means more than most of you know. We also realize the obvious: There are differing opinions on the wisdom of running that billboard.
Heartland’s president, Joe Bast, speaks for himself with this post. He offers an example of the exhausting game of “whack-a-mole” that Heartland faces every day. We are grateful that so many help us publicly defend the truth and sound science on the environment.
Here I speak for myself:
I tend to agree with John West and others who make the general point that the MSM has never allowed the calm and realist side to have the “high ground” in the climate debate. That is by design. As noted by “thisisnotgoodtogo,” his/her family member had never heard about Gleick’s disgrace and crime against Heartland, but heard about the billboard. One should look at that fact in full.
The family member, who apparently relies on MSM and leftist bloggers, did not hear about a MAJOR STORY OF SIGNIFICANCE that embarrasses and discredits a prominent critic of Heartland. Not a word. But the family member somehow got wind of a minor kerfuffle — a “controversial” digital billboard that ran for one day — which was used as merely the most convenient club (of many) that the MSM and the left use to hammer Heartland, an organization that dares to question the catastrophic AGW hypothesis. I think a not-too-generous interpretation of this dynamic is that the billboard coverage gave thisisnotgoodtogo a window to bring up Gleick’s crimes to a family member who was ignorant of them.
Heartland’s billboard is now part of the debate, and there is a “for better” and a “for worse” aspect to that fact. But speaking from a perspective on the front lines of these debates, I have to say that the notion the skeptic side as a whole (let alone Heartland) is gravely harmed by the billboard is folly. Joe offered a seven-point rebuttal to one blogger — of which the billboard rebuttal was but one point. And that was hardly exhaustive of the lies Heartland (and many skeptics) have to rebut. It was merely the flavor of that day.
BOTTOM LINE: I don’t believe any other organization has done more than The Heartland Institute to collect and promote the data that must inform the public policy debate about what to do (if anything) about what is happening to the planet when it comes to warming and cooling. (See presentations of Heartland’s Eight International Conferences on Climate Change here: http://climateconferences.heartland.org/)
Continuing to let the unprincipled, unscientific opponents of an honest exploration of that data define the terms of the debate is to surrender. As Joe Bast pointed out in this thread, Heartland is not about to surrender — and, in fact, is stronger and more resolute than ever.
Again, all who work for and support Heartland are grateful for the encouragement (and criticism) we get from the folks we meet on these threads.
Jim Lakely
Director of Communications
The Heartland Institute
I completely support Heartland, including the Kazynski billboard. And I support Heartland with regular donations. I began contributing to Heartland after the Kazynski billboard was produced.
Most folks raise the billboard issue to deflect from Gleick’s shenanigans. But there is no comparison. Peter Gleick is a devious rat, while Heartland tells the truth: Kazynski was a typical enviro-loon — as are his apologists. War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Heartland is Bad, etc.
Thanks, D Böehm. Heartland is grateful of your support.
(SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT! If others are interested in following D Böehm’s lead, go here to pitch in with a secure online donation to The Heartland Institute: https://giving.heartland.org/donate)
– Jim Lakely