When they lie right on the cover, it speaks volumes about the content of the film.
What’s the lie in the cover you ask? I contacted the West Coast press agent to confirm my suspicion.
At first glance, I said to myself “they really wouldn’t be that stupid to make an oil slick for a photo op, would they“? After all, as any boater knows, the US Coast Guard has severe penalties for getting any oil on the water, be it intentionally or accidentally:
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act prohibits the discharge of oil or oily waste into or upon the navigable waters of the United States or the waters of the contiguous zone if such discharge causes a film or sheen upon, or discoloration of, the surface of the water, or causes a sludge or emulsion beneath the surface of the water. Violators are subject to a penalty of $5,000.
I asked the West coast press agent, and got this reply:
I spoke with Craig and This picture was created digitally http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/greedy-lying-bastards-review.jpg
Thanks and please let me know if you have any other questions
Alexandra Drapac
MPRM Communications
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Los Angeles, CA 90036
Tel: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Fax: xxxxxxxxxxxx
I replied:
OK so that picture is fake, which speaks volumes about the content I suppose.
And got this reply in return:
Yes definitely fake-
Thanks!
Alex
Well and good to know. It reminds me of the famous Ursus Bogus scandal with Science, where fake digital photography was also used to make a point.
To illustrate its item about scientific facts, Science chose this image of a doomed poley bear:

One small problem.
As James Delingpole reveals, that poley bear image is fake. It’s been photoshopped. Science subsequently admitted:
The image associated with this article was selected by the editors. We did not realize that it was not an original photograph but a collage, and it was a mistake to have used it.
As Science says: “There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions.”
So just like that episode, Greedy Lying Bastards lies to the viewer right on the cover of the DVD. What a great start. It gets even more interesting, so lazy are the producers and contributors, they use erratum recycled language from 2005:
WUWT reader Russell Cook writes in an email:
=============================================================
Our AGW friends are so lazy as to drop in material from 2005.
From this other page, notice how just a couple of words of substitution turns this farce into a spectacular example of sheer projection: http://www.exposethebastards.com/jim_hoggan_clearing_the_pr_pollution_that_clouds_climate_science
Few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as this attack on the science of climate change. It has been a triumph of disinformation – one of the boldest and most extensive PR campaigns in history, primarily financed by the ̶e̶n̶e̶r̶g̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶u̶s̶t̶r̶y̶ enviro-activists’ benefactors and executed by some of the best PR talent in the world.
And right after that, Hoggan says…
…. Ross Gelbspan, in his books, The Heat is On and Boiling Point sets out the whole case, pointing fingers and naming names. PR Watch founder John Stauber has done similarly exemplary work, tracking the bogus campaigns and linking various pseudo scientists to their energy industry funders. ….
That is lifted verbatim from Hoggan’s 2005 WordPress blog, pre-Desmogblog. As I’ve said so many times, all paths in the smear of skeptics lead to Gelbspan.
==============================================================
Heh. Recycled propaganda.
Apparently I don’t rate as a ‘bastard’. Color me disappointed. The list of heroes is equally funny. On the plus side, at least they weren’t stupid enough to put Peter Gleick on the list. They did however, interview Dr. Pieter Tans.
Pieter Tans, keeper of the CO2 records for Mauna Loa, is a self-declared 911 Truther. Here’s a letter to the editor he co-signed in 2006:
World has lost a true, humble friend
The world has lost a true friend in Gilbert White, winner of the 2000 National Medal of Science, natural resource adviser to FDR, ecologist before the word existed, president of Haverford College, social scientist and much else he was too humble to mention.
Gil was a fearless thinker who supported ideas that were before their time, such as the project at Vote.org and ideas that many ridicule or fear, such as evidence that a few people in our government allowed or caused the 9/11 attacks. He’s the eldest in the Oct. 21, 2004, Boulder Weekly photo with us, attending a 9/11 Truth event, although we weren’t identified — see Boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html. At lunch afterward, he expressed surprise and frustration that the media simply refused to make this an issue in the coming presidential election.
Gil was pretty sure that 9/11 was treason partly because, when he was working in the FDR White House, he witnessed the congratulatory atmosphere there the day of Pearl Harbor. He believed the government had invited the attack to get people’s support to enter World War II, and that something similar happened to get Congress’ (not the people’s) support for the Bush wars.
Gilbert could have been a member of almost any elite, but he preferred non-elitists. He believed in giving power to the people rather than keeping it in the hands of any elite. He hoped that when people learned that the government was complicit in 9/11 that they’d demand the kind of participatory government you can help realize at Vote.org. That’s why we risk accusations of sullying the dead by writing this.
Steven Jones, BYU Physics professor suspended for his work with Physics911.net, and Kevin Ryan, fired from Underwriters Laboratories for speaking out, will speak Oct. 29 from 2 to 6 p.m. in CU’s Math 100, along with the founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, Kevin Barrett, Ph.D.
EVAN RAVITZ, ROBERT McFARLAND,
PIETER TANS and MARTIN WALTER
Boulder
And here he is in a photo, he appears to be the one in the middle holding the banner:
Source of the photo: http://archive.boulderweekly.com/102104/coverstory.html
Here’s Tan’s NOAA page: http://cires.colorado.edu/people/tans/
I wonder if Dr. Tans has ever heard of the Hatch act?
Watching the trailer and reading the synopsis, it seems to be the same old stuff, skeptics are (take your pick):
In the employ of big oil, recycled tobacco lobbyists, not scientists, ruthlessly greedy industrialists, don’t care about your children or your grandchildren, only out for profit, blah blah, blah.
We’ve heard it all before.
[ UPDATE:
I get this via one of my sources, Paul Dreissen, via email:
In case you don’t recall the name, GLB director Craig Rosebraugh used to be the mouthpiece for Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front anarchists and terrorists, who liked to brag about their firebombing of homes, cars and research labs. Nick Nichols and I discussed him and his exploits in some depth in Nick’s Rules for Corporate Warriors, pages 46, 47, 50, 217 and 306. He was investigated, and his computer hard drive was searched, but I don’t think the authorities were ever able to link him directly to the terrorists he assisted, and don’t believe he was ever successfully prosecuted.
When called to testify before a congressional committee that was investigating eco-terrorism, he took the Fifth on every question he was asked.
I confirmed this via Wikipedia and the citations here
From 1997 to 2001, Rosebraugh served as a spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front receiving anonymous communiques from the ELF and forwarding them on to news media internationally. In 1999, Rosebraugh co-formed the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO) with Leslie James Pickering, where he continued to forward communiques, conduct international press interviews, and nationwide informational lectures on the ideology of the ELF movement.[10] Between 1997 and 2006, Rosebraugh received eight subpoenas to appear before federal grand juries to discuss his sources, but he has said he has no knowledge of them and refused to cooperate with the proceedings.
end update]
Only the weak minded will pay much attention to this movie, but then again, isn’t that the purpose of propaganda? Here is the movie trailer and the producer’s synopisis from the press kit:
“GREEDY LYING BASTARDS” SYNOPSIS
Hurricane Sandy. Wildfires in the West. “Brown-Outs” in the East. Farmers losing crops to the worst drought since the Dust Bowl. Climate change is no longer a prediction for the future, but a startling reality of today. The U.S. Pentagon believes it to be a matter of national and international security. Yet, as the evidence of our changing climate mounts and the scientific consensus proves a human causation, there continues to be no political action to thwart the warming of our planet.
“Greedy Lying Bastards” investigates the reason behind stalled efforts to tackle climate change despite consensus in the scientific community that it is not only a reality but also a growing problem that is placing us on the brink of disaster. The film details the people and organizations casting doubt on climate science and claims that greenhouse gases are not affected by human behavior. Filmmaker and political activist Craig Rosebraugh, in association with Executive Producer Daryl Hannah, documents the impact of an industry that has continually put profits before people, waged a campaign of lies designed to thwart measures to combat climate change, used its clout to minimize infringing regulations and undermined the political process in the U.S. and abroad.
Millions are spent each year by oil and related interests to fund the think tanks, groups, scientists and politicians waging what the film deems a campaign of deceit regarding the science of climate change and its dire impact on the planet. Between 1998 and 2012, “Greedy Lying Bastards” reports ExxonMobil spent over $27 million to dispel claims of global warming. The Koch brothers, who run the conglomerate Koch Industries, also provide significant funding. From 1997 through 2012, they spent over $67 million.
A far different story about climate change is told by the residents of Kivalina, a small Alaskan island above the Arctic Circle. Over the last fifty years, winter temperatures have risen nearly seven degrees and the ice that once protected the land is not forming properly leading to increasing erosion. As one tribal administrator notes: “The debate is over, we are dealing with the realities of climate change.”
“Greedy Lying Bastards” also presents a shocking analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Citizens United. According to the film, not only did this 2010 ruling pave the way for unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns, but additionally it highlighted the blatant corruption of the country’s highest Court and its cozy relationship with top corporate interests.
Filmed in the US, Tuvalu, Peru, England, Uganda, Kenya, Belgium, Denmark and Germany, “Greedy Lying Bastards” includes interviews with scientists, industry experts, international political delegates, and people impacted by the changing climate as well as deniers. Among them: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon; Rep. Henry Waxman (CA); former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman; top U.S. climate scientists Dr. Pieter Tans (NOAA), Dr. Mark Serreze (NOAA), Dr. Kevin Trenberth (NCAR), former President of Copenhagen Climate Summit
COP15 Connie Hedegaard, UN Environmental Program Executive Director Achim Steiner, leading climate science skeptics Myron Ebell, Christopher Monckton, and Jay Lehr, and victims of the 2012 wildfires and drought in the U.S.
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” Ferdinand Engelbeen says: March 8, 2013 at 12:52 am
Come on boys (and girls), in defence of Pieter Tans, there is not the slightest connection between what he believes about the 9/11 attack and his work as scientist. As good as there is no connection between what Dr. Spencer believes about Intelligent Design and his work on satellite data.
Pieter Tans is a (moderate) warmist, but his work on the quality of the CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa and other “baseline” stations is impeccable. If there are troubles with the measurements, he is the first to admit that and to discuss the problems, even here on WUWT. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/04/one-day-later-mauna-loa-co2-graph-changes-data-doesnt/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/06/post-mortem-on-the-mauna-loa-co2-data-eruption/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/07/mauna-loa-to-improve-the-co2-data/
I don’t know what he is going to tell in this film, but I suppose that he simply will show the Mauna Loa data…
————————————————————
^ +1
Agreed. It weakens the arguement against the film to bring in unrelated subjects. Regardless of your / my feelings and thoughts on other subjects the film itself can not stand up to scrutiny so focus on its shortcomings of which there will be plenty.
Anthony Watts wrote in part:
“I wonder if Dr. Tans has ever heard of the Hatch act?”
I was once a Federal employee and I don’t remember the Hatch Act being
so restrictive as to prohibit the activities that were mentioned. So, I checked
the Wikipedia article on the Hatch Act. Most Federal employees are permitted
to participate in political rallies, even ones favoring or opposing a specific
candidate or party.
[snip. D-word infraction. — mod.]
I’ll bet that it’s a special kind of erosion on Kivalina that is caused by the special “not forming properly” ice.
And that the special kind of erosion can only be reversed by a special kind of linen paper, with Presidents’ heads printed on them, and stacked in piles.
I guess it says something about the scholarly depth of this blog when it has be pointed out by the author and parroted by the minions that a graphic of an armchair floating above the water is fake. Good job boys!
Anthony,
I have to agree with Kevin totally.
This is kind of a silly point you were trying to make. Unlike polar bears being stranded forlornly on patches of ice, oil slicks are real and relatively common — we’ve all seen them.
So the documentary may be awful, but your point about the cover photo missed the mark.
Well that and why would one want to turn their back on complete strangers — strangers acting oddly, no less?
The old guard must be incredibly frustrated at this point. 40 or so years of efforts and we still aren’t dehumanized enough to get rid of us yet.
Oh, well, they’ll keep trying.
Greenie Lying Bastards?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
March 8, 2013 at 12:52 am
“Come on boys (and girls), in defence of Pieter Tans, there is not the slightest connection between what he believes about the 9/11 attack and his work as scientist.”
Cute comment,
Maybe his work as a scientist is OK, but when someone signs on to a crazy theory re real world events, any reasonable person would question his judgment on other real world issues. I would certainly question his sanity and motives before believing anythink he says or does.
Christoph Dollis..only an idiotwould enter a lift undersuch circumstances.
What you really want to refer to is the Asch line length perception experiment.
The critical thingabout 9/11 troofer views is WHOEVER did the one attack,it doesnt change a damn thing: there have been over 20,000 jihad attacks since then and there were a thousand years of them before then.
[snip – sorry not going there -mod]
[snip – sorry not going there -mod]
Well at least you got the message. And it is much better sourced than most of the stuff that passes for 911 truth. For instance Mohammed Atta was involved in the Drug Trade – you can look it up. And Ruddi Dekkers was jailed for drug smuggling – you can look it up.
To save you further trouble that is last I’m going to say about it here.