Murderers, Tyrants, Global Warming and the Heartland Institute
The image to the left is not a joke. It’s instead part of a just-cancelled Heartland Institute campaign — cancelled after howls of protests, including from a climate skeptic who refused to participate in a Heartland event if it went forward. The Unabomber billboard showed up on the Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago (home of the Institute) this week. Other billboards were to appear around the city with photos of notorious figures like Charles Manson, Osama bin Laden and Fidel Castro professing their belief in climate change. The Heartland Institute’s own press release explained the basis for the campaign:
Because what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the “mainstream” media, and liberal politicians say about global warming. The point is that believing in global warming is not “mainstream,” smart, or sophisticated. In fact, it is just the opposite of those things. Still believing in man-made global warming – after all the scientific discoveries and revelations that point against this theory – is more than a little nutty. In fact, some really crazy people use it to justify immoral and frightening behavior.
Really, I’m close to speechless. Peter Gleick engaged in really stupid behavior in deceiving the Heartland Institute into parting with internal documents about their climate denialism. But if anyone had any doubts about the intensity of Heartland’s denialism or about its motives, this campaign ought to put those doubts to rest.
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About Ann
Ann Carlson is currently on leave from UCLA School of Law. She is the Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law and was the founding Faculty Director of the Emmett I…
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See PDF attached to Fake science, fakexperts, funny finances, free of tax. Take a quick look at the first 5 pages to see what else you might want to read.
This mentions many thinktanks, but is mostly about Heartland, with some on SEPP (Fred
Singer) and CSCDGC (Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change).
Note: I alleged that Heartland, SEPP and CSCDGC violated tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status in various ways. Common Cause did the same with ALEC recently.
Lawyers may want to opine,
See also Fakeducation For Years From Heartland
on their repeated efforts to inject their views into K-12.
For those of us who have studied Heartland, this Billboardgate is just a consistent, if extreme action on their part. As noted here Bast was comparing the Unabomber and Al Gore in 2006, so one might guess where the billboard came from.
They might have done better to stick with the proposed “Roosters of the Apocalypse” effort that didn’t quite make the 2012 budget cut.
See PDF attached to Fake science, fakexperts, funny finances, free of tax. Take a quick look at the first 5 pages to see what else you might want to read.
This mentions many thinktanks, but is mostly about Heartland, with some on SEPP (Fred
Singer) and CSCDGC (Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change).
Note: I alleged that Heartland, SEPP and CSCDGC violated tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status in various ways. Common Cause did the same with ALEC recently.
Lawyers may want to opine,
See also Fakeducation For Years From Heartland
on their repeated efforts to inject their views into K-12.
For those of us who have studied Heartland, this Billboardgate is just a consistent, if extreme action on their part. As noted here Bast was comparing the Unabomber and Al Gore in 2006, so one might guess where the billboard came from.
They might have done better to stick with the proposed “Roosters of the Apocalypse” effort that didn’t quite make the 2012 budget cut.