In February, leaked internal budget (PDF) and fundraising (PDF) documents from the Chicago-based propaganda contractor The Heartland Institute exposed the group's plans to spend $100,000 to create a 20-unit national school science curriculum falsely teaching that there is a scientific controversy over climate change. At the time Heartland described the person doing this, David Wojick, as a climate science expert who works for the U.S. Department of Energy. I contacted DOE spokesperson Jen Stuntsman, who told me Wojick was actually a part-time computer database contractor who "has never advised or conducted research for the Department on climate change or any other scientific topic."
This week, Heartland went live with billboards in the Chicago area further promoting their view, but the billboards are not what a typical soccer mom would normally expect of an organization preparing a curriculum having to do with schoolchildren and science. Here's one of them, which appears along the inbound Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) in Maywood:
A news release from Heartland says "the billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010)."
Heartland Institute spokesman Jim Lakely said that the outfit chose to make the false association on the billboards "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 billboard campaign shows a shocking lack of judgment by an organization that has become so radicalized that it would publicly characterize the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. Defense Department, NASA, NOAA and other mainstream science organizations and federal agencies as "the radical fringe" for acknowledging what billions of data points all show: that human behavior is warming the planet, and seek to associate these organizations in public billboards on family-traveled highways with mass murderers and tyrants. This exposure of families and schoolchildren to the darker aspects of propaganda suggests the Heartland Institute's leadership has sunk to a juvenile bully's level of moral and ethical development.
The Heartland Institute gets much of its funding from mainstream American corporations and their associated foundations. One has to question these corporations' judgment in supporting an advocate who displays such a poor sense of public decorum. General Motors wondered just that, and the General Motors Foundation has now pulled their support from the Heartland Institute.
Here are some other leading U.S. corporations and foundations who support the Heartland Institute. Those who do business with them and find the Heartland Institute's tactics objectionable may wish to contact these companies and ask them if they feel this is in keeping with their codes of ethics and corporate responsibility.
The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the private petro-chemical giant
Altria Client Services Inc, parent company of Philip Morris and Ste. Michelle Wine
AT&T
Comcast Corporation
Credit Union National Association
CTIA - The Wireless Association
Eli Lilly & Company
GlaxoSmithKline
Golden Rule Insurance Company
John William Pope Foundation associated with Variety Wholesalers, Inc.
Kaiser Foundation
Microsoft Corporation
Pfizer
Reynolds American Inc., parent of RJ Reynolds
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company
Time Warner Cable
USAA
The United States was founded on the principles of science. Since the end of WWII, science is responsible for half of our economic growth. It provides immeasurable benefits and by expanding power and choice, it produces freedom. Denying the last 50 years of science, as the Heartland Institute propaganda seeks to do, is not going to take America where we need to go.
Get Shawn Lawrence Otto's new book: Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, "One of the most important books written in America in the last decade." Starred Kirkus Review; Starred Publishers Weekly review. Visit him at http://www.shawnotto.com. Like him on Facebook. Join ScienceDebate.org to get the presidential candidates to debate science.
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Carl Pope: Suppose You Could Actually See Climate Change?
It's sad that you know so little about the science, yet feel compelled to come here and make this completely false assertion as if you did.
The author of this article should be ashamed of himself for misleading his readers like this, but I supposed just like Mr. Geick he figures that in the war against climate change, the "ends justify the means". Oh, and you certainly don't have to take my word for any of this; five minutes of Internet research will reveal the theft of the documents and the faked document, with explanations of how it has been proven to be false.
What is "it?"
Do you mean climate change? Because no such thing has been "proven to be false."
In my mind the problem is not the propaganda, but the willingness of others to seek out confirmation for their feelings rather than information for their minds.
Perhaps the world will at some point stabilize as nations develop.Just one piece of the puzzle....
-- Anders Breivik
Look think about it. What is the purpose of the billboards? Who is the target audience?
The first part is to create doubt about scientific findings. The second is persons who have no opinion or lean towards them.
This add however is so over the top is so disconnected from an actual message that it shows desperation. Besides if you live on earth you KNOW the climate is changing. Here in Mi. spring and fall are starting to disappear. The past few years we have gone from freezing temps to 80s and 90s or vice versa. I remember snow or freezing temps on Halloween. Lately its been 50s and 60s. I remember snow on the ground until April. Now the tulips come up in February.
I know this is all anecdotal and not "scientific" in any way. But most people live by anecdotal not scientific findings. Yes the deniers are trying to use the same tactics tobacco used to confuse the issue. The difference here is that the average person KNOWS something is changing. So for the deniers this is a zero sum game. The more desperate they get the more over the top they will be the less believable they become.
Interestingly, the HI also does not "believe" second hand indoor tobacco pollution is harmful to human health. That is an official policy statement. But one can see their illogic here: if first hand tobacco smoke is toxic, and they say nothing about that, then the next big lie will be, "Well if second hand tobacco smoke is OK, and we, the Heartland Institute believes that to be true, why should the law discriminate against the smoker and the tobacco smoke at all? Then, it becomes a matter of "fairness" to the tobacco addict and the toxic smoke. Real freedom is the 'right' to smoke tobacco indoors, regardless of the measurable damage to other's health.
This works on a psychological level, on under educated and fearful people, to always keep the core of the big lies alive, to grow wherever possible, and become an alternate and disastrous reality for the misinformed. And so with fossil fuel combustion, CO2 and toxic products of every type
So their entire existence is not about their ideology,its about money,and creating cushy jobs for themselves.If a liberal cause offered them a higher pay day,they would probably switch "ideologies" real quick.
Conclusion? There is very little honesty and conviction among the right,and the various efforts of theirs.
Heartland Instutute is nothing but a collection of self appointed experts on Red State, big business policies to take the US down to a feudal system of governance. It is a horrible example of Big Business Propanganda, prettied up by people who pretentiously call it a Think tank.
They do not provide people with cheap gasoline. This is another good reason to get rid of subsidies for oil companies. Incidentally, Abu Dhabi, an oil shiekdom, is investing heavily in solar energy. What does that decision tell us about the future of oil?