On Thursday, the Heartland Institute placed a playful digital billboard to the suburbs of Chicago.
They also wrote down an explanation. People such as Ross McKitrick protested and the billboard was removed within 24 hours.
Was the billboard right when it comes to the truth of the content? The ability to promote the think tank? And the ability to shift the society’s discourse and intellectual atmosphere in a desirable direction? I think that the answer to all these questions are closer to Yes than No.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
Another view
It just removes some of your right to be outraged at being called deniers and flat earthers if you prove your no better. This is an own-goal by heartland that does the honest skeptics no helpful good. I would much rather talk about altered data than have to discuss these stupid billboards. How is this helping?
You ever heard of Grist? Here’s an article titled; Election 2010: The Senate gets lots of new climate deniers.
How about Think Progress? Here’s one of their articles The fight with Flat Earthers
You think the AGW lobby will leave off with the name calling any time soon?
So of course your good idea is we should hamstring Heartland and other of our allies.
I can’t spare Heartland. When the going gets tough they get up on the hind legs and fight.
I like Phelim McAleer. I like that he has Al Gore doing the two step, running from honest questions. I like that he shows out the gaggle of Bill McKibbon clones that pass for journalists but are really enviro activists disguised as reporters.
But the position that they are “Not Evil. Just Wrong.” can’t subscribe to that.
It’s just not true.
Brandon,
Heartland has been called Flat Earthers, Tobacco Lobbyists, Bribed and Corrupt, Nazis, Murderers, and Ecocidists (you know it’s bad when they make up new words to describe your actions).
As a comparison, while distasteful, this billboard was uncontestably true.
I agree that it was in poor taste, However, it is far from leveling the playing field.
You’ve got a point Brandon. Hate and ridicule and censorship are their tactics, let’s not go there. Our tactics are truth and facts, that’s all we need.
Lubos, you are correct. The innocents who have never been ruled by Communists don’t get it, and there are a lot of useful idiots running interference for them. Take “Joanna” who claims to be “in advertising” and is blowing smoke on lots of threads.
Playing nice with radicals is a losing strategy.
Alinskyites are imposing their rules on the game:
Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
Alinskyites fear being caricatured and ridiculed, because they know it works:
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
Any apocalyptic vision, with a prospect of an individual being able to avert catastrophe, will appeal to the deranged. But the vast majority who believe in CAGW are normal people, who accept that when everyone says the experts know what they are talking about, they follow. When those who disagree with the consensus equate them with mass killers, then they will think that the intolerance shown by the climate bullies at “Skeptical Science”, “Open Mind” and Desmogblog is justified.
A very difficult call to make fairly.
I posted my opinion on Climate Etc and on Clmate Audit.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/05/04/week-in-review-5412/#comment-197901
http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/04/mckitrick-letter-to-heartland/
It was deleted from Clmate Audit. I repeat the message:
In scolding Heartland for its billboards, we might keep in mind that we are all constructed very much alike: With great ability to see the flaws in others better than the flaws in ourselves.
The five senses are directed outward on all of us.
Compassion is never overused.
I was myself angry at others for many years before I finally realized that I needed to inventory myself more, and inventory others less.
I.e., I agree Heartland showed poor judgement. Who hasn’t done that? They seek the same goal as the rest of us – restoration of scientific integrity. Patience and tolerance of others – warmists and skeptics – may be the most beneficial strategy for everyone!
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com/
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-55
Unbelievable:
This is a case of fighting fire with fire. It is a reaction that is justified by the abuse Heartland has suffered for years.
The vast majority of people that believe in CAGW are sheeple that are being lead to the slaughter and they need to be shocked into seeing reality.
Sometimes polite and politically correct do not work if the opponents go OTT with every statement.
A like reply is justified.
NO PRESSURE!
Death Train Hansen!
We live in a real world, not a Utopian world where we all hold hands and sing Kumbya
REPOSTED:
Personally, I think many realists were a bit dismayed because they wanted Heartland to stay a pristine think tank. Above such as Soros – Suzuki type funded think tanks.
Does the Warmist – CAGW side have a platform to get their panties in a bunch? NOT to my thinking. Clean up your own house before you attempt to clean mine. Heartland play’d YOUR game using the truth against you.
Did the experiment work?
Well, it certainly got me to read TK’s Manifesto and compare it to what what has been said by such as Mr Gore and many other CAGW’ers etc.
Should they have consulted supporters?
Probably, as some do not want their names – works associated with such acts.
I agree.
The “Genie is out of the bottle” – shattering the 66.7 year barrier to information on Earth’s heat source – the Sun !
[“Neutron repulsion,” The Apeiron J. 19 123-150 (April 2012)]
http://tinyurl.com/7t5ojrn
The current demise of society and loss of confidence in scientists and politicians is the direct result of their fear-based decisions following the vaporivation of Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/05/04/week-in-review-5412/#comment-197877
The rest of this sad saga of misinformation is documented here:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-55
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://www.omatumr.com
The alarmists dont resort to name calling because it is the prefered method. They do it because they are desperate and trying to divert attention away from their suspect data and lack of solid proof. We have very solid issues with their data and should be hammering away at that instead of devolving into a name calling fight. Their name calling makes them look desperate…..so what does it do if we stoop to the same level? Nobody denies that they have been acting like idiots, but that will never make our side sinking to their level look one bit better than their name calling. If you can’t help falling into name calling, then your only hurting your cause. You all seem to have no trouble recognizing that fact when they alarmists do it, so why do you think it changes when you do it? Stick to the facts and show your standing on solid ground instead of showing you can sling mud just like the alarmists.