Reaping What We Sow: The Implosion of the Heartland Institute
According to Forecast The Facts, The Heartland Institute’s billboard advertising campaign to discredit the theory of global climate change is meeting with the defection of support at a rate at least as radical as the campaign itself.
On May 4, Heartland launched a billboard comparing people who believe in global warming to Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber. Similar billboards featuring Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden were planned. Heartland explained the billboards as follows: “The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.”
When Eli Lilly recently joined the large and growing list of sponsors who jumped ship and cancelled their sponsorship, their Communications Director for Corporate Responsibility wrote: “That type of ad is not consistent with how Lilly engages in public debate.”
I would hope not.
Yet apparently, there are a few hanging on, which is surreal. Equating the thinking of 97% of the scientific community with that of terrorists and mass murderers doesn’t sound like good business to me. But hey – what do I know?
There is a name for that kind of propaganda; it is called “name calling.”
When I was in high school in Manitowoc, WI, we studied propaganda. That made it easier for us to recognize propaganda when we saw it. I wonder if any schools still make students aware of propaganda techniques.
Frank, schools today don’t have to teach students propaganda…what they teach IS propaganda.
Their kind of advertising would not get past the advertising standards authority in the UK as it is grossly offensive.
Gary, I’m so glad we have this thing called the First Amendment in the U.S. It’s there to protect unpopular speech, not popular or “politically correct” speech.
The U.K. is an absolutely GLORIOUS place to visit, but…
Sadly propaganda works all too well in this country.
Which does not reflect very well on the people of his country.
Heartland need not worry about their advertising campaign…the facts surrounding AGW will become apparent enough on their own.
Not necessarily.
When warming does become inescapably obvious, the Heartland Institute could deny that our actions had anything to do with it and that it was totally beyond our control.
Global Warming is obvious now. The shrinking glaciers all over the world are the proof of ‘average’ temperature increases. Global climate change is even more obvious. Tornadoes and hurricanes are blasting across America more now than anytime in the last 500 years. Atmospheric temperature increases cause both. Fossil fuels have caused an increase over the last 250 years.
In the north east we had horrific winter storms for 2 years in a row. Then last winter almost no snow across America. North Dakota and Minnesota had a ‘brown Christmas’. Coal and petroleum are bad for all of us. We must switch to different sources of energy asap.
So, let us collect all the Climate Change denials and wait till they say, OK it’s changing, but Man had nothing to do with it…. Then whip out the earlier comments and ask what has changed? You know the coldest day in history when Gore spoke……