Smooth character, smooth reasoning.
Climate Denier, Tobacco tool, and President of the Heartland Institute, Joe Bast, wrote a daffily miffed, sniffy letter of complaint to the Washington Post, about perceived bias in a recent Post article.
The article also misrepresented our work. The Heartland Institute is not “skeptical of climate change science.” We are one of its leading supporters, having hosted seven international conferences (with an eighth one taking place in Munich this week) and published a comprehensive survey of the scientific literature in two volumes, with a third volume on its way. We spend more supporting climate science than all but a handful of public policy think tanks.
Finally, The Post reported that we ran a billboard “comparing those who believe in global warming to domestic terrorist Theodore J. Kaczynski.” Also untrue. The billboard simply reported the fact that the infamous Unabomber still believes in man-made global warming, despite the mounting scientific case against it, and asked viewers if they do, too.
I just can’t add anything to that. Kurt Vonnegut comes to mind.
Good to see Heartland spending more time defending themselves. How do you like the feeling to be on the receiving end Joe?
An op-ed with more words between “We spend more SUPPORTING climate science than all but a handful of public policy think tanks.” and “The billboard simply reported the fact that the infamous Unabomber still believes in man-made global warming, despite the mounting scientific case against it, and asked viewers if they do, too.” might have been less obviously comical.
Hillary Clinton did say that there was a ‘Bast Right Wing Conspiracy’ as I recall.
Joe Bast. Joe Bastardi. Coincidence? Or just two lovely pees in a pot?
Joe Bast will never be happy. I feel sorry for him.
Has anyone ever seen Joe Bast and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the same room together? Just sayin’
Joe Bast creeps me out more than Kaczynski does.
Hey Guy,
Re: “Joe Bast creeps me out more than Kaczynski does.”
LOL! I’ve read excerpts of Kaczynski’s treatise on modernity and aspects of it are far more rational than Bast ever is.
This is not in any way to exonerate Kacynski’s crazy bombing campaign which was truly mad and truly evil.
I got a similar sensation reading portions of Anders Breivik’s treatise. Highly intelligent, completely evil in effect, but remarkably enough offering lucid insights into the nature of the human condition from time to time.
…and so it goes.
Buried in all the self-contradictions from Mr. Bast is the fallacy that one either “believes” in science or one “doesn’t believe” in science.
One “believes” in ghosts or in a religion or in a cause – but science is what it is, and one either accepts what science tells us about the world we all live in, or you don’t accept it. If you don’t accept climate science, then you should also reject ALL OTHER SCIENCE – *if* you are being intellectually honest. (That is unless you have a plausible scientifically verifiable alternate model that includes all the data.)
Because all science goes through the same basic process, and all science is interdependent – fields as diverse as astrophysics and geology and chemistry all contribute critical pieces of the overall understanding of our climate.
Similarly, if one rejects evolution, then you better not take any medicine and reject DNA theory, and reject our understanding of cancer or breeding dogs – because without evolution, virtually (literally?) everything in biology would collapse; and lots of other fields, as well. Farmers know that evolution is correct, because they make hybrids, and we now have super-weeds that are already immune to Roundup, etc.