The Heartland Institute, famous for misinforming on the Health effects of cigarettes, and the bogus science of climate denial, is now pushing climate misinformation out to hundreds of thousands of public school teachers across the country.
Not a surprise to me, as, when I attended the Heartland “science” Conference in 2012, I sat thru a lecture where former astronaut “Jack” Schmitt expressed support for education bills passed in Tennessee and Louisiana, which essentially allow schools to teach creationist tracts as part of the science curriculum – see above.
Twenty-five thousand science teachers opened their mailboxes this month and found a package from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.
It contained the organization’s book “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,” as well as a DVD rejecting the human role in climate change and arguing instead that rising temperatures have been caused primarily by natural phenomena. The material will be sent to an additional 25,000 teachers every two weeks until every public-school science teacher in the nation has a copy, Heartland president and CEO Joseph Bast said in an interview last week. If so, the campaign would reach more than 200,000 K-12 science teachers.
Accompanying the materials is a cover letter from Lennie Jarratt, project manager of Heartland’s Center for Transforming Education. He asks teachers to “consider the possibility” that the science is not settled. “If that’s the case, then students would be better served by letting them know a vibrant debate is taking place among scientists,” he writes. The letter also points teachers to an online guide to using the DVD in their classrooms.
The Heartland initiative dismisses multiple studies showing scientists are in near unanimous agreement that humans are changing the climate. Even if human activity is contributing to climate change, the book argues, it “would probably not be harmful, because many areas of the world would benefit from or adjust to climate change.”
National Center for Science Education:
But science teachers generally don’t like to be taken for fools. Judging from the reactions we’ve seen, the most common response to the mailing is a visit to the recycling bin. (And the DVD? One ingenious teacher reports making “a table-top hovercraft” out of it!) A few teachers took advantage of the enclosed response card to take Heartland to task (with references to the “alternative facts” on offer not uncommon). And a few enterprising teachers have taken the opportunity for a teachable moment with their classes on the nature of propaganda, reveling in the jiu-jitsu irony of using the efforts of the enemies of science education against them.
Heartland is an equal opportunity whore, of course – in addition to shilling for oil companies and creationist wack jobs, Heartland CEO Joe Bast has famously, and for many years, touted the safety of tobacco smoking, as this 1998 op-ed shows – below.
Real science, courtesy of deniers. If you haven’t seen my summary of the ridiculous, moronic, and racist goings on at a typical Heartland conference, see here.
Sub.
Here we have multiple serial liars, who know they are multiple serial liars, lying for profit in order to corrupt the minds of children. The minds of these children are being deliberately corrupted in order to allow the fossil fuel companies who pay for all this lying, to murder many of those same children in the process of selling more fossil fuels.
Is that stark enough to get through to you all? This is not an educational issue or an issue about free speech. It is deliberate lying, deliberate propaganda, deliberate corruption of a national conversation with the murder of our children as the inescapable and therefore deliberate result.
These people belong in jail. They deserve to be drawn and quartered. They deserve to be ripped from their limousines, from their gated estates, and lynched. I’ll settle for them being prosecuted for Crimes against Humanity, but let’s be clear on just exactly and precisely heinous are the actions of these assholes.
In my opinion, they also qualify as serial killers.
They could save a lot of postage if they sent them directly for recycling.
Reblogged this on AGR Daily News Service.
Doublethink In History And Present Day Modern Society, 1984 Definition Of Double Think, Wanting To Be Normal And Fit In Is Part Of It; A Primer In The Art Of Nuclear Deception And Sleight Of Hand, By Paul Zimmerman
http://www.agreenroadjournal.com/2014/08/doublethink-in-history-and-present-day.html
Gee, I thought it was only the ‘Greenies’ and ‘Leftists’ who had an ‘agenda’.
Virtually every attribute they ascribe to those of us with an interest in the future of the planet come into perfect focus – however, usually only when the name-callers gaze into the mirror.
Good post. I recently was sent an email with a link to a report on their annual conference on climate change, held at the end of March. You can find lots of stuff online, but this is a pretty succinct summary.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/25/take-aways-from-the-washington-d-c-heartland-climate-change-conference/
“A
few enterprising teachers have taken the opportunity for a teachable moment with their classes on the nature of propaganda, reveling in the jiu-jitsu irony of using the efforts of the enemies of science education against them.” That is brilliant. I hope more use this invaluable resource, kindly provided free by the crazies, to educate their students about the “alternative facts” bubble.
When I was teaching “Understanding Science” as part of a bridging course at university, I often used WUWT posts in this manner and some of Peter’s videos as demonstrations on how to spot and take apart pseudoscience. It is a powerful way to teach critical thinking and I have been pleased to see on many posts in other places about this, teachers vowing to do exactly this with the Heartland garbage.
“… I hope more use this invaluable resource, kindly provided free by the crazies …”
I can see it now, a teacher waving the booklet around while tossing out utterly predictable talking points gleaned from Greenpeace, Desmog, etc about a 97% consensus, ice melting everywhere, Exxon funding Heartland, skeptics never publishing peer reviewed material and oh, looky here, one of the authors listed on the cover is the same guy who said smoking isn’t harmful …….. while never actually disputing anything in any detail within the booklet. Yep, that maneuver was brilliant, because not every Johnny or Jane is brain dead, and one or more of them will fish the booklet out of the trash or find the PDF file on the internet and perhaps arbitrarily flip to page 83 and see that the chart on grain production doesn’t seem implausible. And then see on the following pages no less than three pages of peer-reviewed papers backing up that whole “False Postulates” section. Then Johnny or Jane might start looking for exactly what evidence proves Heartland is paid to lie and specifically what false reports stemmed from which illicit payments, followed by an even more intensive search for the full context of when Fred Singer said there was nothing wrong with cigarettes. And if li’l Johnny or Jane dare to question the teacher on this or other skeptic material they find, they’ll find themselves ostracized.
Yep, that was indeed brilliant right there. You’ve just lost more li’l Johnnys and Janes the moment it dawns on them that their teacher has just committed political suicide, and they’ve just lost respect for not only their teacher, but also the mainstream media and enviro-activists, who in their eyes now have every appearance in the world of being the true propagandists in this issue.
The above rant from Heartland’s loyal, or paid, defender, who also wrote:
“Spin this any way you want, the Arctic ain’t melting on cue like you believe it is. “
here:
https://climatecrocks.com/2016/12/26/arctic-ice-crashing-in-mid-winter/#comment-88523
Talking point”
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea-ice-extent-area/grf/nsidc_global_area_byyear_b.png
Note, it’s global, not just arctic.
And you think your opinion on what affects credibility is… credible?
Man, all that black open water sure is sending North Pole ocean and air temps through the roof today. Downright sweltering.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/
A skeptic would ask how the temperatures reported by those buoys compare to the long term average. Of course, the wilfully ignorant Russell wouldn’t think to do that, or hopes no one else will.
Here, recent temperatures in context for the area north of 80N (that would be the area immediately around north pole, Russell):
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Let’s see, as I post this, that chart is updated to 19:00 UTC of day 95 of this year, and shows the average daily temperature for that day is about 5K greater than the long term average. Furthermore, not a single day since the start of this year has been colder than the long term average.
It seems that Russell thinks that if the arctic is warming, that it should be above freezing there right now. But the long term average for this date is around -25C. That chart shows that we don’t expect the average daily temperature around the north pole to rise above freezing until around day 154, or June 3. You think it might happen earlier than that this year, or later?
Russell, you’ve once again demonstrated your monumental ineptitude. Do you think no one in this crowd would dig a little deeper to understand your stupid retort? Your post is the sort of pathetic crap that your tribe flings about hoping it will stick to someone more ignorant than you. Wrong place, Russell.
Russell, you are slipping, no rant about the dreadful Ross Gelbspan.
Whatever, thanks to the efforts of yourself and fellow deliars and delayers at the Heartland Fatasialand Project this is where I children and grandchildren could be headed:
he Climate Could Hit a State Unseen in 50 Million Years
and there are already clear signs that multipliers are coming into the picture:
From Canada to Siberia, Permafrost Thaw Produces ‘Hell’s Mouth’ Craters, Sinking Lands, and 7,000 Methane Pockets Waiting to Blow
Arctic sea ice is currently at its lowest extent for this time of the year as the Indian hot season started two months earlier this year. Have you any idea what all this means. Get your head out of the sand and stop tring to fool yourself because you sure ain’t fooling us.
I could use an awful lot of Anglo-Saxon describing the actions of you and your ethically challenged tribe of short sighted goons.
What world do you live in, Mr. Cook?
I hope to be alive when the denier groups are tried for crimes against humanity, as they surely should be.
It’s completely unconscionable to deny what is basically an existential crisis.
Seconded and at you Russell Cook.
Why do Scientists disagree about Global Warming? Could it have something to do with the card inside the package offering a ‘Scientist Diploma’ from Trump University for the low, low price of $100? (act by Friday and a second Diploma, in ‘International Affairs’, could be on your way by Saturday)