Hansen in NYTimes: I’m not Sayin’ “I Told you So”, but…

NYTimes:

GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food priceswould rise to unprecedented levels.

If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground.

The global warming signal is now louder than the noise of random weather, as I predicted would happen by now in the journal Science in 1981. Extremely hot summers have increased noticeably. We can say with high confidence that the recent heat waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in Europe in 2003, which killed tens of thousands, were not natural events — they were caused by human-induced climate change.

How accurate was Dr. Hansen’s 1981 paper compared to observations since then?  Skeptical Science took a look.

Continue reading “Hansen in NYTimes: I’m not Sayin’ “I Told you So”, but…”

Another Donor Drops Heartland

Forecast the Facts:

San Francisco, CA – Forecast the Facts, an organization dedicated to ensuring that Americans are accurately informed about climate change, applauds the United Services Automobile Association’s (USAA) decision to immediately pull its support for the Heartland Institute. “Since the U.S. military has recognized climate change as a key national security threat, it’s fitting that USAA has pulled their support for an organization that uses Osama bin Laden as the poster child for belief in global warming,” said Forecast the Facts Campaign Manager Brad Johnson.

USAA is the Fortune-500 financial services company that serves 8.8 million U.S. military members and their families.

Forecast the Facts will now shift its campaign to the remaining corporations still funding Heartland, including Microsoft, Pfizer, and Comcast.

A USAA spokesperson announced their decision on Facebook, saying, “In light of recent personnel departures at Heartland, we decided to end our support for the organization.”

The staff of Heartland’s financial and insurance program left the organization after Heartland launched a billboard that compared people who believe in global warming to Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber. Similar billboards featuring Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden were planned, but Heartland suspended the ad campaign after widespread condemnation, including from its supporters.

USAA joins several other insurance companies that have already pulled their funding, including State Farm Insurance, Renaissance Re, the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, XL Group, and Allied World Assurance.

UPDATE: per LATimes:

Two speakers have withdrawn from the conference. Donna Laframboise, who recently authored a book critiquing the work of the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change, withdrew from that conference. On her blog, nofrakkingconsensus.org, she said her reputation had been “harmed,” adding, “Suddenly, we were all publicly linked to an organization that thinks it’s OK to equate people concerned about climate change with psychopaths.”

Lakeland confirms that economist Ross McKitrick has now also withdrawn. In a letter sent to Heartland on Friday, he said, “You cannot simultaneously say that you want to promote a debate while equating the other side to terrorists and mass murderers.”

 …on Friday, Microsoft distanced itself from Heartland with a statement on its blog that read, in part, “the Heartland Institute’s position on climate change is diametrically opposed to Microsoft’s position. And we completely disagree with the group’s inflammatory and distasteful advertising campaign.”Asked if Heartland were damaged by the billboard, Lakely replied, “A lot of people seem to think so. As Joe Bast said in our statement, the billboard was intended to be provocative, and we expected the left to raise a stink about it. We were surprised that our friends and supporters were so put off by the billboard, and that’s why it was removed, out of respect for their opinions.”

Brilliant Ads Tweak “Solar is for Hippies” Meme

FastCompany/Co.EXIST

SunRun is a solar company with an interesting model: Instead of just selling you solar panels, they pay to put them on your house, and then you pay them for the energy those panels provide. In other words, for no upfront costs you can start having access to a source of clean energy. What you may not know is that in many places, solar is now the cheapest form of power you can buy, and that list is growing rapidly. To ram this point home, SunRun has just created a brilliant advertising campaign that makes it clear that solar power is a smart financial decision, and not one just for silly hippies.

All the ads in the new campaign (created by the San Francisco agency Heat) feature a voiceover exclaiming how good for the environment solar power is, only to be corrected by the new SunRun customers: It’s about the cash. The one above features your typical urban hipster “pickling guy.” Despite wanting some “soy flax seeds,” he doesn’t care that solar is good for the environment, he just wants cheap solar. And this nice couple in the video below really doesn’t care about dolphin babies as much as they care about money.

Continue reading “Brilliant Ads Tweak “Solar is for Hippies” Meme”

It’s Clean, Cheap, and Creates Jobs. And That is Exactly Why WindBaggers Hate it.

Last July I wrote in a post –

I can’t prove that the anti-science “Windbagger” movement is part of the larger right wing astro-turf campaign organized by fossil fuel and Koch-funded interests -yet – but their tactics certainly are reminiscent of what we’ve been seeing elsewhere.

The Guardian: 

A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama’s energy agenda.
A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.
Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using “subversion” to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.
The strategy proposal was prepared by a fellow of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) – although the thinktank has formally disavowed the project.
The proposal was discussed at a meeting of self-styled ‘wind warriors’ from across the country in Washington DC last February.
“These documents show for the first time that local Nimby anti-wind groups are co-ordinating and working with national fossil-fuel funded advocacy groups to wreck the wind industry,” said Gabe Elsner, a co-director of the Checks and Balances, the accountability group which unearthed the proposal and other documents.
Among its main recommendations, the proposal calls for a national PR campaign aimed at causing “subversion in message of industry so that it effectively because so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it.”
It suggests setting up “dummy businesses” to buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a “counter-intelligence branch” to track the wind energy industry. It also calls for spending $750,000 to create an organisation with paid staff and tax-exempt status dedicated to building public opposition to state and federal government policies encouraging the wind energy industry.
The involvement of far-right wing extremist groups explains how supporters of wind energy, a large majority – have come under increasing attack with verbal abuse and even threats.

Some local wind-energy supporters say the more they speak out, the more verbal abuse and threats they receive, despite evidence of widespread backing for turbines in Ontario.

Ripley-area farmer and wind energy supporter Jutta Splettstoesser noted an Ipsos Reid poll conducted last July that surveyed 1,361 adults across Ontario and indicated 89% of those surveyed support wind energy in their region of the province.

“We know there is a silent majority out there that supports wind and this just proves it,” she said during a recent meeting at her family farm near Ripley.

But wind-power supporters say rhetoric from opponents is becoming more strident and personal.

Just as far right wing groups have opposed all positive social change during the last century, including child labor laws, women’s rights, and racial equality, we can expect that as renewable energy makes further inroads into the system, the right wind hate-machine will continue to crank up.

Desmogblog has more, and a link to the memo here.

Call the Wah-mbulance. Increasingly Radioactive Heartland Says Critics Unfair.

Martin Luther King was right. The Universe bends toward justice.

And then, sometimes, it just breaks open like a big piñata….
Fallout continues from Heartland’s Unabomber billboard face plant.

Bad Astronomy:

— this tactic has backfired on Heartland. Even before the billboards went up they lost sponsorship from the Diageo liquor company, which makes such brands as Smirnoff and Guiness. In March, General Motors dropped Heartland as well. Even people who support climate change denialism are worried that their own reputations “[have] been harmed”.

And now, after a few bloggers wrote to State farm, the insurance company has announced they too will withdraw funding from Heartland Institute. State Farm specifically cites the billboards as the reason in their announcement.

I suspect that Scott Mandia’s open letter to them was the major driver for this. For my part, I tweeted about this on Sunday:

Red Orbit:

The controversy began when the organization unveiled the first of a planned series of billboards which claimed that “the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” The first of the digital billboards featured Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, and featured the caption “I still believe in global warming. Do you?”

Future billboards would have featured the likes of Charles Mason, Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden, and James J. Lee, the man who took hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters two years ago. However, on Friday, the Chicago-based, conservative and libertarian think tank told the Washington Post that they were going to abandon the billboards, which were being used to promote an upcoming conference on climate change.

“This provocative billboard was always intended to be an experiment. And after just 24 hours the results are in: It got people’s attention,” Heartland Institute President and CEO Joseph Bast said in a May 4 statement. “This billboard was deliberately provocative, an attempt to turn the tables on the climate alarmists by using their own tactics but with the opposite message. We found it interesting that the ad seemed to evoke reactions more passionate than when leading alarmists compare climate realists to Nazis or declare they are imposing on our children a mass death sentence. We leave it to others to determine why that is so.”

Scholars and Rogues:

“I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?”

Those were the words associated with the mug shot of Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unibomber, a terrorist who, over the course of 20 years, injured or killed 26 people around the country with mail bombs. Shortly after the billboard went live, however, media and bloggers caught wind of it and began publishing what would become a flood of blog posts and news articles taking Heartland to task for equating climate realists with mass murderers, terrorists, and lunatics.

Leo Hickman, writer of the Environment Blog at The Guardian, broke the story. He wrote that he was sufficiently shocked by the billboard’s insinuation to ask “What on earth were they [Heartland] thinking?” The Hill’s E2 Wire quoted Sierra Club spokesman Trey Pollard saying “[i]t must be embarrassing for Heartland’s donors like Exxon to have their money used in a way that compares the majority of their customers who believe in climate change to mass murderers.”Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast wrote that the billboard represented a “refusal to acknowledge scientific reality; and a brutalist style of public propaganda that focuses entirely on guilt by the most extreme association.”

What’s been most corrosive to Heartland’s carefully promoted self concept as promoting “dialogue” and “alternative voices” on climate change has been the savage satiric attacks that the billboard provoked, like this from Indecision Forever:

Never before have logic and clear-minded thinking ever been used to so adroitly prove a point as they have today.

The Heartland Institute have just started a billboard campaign in Chicago that very not-ridiculously draw a direct line between believing in empirical evidence for anthropomorphic climate change and being a mass murdering psychopath…

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)…

[W]hat 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 point is that believing in global warming is not “mainstream,” smart, or sophisticated. In fact, it is just the opposite of those things. Still believing in man-made global warming — after all the scientific discoveries and revelations that point against this theory — is more than a little nutty. In fact, some really crazy people use it to justify immoral and frightening behavior.

Oh no! But I believe in man-made climate change. Or — more to the point — I believe in science, and all the science points toward man-made climate change. Does that mean that I’m a genocidal serial killer? I mean, I can’t remember where I was last Wednesday night. What if I was out murdering thousands of members of a minority group?!

Of course, not all global warming alarmists are murderers or tyrants.

Oh, thank God! Then there’s still a chance for me. Quick, somebody tell me how to block dangerously rational thoughts from taking root in my head before it’s too late!

Has Heartland’s 15 minutes been cut somewhat short? Stay tuned – with their Denia-Palooza anti-science conference coming up in a few weeks, this story is still finding its legs. (I guess that’s another way of saying, somebody might be doing a video on this….)

I, for one, Welcome our New Blood Sucking, Disease bearing OverLords. Tick Population Explodes after Winter MIA

CBS Philly:

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Although the growing season hasn’t even started, there’s already a bumper crop — of a critter that really ticks people off.

Ticks make even confirmed nature-lovers skeevy, since they do more than suck your blood. They can also transmit diseases, including Lyme Disease. Schuylkill Center land and facilities director, Sean Duffy, says the mild winter and warm, early spring have given ticks a leg-up.

“We’re going to have a lot. Last year was actually a pretty active year for ticks on our property, and because we didn’t have the die-off from a harsh winter, I think that this is really going to be a big year for ticks,” which aren’t very big, especially deer ticks.

And, Duffy says you don’t need deer strolling through your yard to have them.

“Mice are actually one of their big host species.”

In fact, that’s where the Lyme bacteria come from. Wearing long sleeves and pants can help you keep ticks from making a meal of you. But, make sure you check for them when you go inside.

Dear State Farm

I’m idly speculating about what it might be like to be a fly on the wall at at the Heartland Institute’s morning staff meeting, if there is such a thing.  Presumably lots of non-fair-trade, non-organic, coffee has been consumed over the weekend trying to come up with face savers after last week’s PR disaster – the “Unabomber” theme billboards comparing mainstream scientists to lunatic psycho killers and terrorists.

There have been at least one  defection among properly embarrassed donors and some  dropouts and expressions of dismay among scheduled speakers for Heartland’s upcoming “Denial-Palooza” freakshow, which is just weeks away. Apparently, the incident has now done more to associate Charles Manson and Ted (unabomber) Kaczynski with Heartland itself, than with climate science.

Corporations generally make donations in order that the magic of some perceived good cause can rub off a little bit. Try to imagine how a perceived association with the Unabomber tends to corrode that warm and fuzzy feeling.

The incident has also sparked renewed calls to Heartland donors to stop supporting the anti-science, pro-tobacco hate group. There are several listings of Heartland donors on the web, including this one. Some of their customers have begun to question the wisdom of supporting organizations that actively work to destroy our children and their future.

One notable example came from Scott Mandia of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team

S. L. Otto in the HuffPost  has more details.

Climate science professor Scott Mandia has been insured by State Farm Insurance for 21 years, but when he read that State Farm has apparent given hundreds of thousands of dollars (PDF) to climate denial propaganda outfit The Heartland Institute, he began to question his loyalty to the company.

Last week, Heartland rolled out a hate-oriented billboard campaign that compared scientists, science organizations, and federal agencies who acknowledge that science suggests human behavior is warming the planet to “murderers and madmen” like Charles Manson and Osama bin Laden.

After a nationwide public outcry, Heartland discontinued the offensive billboard campaign, but Heartland president Joe Bast refused to issue an apology.

The whole episode prompted Mandia to wonder why State Farm would support an apparent anti-science hate group like the Heartland Institute. He wrote State Farm the following letter, and gave me permission to publish it here.

What do you think? Should mainstream corporations give money to groups like Heartland that deny mainstream science?

May 7, 2012

State Farm Insurance
One State Farm Plaza
Bloomington, IL 61710

Dear State Farm,

As per a recent conversation with Tony Ardise, my State Farm agent, I provided him two weeks’ notice that I intend to cancel all of my policies with State Farm Insurance because of its support of Heartland Institute. I have been a loyal customer for over 21 years and currently send almost $4,500 per year to State Farm. I do not wish my money to be sent to Heartland Institute — a group that recently compared climate scientists and those concerned about climate change to “murderers, tyrants, and madmen” such as Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber), Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, and Osama bin Laden. Although Heartland stated that they will remove the public billboards, their official statement offers no apologies. It is obvious that the billboards represent Heartland’s true feelings.

This indefensible and un-American assault on climate science is just the latest attempt by Heartland to discourage action on climate change, but there is a long history. As has been widely reported in mainstream media, Heartland Institute has been leading the charge for years to confuse our policymakers, the general public, and our school children about well-understood climate change science.

The United States National Academy of Sciences tells us that the climate is warming, humans are responsible, and that this behavior is increasing risks across a broad spectrum of society. Every international academy of science agrees and recent studies show that 97-98% of publishing experts concur.

Continue reading “Dear State Farm”