Heartland Institute compares global warming believers to "murderers"

As if we needed more proof that anti-science global warming deniers are wackos, here it is:

Well, when facts, reality, and 98% of the world's leading climate scientists aren't on your side, it looks like the global warming deniers are reduced to disgusting fearmongering and personal insults. Here's what part of the Heartland Institute's press release announcing the billboard campaign said:

May 3, 2012 – Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world’s most notorious criminals say they “still believe in global warming” – and ask viewers if they do, too.

Heartland’s first digital billboard – along the inbound Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) in Maywood – is the latest effort by the free-market think tank to inform the public about what it views as the collapsing scientific, political, and public support for the theory of man-made global warming. It is also reminding viewers of the questionable ethics of global warming’s most prominent proponents.

“The most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists,” said Heartland’s president, Joseph Bast. “They are Charles Manson, a mass murderer; Fidel Castro, a tyrant; and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Global warming alarmists include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010).

Huh? Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, and Osama Bin Laden are/were "global warming's most prominent proponents"? What planet are you spreading your lies on, Heartland Institute?

Al Gore. Barack Obama. The Dalai Lama. Pope Benedict XVI. Desmond Tutu. The Heartland Institute is associating these men, who all accept the truth of human-caused global warming, with the "world's most notorious criminals." 

Andrew Sullivan tells it like it is:

In some ways, this is an almost perfect illustration of what has happened to the "right." A refusal to acknowledge scientific reality; and a brutalist style of public propaganda that focuses entirely on guilt by the most extreme association. 

...Mann and Ornstein are correct. Large sections of the American right are now close to insane as well as depraved. 

The Guardian's Environment Blog says:

The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns.

And Climate Progress writes:

The Heartland Institute has launched one of the most offensive billboard campaigns in U.S. history. The Chicago-based anti-science think tank is comparing all those who accept climate science — and the journalists who report on it accurately — to Charles Manson, the Unabomber, and Osama Bin Laden.

Comments

[Willie R]

I cannot detect even a hint of relevance with respect to global warming deniers. Mostly, because the global warming believers are doing nothing more than engaging in lip service with respect to the issue, and are not making any significant lifestyle modifications in advance of the imposed restrictions that will surely come in mankind's attempt (futile attempt, IMHO) to at least mitigate impending ecological disasters.

Does anyone actually think that Americans will settle for less while the BRIC populations fortify their infrastructures at our expense? Go back to sleep, please.

If life is a problem, then it's high time that everyone acknowledge that there is no solution, believers and deniers both.

[tucson]

I agree with Willie R. I think whatever is going on with the climate is beyond humanity's ability to control. At best only one piece of the puzzle can be controlled and that is unlikely to happen. How do you get the industrialized world to stop being industrialized?

Say you do that. What about naturally occuring contributing factors of which there are possibly many...a confluence of causation events...the perfect storm...a river with many tributaries, you block one and the river is still rises.

Or, even if human emissions are the sole cause, it's like tackling the quarterback after the touchdown pass is already in the air.