.... comparing holocaust survivors to Hitler? Hmong refugees to Pol Pot? Well, maybe not exactly but there is a structural similarity.
People at the Heartland Institute have very little to do with science and very little experience in that area of academics. Otherwise they would remember the Unibomber days, when everyone was worried about the packages they were receiving in the mail, but especially those in mathematics. Now, the Heartland Institute has a billboard campaign with a picture of the Unibomber on it, making the claim that only very fringe people, such as the Unibomber, still "believe in global warming." This couldn't be farther from the truth. Anthropogenic Global Warming is real, it is recognized as real by science, and those who deny its reality are, in fact, the ones on the fringe.
Heartland has crossed many lines in the past, but now they've crossed a line that even those of us who have been watching this "think" (not) tank did not see coming. And by extension, a number of corporations have crossed the same line. These are the companies that fund Heartland in its science denialism efforts.
No more Pepsi for me, and I'm not ever going to use a Microsoft product again!
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So, how are they going to weasel out of this one? Let me guess-- it's all going to be the fault of somebody connected to the National Center for Science Education, right? Maybe somebody who was thinking of possibly becoming a member of NCSE was shown handing over money to somebody from Heartland who posed as a poor widow with a sick child?? And the poor sucker SHOULD HAVE KNOWN the money would really be used for a sleazy billboard?
At what point are corporations going to start thinking it's not good for their image to associate with the Heartland brand of data manipulation?
There is a great quote from Heartland's president Joseph Bast that showed up in a news story last October: "We've won the public opinion debate, and we've won the political debate as well, but the scientific debate is a source of enormous frustration."
Nick, I want to see a billboard with that post next to a photograph of mickey mouse. Or better yet, goofy.
These people make me sick. Not only are they mostly driven by financial agendas, but they also make the intellectual blunder of mistaking climate for weather!
LS