Heartland Institute Takes the Low Road

Wow. The Heartland Institute just veered onto a very low and dark road:

Other billboards have pictures of Charles Manson and Fidel Castro. The HI writes:

"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).

"These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it."

Then this:

Because what 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.

This is truly contemptible. And extremely poor strategy -- whatever the Heartland Institute thinks they're doing, this kind of hateful approach can not possibly win anything in the end. I don't even see how it can win anything in the moment -- it repels people.

These kind of tactics are very troubling. As we've seen even here, these people seem to believe insults and hatred can change people's minds about the science. And now they travel in packs, unleashed by Watts and Morano and the like, and go around snarling at whomever speaks of things they don't like, trying to intimidate everyone into silence.

I will be surprised if at least some of the speakers at the upcoming Heartland Conference don't cancel based on these billboards. Indeed, not to will be to give tacit approval to these tactics.