Climate denial ads to air on US national television 19 May 06

This is very sad Mark.

Many Americans know they are being lied to about many things but with so many lies, it can be hard to know the truth anymore. Many Americans would act very responsibly and would want to do all they could if they truly understood.

Iraq is a good example. No one would ever support a war for oil if presented that way. It was never presented that way. The lie was to use the word “freedom” to suggest we were setting people free from tyranny. Only an idea like this could be used to sell the idea of going to war to the average American.

In fact, this was what I saw in average people over here. I did not hear people talk about oil or weapons of mass destruction but what Saddam was doing and the idea of stopping him appealed to many who thought that going to war would help other people. I heard people talk about how Saddam gassed innocent people and all those atrocities being committed. That is what caught their attention.

In that light, many Americans are a very caring and compassionate people at heart. They send money and volunteer their time to help others. They want to see the innocent protected. Ordinary Americans helped others during the hurricanes last year by bringing people into their homes. During 911, we lost many brave people trying to rescue others.

To those in the UK and elsewhere, see what we are up against over here. Imagine being me or Lynn or anyone over here that knows about the issues and cares deeply. It’s bad enough that people do not know much about the climate problem but to be lied to in this manner is very appalling.

Best to all,

Dan

Just shows you where a stubborn, unthinking attachment to the “free enterprise and limited government” ideology gets you.

These people are absolutely infuriating. We could try ignoring them – but with the next IPPC report pending they will not go away of their own volition. We could rant and rave but this will not persuade people.

No – we have to take a deep breath and expose them for what they are. Swiftly and succinctly let’s challenge them on their funding, their political motivation, their malign distortion of the science and their fundamentally distorted view of the world and the major issue facing us – AGW/CC!

The tide is running in our favour – these people will soon be history and completely irrelevant.

I look forward to your report from Germany Mark!

Douglas Coker

Looks like this is trying to muddy the waters & create an alternative myth to Al Gore’s forthcoming film, An Inconvenient Truth.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Money talks. Propaganda has played a big part in the infotainment century, just gone. Silvio Berlusconi controlled the major TV channels in Italy. In Venezuela the opposition to Chavez has three TV stations that continuously criticise Chavez and yet his popularity among the electorate is undimmed.

Having been to America the people I chatted to were quite often parochial but not stupid. I think they are less likely to be gullible after Iraq and WMD. What the CEI are doing is unforgivable and I agree with Mark about the holocaust parallels. But this behaviour is hardly a revelation. This is what they exist to do. I think I read that they are targeting European scientists at the moment ahead of the fourth IPCC report to discredit them.

There must be some democrats or wealthy comcerned citizens who could afford to run their own TV campaign. The movement should fight fire with fire. The only difference would be that our version would be the truth. There is a brilliant video by FOE on climate change, (which alas I have never seen outside of a meeting hall). It is very slick, powerful and similar in style to Micheal Moore’s films. If Americans really don’t know about global warming this would counter the malicious tripe from CEI. Or better still make one which rips apart the preposterous lies of the advert and one that exposes their links with Exxon.

And not that I would advocate breaking the law, but perhaps a grafitti campaign on billboards for the networks exposing the the lies might be of interest to the hundreds of thousands of people who are driven past them.

Finally the next time in the UK, when ITV or Channel 4 or the BBC give a platform to these criminals in the ludicrous name of ‘balance’ write to the news channel and the Press Complaints Commission to complain. I would suggest that you compare the CEI not so much to holocaust deniers, but to individuals who are actually being active participants in an increasingly less preventable genocide. And also point out that the media, in giving them a platform, are themselves complicit in this act. I have yet to receive a reply to this accusation from editors.

but we are not free from being misled here either; and now that Blair has made it clear that he intends to bulldoze through a new nuclear programme in the face of all the scientific and economic evidence that it is not safe, it is too expensive and it’s not needed, what can we do?

So many of our democratic freedoms, freedoms that people of our parents generation fought and died for in WW2, are under threat that I wonder how we can start preaching to other countries. And what happens when a state uses the democratic process and elects a government that ‘the West’ doesn’t like? it cuts off their funding or introduces sanctions.

Wasn’t it Marx who said ‘Democracy is the handmaiden of Tyrany?’ George Orwell certainly got it right.

This is why the web and sites like this are so vital.

best to all

Colin

<font>Educate!</font>
That’s one of the great things about the internet and websites like this one.

• CO₂ is a pollutant.
  By showing them the relationship between it and global warming and what GW will mean to the world, what it will mean to them. (Perhaps a counter-advert to “CO2 is life”, where someone is having to breathe into a plastic bag.)
• Reducing demand for fossil fuels by changing the way we live is the cheapest and best thing we can do.
• If they do have to drive, small diesel cars are the most efficient (Americans, listen up!)
• Windpower is currently the best of the renewable electricity sources and should be part of the mix.
• That nuclear power is needed. By showing them that the only other constant electrical supply mechanism is the coal-fired plant; which produces far more in the way of dangerous and damaging poisons.
• That nuclear power is cheap. By actually comparing like with like, and taking into account all the costs to the environment of the alternatives.
• That nuclear power is safe. By comparing the actual number of deaths per terawatt produced.

Cheers,

Derek

Has anybody else read James Hansen’s ‘trial of the century’? Here: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_11/ AND (same)_12/

From the introduction: ‘People can be convicted of murder on the basis of overwhelming circumstantial evidence, as the public has been reminded recently. The same is true of three odious, though not odorous, “greenhouse gases”, which have been observed lurking in the Earth’s atmosphere.’

CO2 tries to mislead everybody and stay inconspicious for just another decade, until the point of no return is reached. Luckily, the trial ends well and CO2 is found guilty, just in time.

I read it with the CEI images in my mind, and cannot help imagine this as a real trial of real people…

Almuth Ernsting

The glacier ad produced by CEI has a brief shot of a scientific paper produced by Curt Davies and others of the University of Missouri-Columbia. He’s now put out a press release complaining that his work has been misrepresented – a powerful knock to CEI’s campaign of deception.

Hi all

I recently saw CEI’s ‘CO2 is Life’ advert and was nearly sick. So I checked out their site: http://www.cei.org to see what else they are doing in the name of greed. It’s so worrying to see that there are people who value money and superficial, materialistic items more than their children’s future.

I tried emailing all of the addresses on their site with heartfelt letters of disgust but I got “failure to send” messages back each time. I wonder what this means? Has anyone tried ringing them yet?

Sent this message and blogged it, in case they ignore the e-mail (development@cei.org works!)

Of course you call it life – the life that the businesses that fund the CEI depend on. It’s called money. Carbon Dioxide makes money.

www.theearthblog.org

I have had success in the past by emailing postcards to politicians, etc. Postcards have some advantages over letters—mainly, a cheaper mailing rate here in the US, and no worry to the recipient of anthrax spores or letter bombs.

I haven’t checked CEI’s website but I’d bet that there is a mailing address somewhere.

Just this morning I sent off a postcard of thanks to the headquarters of a local theater chain which is planning to show Al Gore’s documentary. Not too long ago I sent one to a natural history museum, thanking them for covering global warming in their magazine. They wrote back and told me how much touched they were.

Thank-you momochan! You made my day! I like it! I may take this idea to another level.

Best Wishes,

Dan

Did any of you see the CEI’s sensationalist attack on Al Gore in the streams section. Mr Gore has already stated that he offsets his air miles by having trees planted. I’m sure they know this already though. I’m certainly not advocating all his air travel but at least he’s trying to limit his footprint. What are the members of CEI doing to limit theres?

Check out the following site: http://www.carbonneutral.com

There are some very interesting tools for calculating your own CO2 emissions whether it be at home, in your car, on the train or on a plane. They have a full service set up to allow responsible people to go carbon neutral by paying to have trees planted and other environmental initiatives.