Year 3, Month 5, Day 18: I Like To Use The Word “Whinging,” Don’t You?

The Christian Science Monitor, on the Heartland Institute’s billboard craziness:

Update, 5:23 p.m Eastern Time: In a statement by Heartland president Joseph Bast, the organization announced that it will be taking down the Unabomber billboard after only 24 hours. Bast wrote that the billboard was an “experiment” meant to “turn the tables” on climate-change advocates.

“We know that our billboard angered and disappointed many of Heartland’s friends and supporters, but we hope they understand what we were trying to do with this experiment,” Bast wrote. “We do not apologize for running the ad, and we will continue to experiment with ways to communicate the ‘realist’ message on the climate.”

The “experiment” resulted in “uncivil name-calling and disparagement” from climate-change scientists and activists, Bast complained.

Come the deluge, they deserve to drown. Sent May 8:

Given that Heartland Institute’s bizarre guilt-by-association ad campaign insultingly compared thousands of dedicated scientists and researchers to deranged murderers, it’s bizarre to hear Heartland’s president Joseph Bast whinging about an “uncivil” response. If any party in this wholly manufactured controversy deserves the description, it’s those who thought the grotesque billboards were a good idea, not the justifiably incensed scientists and environmentalists who responded.

But the real irony lies in the word’s deeper connotations. To be civil means more than just being polite; it is to respect the society of which one is a part. Thus means the Heartland Institute is downright anti-civil — for surviving the looming climate crisis will need the resources, cooperation and ingenuity of our civil society. By denying the problem and demonizing those who are trying to alert the rest of us, Heartland undermines America’s greatest national resource: our ability to work cooperatively with one another.

Warren Senders