New Heartland Climate Denial Conference Takes Shape. Let’s Look at their Science Experts
June 13, 2014
There will be another “International Climate Conference” hosted by the Heartland Institute in Las Vegas next month.
I don’t think I’ll link to it.
That said, I’ve done some legwork for you to look at the speaker’s list. It’s a doozy.
First, may I introduce Cal Beisner, “Spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation”.
Longtime readers will remember that Dr. Beisner has famously observed that “..not using fossil fuels insults God.”
And, for my money, most memorably, in presenting a graph of paleo-temperatures, Dr Beisner advised an audience of evangelical students
“..and of course, if you’re a young earth creationist, you’re going to have to do some changing of how you interpret some of the chronologies here, to fit it into your paradigm, I think that’s an entirely legitimate thing to do..”
At about 2:15 if you’re pressed.
Leo Hickman wrote about Dr. Beisner’s organization not long ago in The Guardian.
To better understand this mindset, I recently approached Beisner with an interview request. He agreed, but said that he wanted me to first read the Cornwall Alliance’s latest book called Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion not Death. Written by James Wanliss, who describes himself as a “Christian physicist”, the book is built on the premise that “without doubt one of the greatest threats to society and the church today is the multifaceted environmentalist movement”. It’s hard to summarise any book in a few sentences, but here are a few snippets to give a flavour of the book’s tone:
The Litany of the Green Dragon provides some certainty for people without God, who drift steadily from their rational moorings, and for whom there is an increasing sense of separation anxiety…
We humans are special creatures, in a class of our own, quite separate from, and superior to, trees and animals…
The Green Dragon must die…[There] is no excuse to become befuddled by the noxious Green odors and doctrines emanating from the foul beast…
The Green Dragon. It’s coming for your kids.
This slimy jade road…is paved with all kinds of perverted and destructive behaviours, leads to death itself, and finally, to the pains of hell forever…No Hollywood celebrity bunnies draped over its foul form can deny its native evil…
It is no coincidence the rise of environmentalism as a significant political entity tracks the rising political clout of modern feminism…
Savage wolves have come to be among the church…No one can serve two masters…
The first few chapters in the Book of Genesis are an infinite mine to plumb for riches. All the world has no wisdom that is greater…
So-called “natural” or wilderness areas are not hospitable to man, and God does not consider this a good or natural state…
The fruits of the Green Dragon are not good, but evil…Humans are urged to surrender as many liberites as judged fit to save the world, which is pretty much all liberty that makes life worth living…
Christians must resist Green overtures to recast true religion, nor allow themselves to be prey for teachers of pagan heresies…
Maybe I’ll focus on a more of Heartland’s “experts” in coming days, if I can stand it.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
June 13, 2014 at 10:50 am
“Maybe I’ll focus on a more of Heartland’s “experts” in coming days, if I can stand it”.
Please do (if you can stand it). Everyone loves to look at car wrecks and other disasters—-it’s human nature. And these guys ARE disasters of the worst kind. There’s a reason the term “bullshit artist” was invented, and the good “doctors” Beisner and Tonkowich are good examples. They are “doctors” of bullshit, not science, and charlatans who are getting rich feeding the ignorance of the “believers”.
There simply can’t be a god if these are his spokespersons.
June 13, 2014 at 11:48 am
This is faith, not science, of course. I’d hope even the people at that conference could see that, but then most of them are there because of confirmation bias.
It’s an interesting thing that it’s part of the Evangelical belief system to always place themselves in the role of David vs. Goliath. It permeates their language. The environmental movement becomes a dragon, and they are the lone knight facing it in combat. Most Greens feel the same in the reverse – a handful of people facing off against a corrupt and all-powerful system.
“No one can serve two masters…”
It’s a thing among modern Evangelicalism to only bring that passage up when it doesn’t refer to its original meaning, that man cannot serve both God and Mammon (material wealth).
“Christians must resist Green overtures to recast true religion, nor allow themselves to be prey for teachers of pagan heresies…”
This is probably the beginnings of a purge in Evangelical circles, because environmentalism has made inroads into corners of the Church. A number of younger believers are of the mindset that God’s Will includes environmental conservation, not destruction.
One thing that can’t be underestimated in people like Beisner is their absolute certainty that they are right. They will fight, and quite aggressively, to protect and enforce that certainty. They are the lone knight against the Great Dragon, after all.
June 13, 2014 at 12:10 pm
=One thing that can’t be underestimated in people like Beisner is their absolute certainty that they are right. They will fight, and quite aggressively, to protect and enforce that certainty. They are the lone knight against the Great Dragon, after all.=
More like Don Quixote at full gallop, jousting lance in hand, heading on a collision course with a windmill (wind turbine), drooling in anticipation of the spoils of war.
June 13, 2014 at 12:03 pm
OMF
GFSMThey want us to facepalm ourselves to death.
June 13, 2014 at 12:56 pm
You certainly can’t parody him. You can’t make him any nuttier than he already is.
June 14, 2014 at 12:25 am
Oh certainly you can – don’t forget he’s the brightest of the lot – and that’s the really scary part
June 13, 2014 at 1:59 pm
“No Hollywood celebrity bunnies draped over its foul form can deny its… evil… The fruits of the Green Dragon are… evil” Uhh… those aren’t fruits… Seriously, though, Las Vegas? Is this like that time the World Trade Center Bombers met in Las Vegas before 9-11 because they wanted to observe American evil ‘up close and personal’? So, how do I join these free-market, Bible-thumping faithful? Cuz I can raise my nose with the best of them. Just don’t make me close my eyes.
June 13, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Joining these kinds of folks usually entails transfer of $$$$ (yours). Send them some $$$$ and they will welcome you with open arms. Buy their books too.
(You may have a problem staying in if you insist on keeping your eyes open, though).
June 13, 2014 at 3:03 pm
Hopefully the whole climate denialism experience as a whole has shown folks that humans will very easily hold false beliefs and do everything in their creative power to retain such if there is some benefit to be gained in doing so.
Christian religion (or any religion) is just one more of these: the message is universally attractive with respect to our archetypal desires (i.e. the evolutionary drive to survive + our proficiency in abstract thought = desire to live forever which invites any belief system that says it can be done (as long as you fall in line and don’t ask too many questions)). It’s a message that serves both masters and slaves alike, simultaneously (God made you a leader; god made you a slave; trust in his plan for you). And it’s etiology can further be understood by its infectious mechanism: tell young, vulnerable minds what is culturally appropriate and they will dig deep trenches in their minds and fill it with such, that even when the power of reason coagulates later in life, the indelible and conflicting mark can only be relinquished by giving something of tremendous value – socially, emotionally, or otherwise – up.
What is more probable?: That our susceptibility to hold false beliefs that coddle archetypal desires allowed something with universal appeal and virulent propagation to flood the culture of our ancestors at a time when scientific endeavors were not mature enough to counter or check such; or that a supreme creator of Higgs Bosons, neutron Stars, complex biochemistry, dark matter, &c. is really into burnt animal fat and blood offerings by desert nomads? That the author of the physical laws of the universe gets off on dropping hints on his existence that can’t be verified using rational thought and stands ready to reward anybody for their irrationality in accepting him based on those hints? Why would somebody so versed on reason that he may create a terribly complex universe not issue a clear and rational pathway for others to use to verify his existence when he has some desire to communicate to his creation that he does indeed exist?
June 13, 2014 at 3:25 pm
Excellent little essay! I especially like:
“Why would somebody so versed on reason that he may create a terribly complex universe not issue a clear and rational pathway for others to use to verify his existence when he has some desire to communicate to his creation that he does indeed exist?”
Why indeed not? Perhaps because humans are not a special part pf that creation? That we are just a small part of it and he couldn’t care less? That all of our praying, posturing, and thumping of “word of god” books written by humans is just meaningless hubris?
June 13, 2014 at 6:49 pm
Thanks oldguy,
Every once in a while i’ll have a good moment in blog-osophizing. One of the side effects of losing one’s religion is that everyone yet to do so seems to be suffering from delusions of grandeur. It’s, I suppose, a comforting pass time….up until you draw the shortest straw and are escorted to the top of the pyramid that some South American priest can cut your heart out with some rudimentary object to ensure a robust harvest.
=That we are just a small part of it and he couldn’t care less? =
Well, if every time he peeked in at us and saw us burning others at the stake or exploiting his fossil fuel ‘gifts’ so gluttonously that they threatened to destroy thousands to millions of other ‘gifts’ upon the earth, he’d probably say to himself, ‘I’ll check back later; way later’.
June 13, 2014 at 5:42 pm
I wondered what his PhD was in – and it took some time to track down.
Of course, he is obviously eminently qualified to speak on climate science, with a PhD in… wait for it….. Scottish History.
June 13, 2014 at 6:54 pm
He’s probably hoping to replicate the small window in history when the 1% wrecked the Scottish highland’s ecology with their desires to turn the land into hunting parks stocked so full of game, that they could just walk around and shoot things for entertainment.
June 14, 2014 at 6:00 am
I too looked up his CV, and got a laugh our of the Scottish History, which qualifies one to be an expert in important fields like…..Scottish History.
As I said, his other degrees are in bullshit. I will never understand how a PhD in “divinity” qualifies someone for doing anything but arguing with other “educated” fools about “what is the path to salvation?” and “what does it all mean?”. We have hundreds of versions of “the word of god” and hundreds of Christian denominations, not to mention all the other religions, past and present. Con men all.
June 14, 2014 at 6:06 am
Scottish History- So he would know about Lord Monckton (who is not and never has been a member of the House of Lords) getting sacked from UKIP Scotland last december.
June 14, 2014 at 6:36 am
Naaaah. That would come under the heading of “possibly useful information about contemporary Scottish affairs”. He is probably better-versed about the days when the Scots painted themselves blue and scared the Romans so badly that they walled them off from the world.
Monkeytoon is a carpetbagger in Scotland anyway—-doesn’t his title originate in southeast England?
June 13, 2014 at 6:10 pm
“So-called “natural” or wilderness areas are not hospitable to man, and God does not consider this a good or natural state…”
Ohhhh,how convenient!
You know,this passage has me reconsidering my atheistic beliefs because it really sounds like it is a message coming directly from Satan!!!
June 13, 2014 at 8:49 pm
I hear you. ‘No greater cathedral’
I used to have a rule, back when I hiked in Nature a lot: you have to hike for at least 2 hours. After 2 hours, your human narcissism finally falls away, and you find all of Nature asking itself: ‘how best can I take advantage? As a branch, on this little spot of afternoon sunlight. As a mushroom, on this little spot of detritus. As an owl, on this little spot of fallen old growth fir, growing new branches, new mushrooms, and the little mammals that feed on them…’
You find that your petty concerns are the concerns of all creation. First rule of any cathedral!
June 13, 2014 at 9:22 pm
I have had my most “religious” moments while knee-deep in the trout-laden waters of the Willowemoc, Beaverkill, and Esopus eivers in the Catskills, as well as the Big Hole in MT and the Yellowstone in WY. Cathedrals all.
June 15, 2014 at 8:34 am
That’s a guy who’s afraid of his own shadow. Or maybe it’s just that he can’t stand himself, because when you’re out in nature, alone, it sort of forces you to see yourself.
June 14, 2014 at 12:26 pm
Strange that the idea of leaving hydro-carbon in the ground reminds Carl Beisner of the servant who buried his talents. Personally it reminds me of the story of Adam & Eve in paradise where they can eat and enjoy everything save for that one tree with the delicious fruit.
Perhaps what Eve said to lure Adam to disobey the injunction was Beisner’s line: “Don’t you think it would be really ungrateful and disrepectful to the Creator not to try the most delicious fruit that He put here for us?”
While we’re at it, Jesus’ parable of the talents is not a neo-liberal exhortation to put your money to work and to let it multiply itself: The Old Testament condemns charging of interest and the purchase/sale of ancestal land rights, which are to revert back to the original users every 49 years (Jubilee).
And not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil does not refer to a loss of innocence, but translating the idiom correctly, we would talk about the knowledge of good and evil as the aspiration to possess omnipotence like God (knowledge is not mental, but means acquaintace with as in ‘Adam knew his wife’; ‘good and evil’ is a hendiadys for the most all-encompassing inclusion there is).
Carl Beisner is no expert, not on climate and not on the Bible either.
Carl Beisner is a pompous ass.
June 16, 2014 at 7:44 am
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