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hatrack

(59,439 posts)
Fri Feb 21, 2020, 08:51 AM Feb 2020

Here's What Heartland Institute Has Been Reduced To: Propping Up A Synthetic Greta Thunberg

EDIT

“The Heartland Institute in December 2019 began working with popular young German YouTube personality Naomi Seibt,” the funding proposal states. “Funding for our Germany Environmental Issues project will enable Heartland to provide Naomi with the equipment and resources she needs to present a series of effective videos calling attention to the negative impacts of overreaching environmental regulations.” This past year, Naomi Seibt, a 19 year-old from Germany, started a YouTube channel airing short videos in German and in English, including her thoughts on climate change and other topics. Her most-watched video, posted seven months ago, has 176,000 views, according to YouTube, and is titled “CLIMATE CHANGE – Just hot air..?”

EDIT

Instead of talking about the role that fossil fuels play in causing the climate crisis or what humans have to do to prevent catastrophic warming, Heartland’s video asks viewers to consider one teen versus another teen. That framing also asks viewers to overlook the fact that one lone teenage climate activist isn’t the only person urging international action to ward off climate change.

When Heartland promotes its YouTuber as, say, calmer and more rational than Greta, there are fights that Heartland's setup dodges. The framing dodges the fact that, when it comes to rationality, the debate could be Heartland's young YouTuber versus the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific coalition studying climate change assembled by the United Nations that warns nations have just one decade remaining to reduce emissions to the point of effectively preventing catastrophic climate impacts. The setup also dodges a debate between Heartland's YouTuber and the insurance industry, which as Deloitte notes, has found that “[w]ith losses mounting, insurers can no longer avoid or postpone addressing the impact of changing climate on their underwriting, pricing, and investment decisions, as well as their bottom lines.”

It dodges a debate between Heartland's YouTuber and everyone whose personal and professional judgment has left them convinced that human actions are causing the world's climate to warm rapidly and that it's worth taking action now to ward off the worst effects of that change. Heartland ally Seibt has previously rejected the label climate science “denier,” saying that she finds the label offensive and that she just wants people to think for themselves about climate science.

Ed. -

EDIT

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/02/20/heartland-institute-climate-denial-germany-naomi-seibt-correctiv

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Here's What Heartland Institute Has Been Reduced To: Propping Up A Synthetic Greta Thunberg (Original Post) hatrack Feb 2020 OP
Stunning stupidity! Mickju Feb 2020 #1
Propaganda in action. Molding the minds of the young. defacto7 Feb 2020 #2
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