Denial-a-Palooza is a Media Hit

onMar 4, 2008 @ 11:33 PST

… But Not What Organizers Wanted

Mainstream media seem to have caught up with climate change denial (caught up with reality, really), just in time to humiliate the assembled “sceptics” at the Heartland Institute’s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.

While Heartland wants to position the conference as a “smashing success,” the New York Times, CNN – even that raving left-wing apology sheet the Wall Street Journal – have all lifted their delicate hands and snickered. CNN, in a spot that left the cool dudes at Newsbusters apoplectic, went so far as to call the assembled skeptics “flat earthers.” (click on the seventh item here for Miles O’Brien’s actual video.)

It’s interesting, per Andy Revkin’s New York Times piece, that the coal industry’s pet scientist, Pat Michaels, stood up at the conference, acknowledged that humans are causing climate change and predicted a three-degree Fahrenheit temperature increase this century (a relative disaster scenario, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Then he said that was really no problem and that we shouldn’t bother taking any action to prevent this from happening.

If sowing confusion is the goal, these guys are still on their game. But if they were hoping to be taken seriously, alas, time, climate and public understanding has passed them by.

By Richard Littlemore

Amsterdam Defies Last-Minute Lobbying to Become First Capital City to Ban Fossil Fuel Ads

ByEllen Ormesher

onJan 23, 2026 @ 09:43 PST

The world’s largest outdoor advertising company warned city councillors of “far-reaching consequences” hours before the landmark vote.

After Decades of Deflection, ExxonMobil Moves to Reshape Global Climate Accounting

BySharon Kelly

onJan 23, 2026 @ 09:12 PST

For decades, ExxonMobil argued consumers, not oil giants, should take responsibility for fossil fuel pollution. It’s now backing Carbon Measures’ accounting scheme, which moves pollution “liabilities” to buyers’ books.