Heartland Institute and puzzling "genius" throw down Gore debate gaunlet

onApr 5, 2007 @ 14:02 PDT

Just when you think the global warming denial lobby couldn’t get any stranger and desperate, well… they go and get stranger and more desperate. Christopher Monckton, who is the Viscount of Brenchley, but is better known as a puzzlemaker, has teamed up with the oil-industry darling Heartland Institute in challenging former Vice President Al Gore to a global warming debate.

An advertisement pronouncing “Challenge debate: global warming is not a crisis” appeared in today’s Washington Post, according to a press release sent out last night by the Heartland Institute.

No doubt Gore will ignore this “challenge” by Monckton. As Gore well knows, it is not a debate that a denier like Monckton wants, it is only the appearance of a debate that he requires in order to create doubt about the realities of global warming in the public’s mind.

In fact, by even the mere act of challenging Gore to a debate in a highly publicized way will no doubt add a little fertilizer to the seed of global warming doubt.

By Kevin Grandia

Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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