There will be a rally against the Heartland Institute's industry-backed anti-science conference in downtown Chicago, starting at 10 AM today.
With Heartland's brand growing increasingly toxic after its impressively ill-advised billboard campaign -- apparently too toxic even for the likes of renowned douchebag James Sensenbrenner -- this could be your last chance to heap well-deserved opprobrium on the hapless Joe Bast. So if you're in town, don't miss it! Come one, come all!
The lead role in organizing this action is being taken by SMELT (Students Mobilized for Equality Liberation & Transparency), the CACHE affiliate organization at Chicago's Shimer College, a very small and unusual institution that has special reasons of its own to dislike the eminently dislikable Mr. Bast.
UPDATES:
1. For live video, keep an eye on livestreamer extraordinaire Samwise.
2. Suggested Twitter hashtag for this event is #turnuptheheat
3. Hey look, a poster:
Here is the event description:
ITINERARY:
10am-- Meet-up at the "Bean" in Millennium Park to rally and begin a march to...
11:00am-- the Hilton Hotel and the Heartland Institute's Conference on Climate Change Denial at 720 S Michigan Ave.
11:15am-- Speakers will begin the Local Conference on Climate Change in the park across the avenue from the Hilton.
12:30/1:00pm--March from 720 S Michigan to the Heartland Institute's headquarters at 1 S Wacker in the Loop.
We, the climate change believers, will be holding an impromptu conference on a Local Assuredness that Climate Change Exists Conference outside of the Heartland Institute's International Climate Change Conference in the Hilton next Tuesday, May 22nd, from the late morning until the early afternoon.
The Heartland Institute began an effort to forward climate change skepticism a number of years ago and have been holding an International Conference on Climate Change ever since. Topics addressed include implications for the catastrophe insurance industry in accepting or denying aspects of climate change, the overbearing attitude of the federal government in dealing with global warming, and the negative effects of alternative energy on free-market enterprises.
In short, it's a conference dedicated to affirming the worldview that alternative energy is a bad idea, capitalism and free-market principles protect the environment, and a conspiracy is afoot to keep the general population worried about “human-made climate change”... Capitalist and their lawyers...
Come out and yell about the REAL climate change you learned about in SCHOOL.
Chalk the sidewalk, hand out leaflets, listen to local experts, and make sure the corporate toadies hear you inside the Hilton.
NB,
I'm not an organizer of this event, just a messenger. So for updates or to RSVP, see
the event page on Facebook.