Yesterday, in addition to it being the COP’s “Gender Day,” it was Heartland’s “Bringing Climate Realism to Paris at COP-21” conference—the deniers' best shot at getting their views heard. The day-long event featured the usual cast of characters, from men who are retired scientists (Singer), to men whose research is funded by the fossil fuel industry (Soon), to men who aren’t scientists at all (Monckton). No women were present among the speakers, as pointed out by DeSmog’s Kyla Mandel, who was unceremoniously booted from the Heartland event, an act that “cut down the number of women present by a third.” (Apparently, when Heartland says “open to the public,” they really mean “only the public that doesn’t ask uncomfortable questions.”) The denier conference culminated with the debut of Climate Hustle, Marc Morano’s climate change “documentary.”
So, how much press were deniers able to get with their big day? To their credit, they did manage to break into the New York Times, sort of. The NYT Paris blog covered the efforts of Avaaz—an environmental activist group—which printed wanted posters to call out deniers. The posters, which were plastered all over Paris, featured seven of the most notable deniers at COP21. However, Avaaz’s effort had the unintended consequence of giving deniers something they desperately crave: attention.
Climate Depot published an article celebrating the posters, which they blasted out to their email list, and, of course, Bastasch at the Daily Caller dutifully echoed the Depot piece.
There was also a second activist attempt to mock deniers that occurred outside the event, with people dressing up as coal company CEOs and holding signs saying, “Save Billionaire Miners Not Koalas.” The activists were promptly removed by security forces.
Climate Hustle itself didn’t get much pick-up up by non-denier media and failed to make the big splash that deniers wanted. It seems unlikely they will get anything more than an occasional mention in stories about the activist push-back, or stories about their dwindling influence. This means that the events mocking deniers could be backfiring a bit by giving journalists a reason to cover the contrarians.
Politico described the event in Morano’s words, calling it a “turd in the punch bowl.” You can watch Morano call his beloved event a turd and see others struggle to answer tough questions at Climate Home.
That said, we suggest activists in Paris treat deniers as what they are: advertisements for the fossil fuel industry. In fact, activists and the media would do well to take some advice from the Simpsons on how to defeat advertisements: just don’t look!
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