Real Sceptic

What Is The Heartland Institute?

According to their about page their “mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.” And they’ve had their fair share of successes in politics and the media on these matters.

Recently they uploaded their 25 year anniversary video to YouTube (they are now 29 years old) and in it they get congratulated for their excellent work:

However, anyone familiar with me will know I do not think they have done excellent work. Far from it, a lot of their work has actually harmed people.

For example in the 1990s they worked with the tobacco industry to cast doubt on the harmful health effects of secondhand smoking. What they did, and several other free market organisations, was to cast doubt on these findings in an attempt to delay/prevent regulations that would protect consumers. Their campaigns also confused consumers themselves which caused them to be misinformed on the risks.

They still have these materials in their “Smoker’s Lounge” section on their website. Where they to this day refer to research that show the health risks of smoking and secondhand smoke as “junk science.”

But this wasn’t what made me familiar with this organisation, it’s their statements on environmental issues. They consistently misrepresent valid scientific findings and do their utmost to cast doubt on real issues.

For example they still maintain the position that CFCs do not harm the ozone layer:

Yet in spite of the hardships caused by the hasty phaseout of CFCs and other suspected ozone-depleting halocarbons, the EPA has never questioned the adequacy of the science that forms the basis for its phaseout policy. The facts are that the scientific underpinnings are quite shaky: the data are suspect; the statistical analyses are faulty; and the theory has not been validated.

Doesn’t matter that the EPA has done these studies and that it has shown that the scientific underpinnings aren’t shaky.

But this does sound familiar, doesn’t it?

These are the same things they say about other environmental issues, for example anthropogenic global warming. Doesn’t matter how much evidence there is backing these scientific findings, if the consequence will be that we need to regulate, they will oppose it. No matter how much damage this might cause.

So no they have not done excellent work and in my opinion it reflects badly on the organisations that say they did. To me this indicates they also place their ideology above scientific findings, which is never a good sign.

The Renault Zoe

I’ve always liked Robert Llewellyn’s down to earth reviews of electric cars. He mentions what he doesn’t like, what could be improved, answers questions he often sees, and above all gives an honest and good assessment of what a vehicle is capable of with praise where it is earned.

A good example of this is his latest review video about the Renault ZOE where he gives a nice rundown on the capabilities of this car:

It’s a lovely little car that shows electric vehicles are starting to mature.

Monckton Responds

It took me a while to find a moment to write about this, but within 48 hours of the release of my video “Climate Changes, But Facts Don’t: Debunking Monckton” I received a short response from Monckton.

It was a tweet directed at me in which he basically stated that he wasn’t impressed by what I had created: Read more

Earth Hour

Today is the 6th time Earth Hour will be held to raise awareness about the need for action on global warming. Considering this event started in just one city the current number of participants is a testament to how effective this awareness campaign is:

Earth Hour is the single, largest, symbolic mass participation event in the world. Born out of a hope that we could mobilize people to take action on climate change, Earth Hour now inspires a global community of millions of people in 7,001 cities and towns across 152 countries and territories to switch lights off for an hour as a massive show of concern for the environment.

A campaign so effective that it has become the focus of a lot of the so-called sceptics, who are currently attempting to reframe the message of Earth Hour. Read more

Climate Changes, But Facts Don’t: Debunking Monckton

For the past 1.5 years there has been very little activity by me on my YouTube channel and on this website. This wasn’t because I had given up on creating content, far from it. During this time I was working, when I could, on a big project. Something I did hint towards a couple of times.

This big project was me going through the parts of a debate Monckton took part it. This debate took place on the 19th of July in 2011 and was held by National Press Club of Australia which had as subject climate change.

Read more