Heartland Conference Speakers and Attendees still fighting the Cold War

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Attending panel discussions at the Heartland Climate Change Conference in New York has me looking over my shoulder checking for the next Red Armyย invasion.

While the context of the conference is climate change it seems that for many panel members and attendees this is less about science than it is about warding off the socialist plot that is supposedly closing in onย America.

I attended an afternoon session featuring evangelical think tanker Cal Beisner and the Monsanto/ExxonMobil sweetheart of the โ€œcivil rightsโ€ movement Royย Innis.

Before the panel presentation even began, the two guys sitting down from me were going on about the โ€œLiberal media conspiracyโ€ while a blogger bragged to the women next to me that he was quoted on Rush Limbaughโ€™s radio showย today.

Beisner spent the majority of his talk stroking his own ego with the big close being a screed about the โ€œeco imperialistsโ€ who are bent on condeming the poor of theย world.

The real show was Innis, who began with a strange argument that if youโ€™ve never been to the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), why should you care if they drill in it for oil. His argument was that those against drilling in ANWR were innocent citizens who had been subjected to โ€œheavy propaganda and conspiracy about the environment and theย earth.โ€

And the source of this โ€œheavy propoganda?โ€ Innis paints a picture that America is running the risk of being overtaken by some kind of new world order of communists. As Innis explains, there is a โ€œconspiracy against decencyโ€ of โ€œradical environmentalistsโ€ of which oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is somehow involved. And this grand conspiracy is putting all of us under threat from โ€œSoviet like thinking.โ€ He ends with a warning to us all: โ€œLet us not be tricked like Lenin did theย Bolsheviks.โ€

The crowd giggled with glee and while I was too young to ever attend a Reagan rally, I bet this is probably what they were like. But this is not 1981, itโ€™s 2009 and what in the heck does Communism have to do with climate change? Nothing of course, but Innis knows that this โ€œsocialist conspiracy theoryโ€ plays to a crowd that is looking for any reason they can to continue to ignore the realities of climateย change.

ย 

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ 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, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ 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 Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea partyย networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on theย political and community organizing platformย 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 worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICTย 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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