'Carbon Dioxide... We Call It Life,' U.S. TV Ads Say

[jpak]

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10481

WASHINGTON — A little girl blows away dandelion fluff as an announcer says, "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life," in an advertisement targeting global warming "alarmists," especially Al Gore.

The television ads, screened for the press Wednesday and set to air in 14 U.S. cities starting Thursday, are part of a campaign by the Competitive Enterprise Institute to counter a media spotlight on threats posed by worldwide climate change.

The spots are timed to precede next week's theatrical release of "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary film on global warming that features Gore, the former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate.

Against backdrops of a park, a beach and a forest, one celebrates the benefits of greenhouse gas-producing fuels.

<more>

:puke:

[MercutioATC]

1. Gotta admit, the "Arch-Druid" line is funny...

Yeah, it's a serious issue, but the image is still amusing.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I'm not in any of the 14 cities that will get to see these flights-of-

fanasty ads. Can you tell me what are "the benefits of greenhouse gas-producing fuels."?

[phantom power]

6. Why, it makes the plants so goddamned happy, of course.

Except that those damned biased field ecologists have determined that increasing CO2 doesn't make the plants happy, after all. Even ignoring minor issues like, say chronic drought, habitat loss due to climate change, etc, which also don't make plants very happy.

[robbedvoter]

Someone should give them "Life" in a carbon dioxide room...

[Delphinus]

12. Ooh,

I *LIKE* your idea!!!

[eppur_se_muova]

20. That was my VERY FIRST thought.

There's a reason we breathe the stuff OUT, you know.

This is a new low. CO2 in concentrations above a few percent is POISON.

From wikipedia:
"This is sometimes known as choke damp, an old mining industry term, and was the cause of death at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, where an upwelling of CO2-laden lake water in 1986 covered a wide area in a blanket of the gas, killing nearly 2000."

Yeah, you can call that "life".:sarcasm:

[Dead_Parrot]

21. Red Dwarf quote:

"Sure, it's bad news for him. But on the other hand, it's party-time for all the little wormies"

[Nihil]

26. Nice timing D_P ...

:spray:

This is one of those times when you want to laugh and cry at the
same time ... one part of me is laughing at the sheer stupidity
of the adverts whilst the other is crying at the stupidity of the
viewers, most of whom will *believe* this crap.

It's Friday morning and I feel like my soul is being eaten by
thousands of tiny insects ... the ignorance, cruelty & greed
spread by just *one* species across the planet ... it is any
wonder that most people prefer the "blue pill" version?

[dipsydoodle]

29. Do you recall

the exact origin of the war which destroyed the planet ? Was something to do with a fight between the Red Caps and the Blue Caps , in Hawaii, each supporting different beefburger companies, which then spread out of control worldwide.

[neoblues]

3. Competitive Deception Enterprise Institute...

They call it "life"... well, once we release enough of it, it will indeed have a "life of it's own" and will rapidly make our planet unable to support life as we know it.

[phantom power]

4. Wow. Just... wow.

[htuttle]

5. "Massive Flooding"

"Some call it a devastating natural disaster. We call it an expansion of the Earth's Life Giving Oceans..."

[phantom power]

7. Did these guys also help write the script for "Thank you for smoking?"

[htuttle]

9. "Monsanto: Without Chemicals, Life itself would be impossible"

Remember that old one?

I have to assume they sit around in a room laughing when they think up these spin phrases...

[greenman3610]

17. How about..

"Mom's Apple pie is radioactive...
So is Mom"....

[dipsydoodle]

33. Yes maybe Union Carbide would like to

have the Bophal plant moved to the WTC site as a permanent advert for the antics of American chemical corporations as well.
http://www.bhopal.org/whathappened.html

[hunter]

14. New coastal wetlands!

Complex reef environments on every shore!

[phantom power]

8. Sombody, please tell me these won't work.

Tell me people will just laugh, and know how desperate they are.

[The Deacon]

15. Yeah, people will laugh,

same ones who laughed about the "Defense of Marriage Act"...and then woke up to a Republican Majority on the Hill.

[DBoon]

10. Arsenic

"they call it poison. We call it an essential nutrient"

Brought to you by Concerned Citizens for Less Water Quality Regulation

[meegbear]

11. Wow ... the next time I blow away some coal dust, I'll think of them ...

:silly:

[Mel]

13. will the public continue to fall for the lies?

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=2
<snip> With more than a $3 million annual budget, CEI is supported by both conservative foundations and corporate funding. Known corporate funders in addition to ExxonMobil include the American Petroleum Institute, Cigna Corporation, Dow Chemical, EBCO Corp, General Motors, and IBM. One of CEI's prominent funders is conservative Richard Scaife who has provided money through the Carthage and Sara Scaife Foundations. CEI is also heavily supported by the various Koch brother foundations. </snip>

[depakid]

31. Oh yeah

Never underestimate the gullibility of most Americans- or the willingness of the corporate media to look people right in the eyes knowingly lie to them.

[RethugAssKicker]

16. Did they mention the ads were paid for by EXXON ?

[LSparkle]

18. Using their logic, then, one man's terrorist really IS another man's

freedom fighter.

[Dead_Parrot]

19. Guess I picked the wrong day to give up drinking. nt

[serryjw]

22. Did you SEE the ads or read about them?

Here they are

http://streams.cei.org/

Am I pissed!

[Dead_Parrot]

23. Oh my giddy aunt...

I didn't need to see them. Or maybe I did...
We are really fucked.

Thanks Serryjw... I think...

[serryjw]

24. This kinda disinformation

is why Americans don't take this seriously. No coincidence that these are coming out when Al Gore's Global Warming movie is to be released on 5/24. Inconvenient Truth

[Dead_Parrot]

25. People are stupid

And whilst I'd like to phrase that to just cover Americans, it sadly covers Homo Sapiens Sapiens in all our glory.

We're Fucked.

[Sequoia]

27. Next time I'm cold I'll go in my closed garage and run the car.

Hey, it's safe now! Maybe it'll clean out my lungs.

[Viking12]

28. Engineering Professor Curt Davis says TV Spots Misrepresent His Research

MU Professor Refutes National Television Ads Downplaying Global Warming
Engineering Professor Curt Davis says TV Spots are Misrepresenting His Research


COLUMBIA, Mo. - Recently, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a non-profit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. and partially funded by large oil companies, announced a national television campaign claiming that global warming is not causing ice sheets to shrink. Curt Davis, director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri-Columbia, says CEI is misrepresenting his previous research to back their claims.

"These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate," Davis said. "They are selectively using only parts of my previous research to support their claims. They are not telling the entire story to the public."

"The text of the CEI ad misrepresents the conclusions of the two cited Science papers and our current state of knowledge by selective referencing,"said Dr. Brooks Hanson, deputy editor, physical sciences, Science.

Prior to Davis' 2005 Science study, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that if global warming were occurring, increased precipitation in Antarctica's interior would likely result. In his study, Davis reported growth in interior East Antarctica. He said this growth was probably caused by an increase in precipitation.

Davis said that three points in his study unequivocally demonstrate the misleading aspect of the CEI ads.

- His study only reported growth for the East Antarctic ice sheet, not the entire Antarctic ice sheet.
- Growth of the ice sheet was only noted on the interior of the ice sheet and did not include coastal areas. Coastal areas are known to be losing mass, and these losses could offset or even outweigh the gains in the interior areas.
- The fact that the interior ice sheet is growing is a predicted consequence of global climate warming.

https://cf.iats.missouri.edu/news/NewsBureauSingleNews.cfm?newsid=9842

[dipsydoodle]

32. If any of you want to help on the issue of global warming etc.

then go here and join up : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climatechaos.shtml

Click on take part in the experiment and then forward dear reader............

[depakid]

30. So why won't Reuters expose the "Competitive Enterprise Institute"

For what it is- a blatant propaganda group and give a list of their funders and their history?

No....

Instead they lend legitimacy to them and pack the article with euphemisms.

Part of the culture of lies that's overtaken this country in the last 20 some odd years.