Talk:Cooler Heads Coalition

Untitled

This is ridiculous - this article is clearly biased and cannot be allowed to stand any longer. Propaganda? "Extremely"? Sadly I don't know enough about this subject to change it myself. I also note a comment in the history "rv some way back... I prefer this POV to the other POV". Erm, how above no point of view? Shall we try that? Trip: The Light Fantastic 16:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

You don't like it, why not try improving it instead of dumping tags on it? William M. Connolley 17:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Astroturf

Isn't it a violation to call a group "Astroturf" without some sort of citation? Mdotley 06:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I've added a citation. Of course this group is so obviously Astroturf that it might have been easier just to Google it up and fix the omission, rather than asking for a citation. In fact, CHC could reasonably claim to be an Astroturf supergroup.JQ 10:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the people who are against calling Cooler Heads astroturf as the group made no pretense of genuine grassroots. They were pretty open about their corporate and big-money think-tank origins. --Cjs56 20:46, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you give a cite on this? It would certainly be helpful for the article to include a statement from CHC about their corporate origins, particularly as so many of the member groups (60+ Association, Women for Tax Reform) are obviously Astroturf (unless they are genuinely grassroots).JQ 23:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

There are people editing this who do not know the genuine definition of "astroturf." An astroturf group is a fake grassroots-sounding organization put together by well-heeled special interests trying to make it seem as though their cause has the public's spontaneous support. Hence the name "astroturf" - fake grass. Sometimes they are independently incorporated, but often they just a name, with all the work being done by a PR group, a corporation or group of corporations, unions, or others with an interest in a particular policy or piece of legislation. Astroturf groups rarely last long, sometimes just a few weeks or months while a particular piece of legislation is being debated. Often they are used as a front for running commercials or newspaper ads, to disguise who is funding the ads, and only last as long as the ad campaign they are created for.

Cooler Heads was a coalition of real organizations, each of which pre-dated the establishment of the Cooler Heads Coalition and in most if not all cases continue to thrive now that the charity that established Cooler Heads has been disbanded. It properly is called a "coalition," because that is what it is. It does not matter if the groups in the coalition are think-tanks or membership organizations, what matters for the "astroturf" definition is whether the groups are real. It is apparent that there are people editing here who disagree with the policy positions the Cooler Heads Coalition took, but this entry is not supposed to be an excuse to debate global warming.

Finally, in response to John Quiggin above, 60+ is a real organization. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.251.213.30 (talk • contribs) 01:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC) (UTC)

A coalition of astroturf groups is not, by definition, an astroturf group, itself. As stated above, an astroturf group pretends to be a grassroots organization. CHC, in its very name, claims to be a coalition of groups, not a widespread group of people. So the citation I deleted does not support the assertion that CHC is astroturf, it only claims that the member groups of CHC are astroturf. Mdotley 21:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Dead Links

Dead links are everywhere. Brusegadi 02:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Article probation

Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"Promotes falsehoods" and reception in the operation section

The language used in the second sentence of the opening paragraph is biased and unsupported by the references. The articles by the Washington Post and New Yorker disparaging the group did not even go as far as to accuse them of "promoting falsehoods" about climate change. "Promoting falsehoods" is a serious allegation that they have made untrue claims; if that is correct, we should be able to cite at least one claim that they have made that is untrue. It would be much more defensible to stop after "opposes the scientific consensus on climate change," although even this is unsupported by the references: the Washington Post article that it lists as a reference says that CEI's director for their Center for Energy and Environment, Myron Ebell, "now acknowledges that “climate change is occurring and human beings have a role in it.” A better sentence would simply state that they are environmental skeptics (the Post Article says they "cast doubt on the gravity of climate change") and that they oppose government action intended to mitigate climate change.

Additionally, the second paragraph of the "Operations" paragraph are simply responses to the group and include quotations from articles also quoted in the intro and "Reception" sections. Highest Standards (talk) 19:55, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

They are not skeptics, they promote denial. See WP:FRINGE. Whatever he may say, the group has actively promoted denial and opposed legislation, including the Paris accords. Prinsgezinde (talk) 09:46, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

If we are to say they promoted denial, we should probably find some kind of references to show that instead of using ones that suggest the opposite. They have opposed legislation, but I cannot find anything in recent statements or actions by them suggesting that they have denied human-caused climate change. Highest Standards (talk) 14:28, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

The WAPO is paywalled for me so I can't check the claims. I think opposes-consensus is not disputed, and is all we need, so I've changed it to that. I don't think the "promoting falsehoods" is well sourced and I doubt it is necessary, so I removed that. I also doubt the "is a leader in"; these people barely exist nowadays - are they still even live? William M. Connolley (talk) 07:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

References