As previously discussed, I planned to attend the Heartland Climate conference as media and I did. I avoided Chicago on Monday, but I took the metra up yesterday. When I arrived, I learned that protestors would be gathering across the street from the hotel during Anthony’s Watt’s talk and speaking just afterwards. So, after listening to Anthony, I stepped out and asked security whether anyone had seen them. Security said no, but then I saw Jim Lakely passing and told me that 50 or so were standing outside.
Newsworthy!! I went outside to have a look.
A police woman assisted me as I followed the Chicago tradition of Jaywalking. Arriving at east side of the street I started to mingle around the group. Looking around, I thought Lakely’s estimate of 50 was a bit on the high side; I stood close to the street to get a good shot of the crowd. Below is a picture of the ‘audience’ part of the protest group, the ‘speaker’ part of the group has their backs to the street:
About five minutes I was beginning to get rather bored with the protest. But then I spotted a group of Heartland strolling along crosswalk at the stop light just north. The protestors didn’t seem to be aware of the identifies of the group approaching who included Jim Lakely, Christopher Monckton, the friendly security guard who was quite often at Monckton’s side and Marc Morano.
As people with cameras surrounded the Heartland group, one of the protest group speakers continued to speak. The one in the photo below mentioned he’d taken a course in climate at MIT. A few of the bloggers who’d sat in the media area of the Heartland conference arrived to get their own footage.
When a few protestors began to approach the Heartland group it occurred to me that the footage might be fun. So, I switched my camera ‘movie’. Here’s a video starting from the point where Monckton makes a show of counting the protestors. You will see he counts me.
After I turned my camera off, the group walked north to the stop light, crossed Michigan avenue and walked south past the Hilton. When we arrived at the door of the Hilton, I went back into the Hilton. (I should have kept my camera recording because I had a chat with two of the protestors which I would have liked to record rather than rely on my memory!)
For those who want to see the less interesting “prequel” video, I’ve included that:
I’ll be posting some photos from inside the conference later on (probably tomorrow).
The glamorous life of an intrepid journalist. Are you aware that the most commonly uttered phrase in journalism is “Damn–wish I were still rolling!”?
Tom–
Yeah. The guy didn’t say anything outrageous. But I should have just kept the camera rolling. It’s not hard to cut the boring bits. I mostly just talked to the guy who said he took the climate class at MIT.
The main difficulty is I almost never use the camera feature and I’m not sure how much footage I can take before I run out of memory. I wanted to be able to continue to take stills.
Notice the reporter as Moncton is counting. He is screaming into his own mic, I guess there weren’t enough people for it to be loud enough for his subsequent report.
It would be nice to have a transcription of Monckton’s conversation with Mr. Vermin – couldn’t quite make it out over the PA.
Lucia – it’s not clear to me whether or not Monckton counted you a) because he really thought you were a protester, or b) he recognizesd you as “The Blogger” he so disparaged (last year now wasn’t it?), and counted you as one of the protesters as a slight.
Do you mean the man in the black suit? His mike was labeled something like “The Sun” and has media credentials from Heartland. In the “prequel” you’ll hear some female protestors wondering what media that was. I have some snaps of him inside the meeting.
If I were a real reporter, I would have written down his name so we could find his reports. But… I didn’t.
Agreed. I’m hoping that some of the other people with directional mikes will have gotten that recorded.
He may not have given any thought because– for one thing– he might not have quite noticed who I was at that moment and I’d say he was making a show of counting. I was sitting crosslegged in the front of the protest group precisely because I wanted to be positioned to be able to snap photos of the speakers and the Heartland group. That was a good position to record both groups.
Turns out Mr. Vermin is a professional protestor
Vermin Supreme who ran for president and campaigned in 2012 on a platform of zombie apocalypse awareness and time travel research and he promises a free pony for every American.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermin_Supreme
text:
“… guys are amazing. I’m here because I resent being likened to a terrorist who bombs a preschool for believing in.c.. manmade climate change. It is exactly this kind of rhetoric that makes us look like we are unpatriotic, that we need to fight in this country, this is ridiculous, this is the most patriotic thing we could be doing right now! *cheers*”
Uh what?
“Hello everyone hows it going?” *cheers* “Uh I’m going to start off with a story first about how the soviet union. the soviet union uhh had science programs, they also had jails and they used these jails, oops, they used these jails in order to regulate their science programs. Here in the united states we don’t need jails, we have money, so what we do is we funnel money into the programs that are saying what we want to. the idea behind science is that we look.. too.. data and then we draw conclusions from it. we don’t input our own ideas of what we want to happen, we draw conclusions from the hypotheses that we make. the hypotheses that the heartlanders? do? makes am? not fit the data (from the crowd someone yells something about ‘most profit)… right… and the question that they’re asking is not how can we best explain the facts that we’re seeing the question they’re asking is how can we keep people believing what they want, what they want us to believe. so basically standing out here is important… because it shows them that we’re not going to take their bullsh*t. (*cheers at profanity of course*) The last thing that I would like to say is from the third …. nature to be commanded, must be obeyed. These people are not obeying nature what they want to do is they want us to obey them. that’s not the way it works and that is not the way that we should sit down and take it, thank you very much.”
^^ Verbal diarrhea
I hate protests more every time I see them. They’re just groups of poorly spoken individuals angry at something they haven’t taken the time to try to understand.
Jeremy–
I suspect the guy in black and that woman (from Greenpeace ?) were ‘pros’ in the sense of being sponsored. (I’m pretty sure someone from Greenpeace spoke– but it might not be the one on camera.)
I suspect that particular guy you quoted may be an amateur who expressed a desire to speak… so they let him. He really just rambled and it didn’t make much sense.
I think this stream picks up “the walk around the block”.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22778275
Around 8 mins, the “Greenpeace” lady has a hilarious line directing people to the after-protest party.
“…if you already inhaled… come join us.”
I wonder if that is the occupy/protest currency?
Hilarious closed mindedness. The video ends with the guy in red saying:
“Alright guys, so, we’ve tried to engage this contingent that has come out of the conference, it doesn’t seem like they’re here to engage, it seems like there here just to f*** with us so what we’ve deecided to do instead is to see if there’s anyone who wants to have a legitimate conversation with us around the conference building, we’re going to let people know what’s going on outside by yelling the slogans we have been and take 1 block around the hilton and come back here to the park, sound good? (*cheer*) so lets march this way, hey hey ho ho these corporate lies have got to go… mantra repeats…”
While he’s saying this, and the whole time before that, Monckton has been politely engaging anyone who would talk to him.
They act no different than any religion, they retreat from simple questions while blasting those asking them as some sort of disruption, they repeat mantras, and they spout half-truths as if they were giving up last nights hangover material.
I think she said “If you feel hardy and hale….” She appears to be proposing the hoof it on over to some bar-restaurant or gathering place at 1 South Wacker: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
Wow, I never heard anyone outside of a 19th century book use that term. Thanks for the correction.
intrepid–
It’s that Chicago accent. 🙂
Lucia –
Am I right in thinking it was relatively good-natured? Moncton certainly didn’t seem too intimidated..
I’m just wondering, in the context of climate change being the ‘biggest threat’ facing mankind. Ever… At all…
Perhaps protests these days are all half-hearted or maybe HI aren’t deemed big enough players (but then, who is?). It just reminds me of the 70’s and early 80’s in Britain when a sunny weekend would easily see 10,000 CND marchers out for a stroll.
On a different note, did you notice any non-sceptics in the conference? Last minute change of heart from Peter Gleick? 🙂
“His mike was labeled something like “The Sun†and has media credentials from Heartland.”
Ezra Levant? Certainly looks like him.
Yngvar–
That does seem to be Ezra Levant. I found this:
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2012/05/20120523-110259.html
The first video just seems to be a commercial for what was then a special issue of upcoming coverage. The second seem to be his introductory coverage which I would also suggest is mostly advertising telling you to catch the special issue. So that was him. But I don’t have any links to coverage.
I’m trying to find links to blog posts or news articles covering reactions (or the protest or whatever.)
Maybe the cute German guy blogged (or will after he recovers from jet lag?) I know Anthony blogged the event.
This is interesting. Evidently this “massive” turn out was the result of combined efforts by five activist groups.
In addition to the ads, Forecast the Facts will be joining local activists as well as members of SumOfUs.org, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and Greenpeace in a grassroots rally on Tuesday morning outside the Hilton Chicago.
Tuesday, May 22 schedule and photo opportunities:
10am— Activists gather at the Cloud Gate in Millennium Park’s AT&T Plaza, and begin march to Hilton Chicago
11:00am— Arrive at the Hilton Chicago Hotel and the Heartland Institute’s Conference on Climate Change Denial at 720 S Michigan Ave.
11:15am— Speakers discuss climate science and Heartland’s denialism in Grant Park, across from the Hilton Chicago
Details about organization are at
http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20120521164146570
CFact posted their edited version of the same scene I recorded. You can see me in this one. 🙂
This is interesting. ThinkProgress reporter Stephen Lacey writes
“… to watch the 60 or so people protesting the event outside the hotel”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/24/489430/the-self-inflicted-downfall-of-heartland-institute/
“60 or so” has to be off by at least a factor of 2. There is no way “60 or so” is an accurate count for the number of people protesting. I don’t think the numbers present reached 60 (or so) even if you count the Heartland reps and the people wearing press credentials who arrived when the Heartland group came to the protest site. That said, maybe Steven didn’t take to refresh his memory on the visual aspects. But even if he didn’t take photos, you’d think by Thursday he might have watched video did a quick count of the numbers showing up in images.
Based on his photo at TP, I think this is Stephen Lacey
I gotta get me one of dem boot hats. It looks real snappy and I’m certain it will add to my credibility as a public speaker 😉