Daily Brew'Friends of Science' bring controversial billboard to Montreal's Santa Claus parade
A Canadian group of climate change skeptics has brought their message opposing man’s role in Earth’s warming to Quebec.
The Friends of Science group posted a controversial video billboard ad at an intersection that the city’s Santa Claus Parade passed through last month.
The message, in French, declared that the sun was the primary factor in climate change, not humans. And as controversial as the message is, it is the advertisement’s placement that is now taking heat.
The Sierra Club has launched a petition against the outdoor agency that permitted the statement to be publicized, while the left-leaning Press Progress noted the position of the billboard – along the route of Montreal’s Santa Claus Parade, certain to be seen by thousands of local children.
"Children attending this year’s Santa Claus Parade in Montreal were trolled by a video billboard at a busy city intersection proclaiming global warming is caused by sunshine. Yes. Sunshine," reads a Press Progress blog post.
In an email to Yahoo Canada News, Friends of Science communications manager Michelle Stirling said that, yes, the position of the billboard was chosen intentionally.
"[I]t is on the corner of St. Catherine and Drummond where the Santa Clause (sic) parade would be with some 300,000 people in the vicinity," Stirling wrote, noting that it is the only video billboard in Montreal.
"As this is the time of the Winter Solstice, what could be more warming to the spirits of cold Quebeckers out shopping than to see the hope of the returning warmth of the sun?"
The uniquely-named Friends of Science group, which Press Progress notes once counted a major oil company as a donor, has been using the “sun” billboard in Canada for some time now.
In June, the group posted an English version of the sign in Calgary, prompting a battle over messaging in the heart of Canada’s oil industry.
At the time, Greenpeace complained that their own message in favour of solar energy had been rejected by the same advertising company.
Now the message is again stirring debate, this time in Quebec.
La Presse posted a blog critical of the message, and a local group created a parody music video mocking Friends of Science.
Then there is the Sierra Club, which said “Canada’s own climate change deniers” had stumbled from free speech to disinformation with the billboard, saying it should have included a mention that the message was a personal opinion. It urged supporters to complain to the advertising company, Pattison Outdoor.
It is about this point that groups start pointing to studies and research papers that purport to back their point of view, so here are a few.
Sierra Club points to this New Scientist article, which is said to debunk the myth that global warming is caused by the sun.
Press Progress cites Stanford University researchers that found, “though the Sun may play some small role, ‘it is nevertheless much smaller than the estimated radiative forcing due to anthropogenic changes.” AKA, human changes.
Friends of Science, meantime, links a collection of “peer-reviewed scientific papers" that points to the sun’s primary role.
Other groups have also weighed in, of course. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s position on the issue is that “human influence” on the climate system is clear.
"It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," states an IPCC position paper.
The popular blog IFL Science has criticized Friends of Science in the past, and previously claimed the billboards are inaccurate:
The claim that the Sun is chiefly responsible for climate change doesn’t have much merit. Studies have shown that slight fluctuations in solar activity actually don’t affect Earth that much. Of the 1°C the planet has warmed in the last 300 years, a study found that the Sun probably contributed to less than 0.15°C of that. Any data that does point the finger of blame toward the Sun does not fit observational trends as well as humanity’s production of pollution. Claiming that humans and CO2 are not to blame doesn’t comport with the evidence and disagrees with the vast majority of the scientific literature.
Friends of Science has released two press releases celebrating the controversy that erupted over their Montreal billboard. They deny being a “front for Big Oil” and oppose having their message described as disinformation.
Stirling says their billboard is far less controversial than some ads run by opposition groups – like a Greenpeace ad run in the U.K. claiming that the melting ice in the Arctic was threatening to end Christmas.
All of this is a sideshow, of course, to the real issue. But the climate change debate is one that is playing out in public, and it is important to each side that they win the hearts and minds of those involved.
A Christmas parade is as good a place as any to get a message in front of hearts and minds, it would seem.
