State Farm and Diageo withdraw support for Heartland Institute after terrorist billboard campaign
By Phil Plait
8 May 2012 I wrote a few days ago about the disgusting billboards put up by the far-right Heartland Institute, a climate-change denial group that apparently has no lower bounds to what they’ll do. The billboards, which went up in Chicago, likened climate scientists (and anyone who knows global warming is real) to mass murderers and madmen. It was repulsive and hateful. After an uproar — and in less than a day — Heartland took down the billboards, but didn’t apologize for them. Instead they claimed it was an “experiment”, and declared victory in getting attention. This would be why I use the words repulsive and disgusting. But the damage was done — this tactic has backfired on Heartland. Even before the billboards went up they lost sponsorship from the Diageo liquor company, which makes such brands as Smirnoff and Guinness. In March, General Motors dropped Heartland as well. Even people who support climate change denialism are worried that their own reputations “[have] been harmed”. And now, after a few bloggers wrote to State Farm, the insurance company has announced they too will withdraw funding from Heartland Institute. State Farm specifically cites the billboards as the reason in their announcement. […] And we’re not done. Heartland still has quite a few corporate sponsors. Brad Johnson has created a list of them on Pinterest, how much they’ve given, and which ones have dropped Heartland due to its shenanigans.
