Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science
February 15, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html?pagewanted=all ]

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The Heartland Files and the Climate Fight
February 15, 2012
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/documents-appear-to-reveal-broad-effort-to-amplify-climate-uncertainty/ [with comments]

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Leaked Docs From Heartland Institute Cause a Stir—but Is One a Fake?
Feb 16 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/ [with comments]

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Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science

The billionaire Charles Koch, a key financier of the Heartland Institute, which works to undermine the established science on climate change. Photograph: Koch Industries
Libertarian thinktank keeps prominent sceptics on its payroll and relies on millions in funding from carbon industry, papers suggest
14 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartland-institute-climate

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Heartland Institute claims fraud after leak of climate change documents
Thinktank said to be undermining climate science says it was victim of theft and forgery – but identifies only one memo as fake
15 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/heartland-institute-fraud-leak-climate

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Climate science attack machine took donations from major corporations
Much of Heartland Institute's work funded by one anonymous donor, but some corporations also gave cash, documents show
15 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/heartland-institute-microsoft-gm-money

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Climate sceptics – who gets paid what?
Leaked documents show US thinktank the Heartland Institute has been making payments to experts and scientists to cast doubt on climate science. Here, we profile some of the figures
15 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/climate-sceptics-pai-heartland-institute

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Leaked files expose Heartland Institute's secrets
16 February 2012
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21486-leaked-files-expose-heartland-institutes-secrets.html [with comments]

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Campaign Against Climate Science Has Classrooms In Its Crosshairs

Posted by George Prentice on Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:08 AM

When GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum brought his campaign to Boise Tuesday night [ http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2012/02/15/santorum-slams-ninth-circuit-climate-change-elite-snobs ], one of his rhetoric's main targets was climate science. He considered educators, and in particular "those people in universities," as elitists.

"Don't you see how they look down their nose at you? Those elite snobs," said Santorum to enthusiastic cheers in the Capital High School auditorium [(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72181487 and preceding and following]. "They all want you to be scared of manmade global warming."

The crowd responded with a thunderous "Boo."

"This isn't climate science. This is political science," said Santorum. "They don't think you can be trusted with your own energy consumption."

It turns out that there is a growing effort supporting Santorum's claims, and in fact, they want to push back against climate science being taught in the nation's classrooms.

The New York Times reports [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html (the first item linked above)] that leaked documents suggest an organization known for attacking climate science is "planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools."

The documents come from a Chicago-based nonprofit called the Heartland Institute. Its agenda is to "cast doubt on the scientific finding that fossil fuel emissions endanger the long-term welfare of the planet."

In a statement to the Times, the Heartland Institute acknowledged that some of its internal documents had been stolen, but insisted that the leaked documents were a fraud.

"Although best-known nationally for its attack on climate science, Heartland styles itself as a libertarian organization with interests in a wide range of public-policy issues," wrote the Times. "The documents say that it expects to raise $7.7 million this year."

© 2012 Boise Weekly

http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2012/02/16/campaign-against-climate-science-has-classrooms-in-its-crosshairs [no comments yet]

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Heartland Memo Looking Faker By the Minute
Feb 17 2012
After yesterday's post on why I thought that one of the documents in the Heartland leak was a fake, ...
[...]
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/heartland-memo-looking-faker-by-the-minute/253276/ [with comments]

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Heartland Institute faces fresh scrutiny over tax status
Whistleblower made complaint to IRS over climate science attack machine's tax-exempt status, Guardian learns
17 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/17/heartland-institute-fresh-scrutiny-tax

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INFLUENCE GAME: Leaked think-tank documents show effort to combat climate science in schools
February 16, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/influence-game-leaked-think-tank-documents-show-effort-to-combat-climate-science-in-schools/2012/02/16/gIQALSfJIR_story.html [with comments]

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Leaked: a plan to teach climate change skepticism in schools
February 15, 2012
http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/15/10415410-leaked-a-plan-to-teach-climate-change-skepticism-in-schools [with comments]

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Heartland burned by 'DenialGate' memos
2/15/12
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72919.html [with comments]

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Heartland Institute leak shows climate change skeptics are playing the public
February 17, 2012
http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2012/02/heartland_institute_leak_shows.html [with comments]

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A ‘Touché!’ From Climate Scientists
February 17, 2012
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/a-touche-from-climate-scientists/ [no comments yet]

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An Open Letter to the Heartland Institute

As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can
appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online
posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly
disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to
discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate
science in the classroom.

We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal
hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were
culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland
Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said.
[ http://heartland.org/policy-documents/climate-gate-scandal-should-be-wake-call-press-politicians ]
Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against
scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen
emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again
pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.
So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable
practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no
qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.
[ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/ ]

We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and
recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate
change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic
scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate
about climate change policy options.

These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent
climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The
more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those
disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative
sources agree on these points.
[ http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2010/4294972962.pdf ]
[ http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/ ]
[ http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report ]

What businesses, policymakers, advocacy groups and citizens choose to do in response to those
facts should be informed by the science. But those decisions are also necessarily informed by
economic, ethical, ideological, and other considerations.While the Heartland Institute is entitled
to its views on policy, we object to its practice of spreading misinformation about climate
research and personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.

We hope the Heartland Institute will begin to play a more constructive role in the policy debate.
Refraining from misleading attacks on climate science and climate researchers would be a
welcome first step toward having an honest, fact-based debate about the policy responses to
climate change.

Ray Bradley, PhD, Director of the Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts

David Karoly, PhD, ARC Federation Fellow and Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia

Michael Mann, PhD, Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University

Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of
Arizona

Ben Santer, PhD, Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Gavin Schmidt, PhD, Climate Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Kevin Trenberth, ScD, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center
for Atmospheric Research

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2012/02/17/heartland.pdf