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
"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 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."
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.
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
EXTRACT: The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks.
The papers indicate that discrediting established climate science remains a core mission of the organisation, which has received support from... corporations such as Microsoft... (see Guardian article below)
NOTE: The Heartland Institute is a right wing lobby group with Big Tobacco and Big Oil funding that campaigns for smokers' rights and free market solutions to social and environmental problems. It also promotes GM crops. http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/5467
But the Heartland Institute is most notorious for the aggressive role it has played in climate change denial. Now, recently obtained internal Heartland Institute documents have confirmed that the anti-environmental lobby group is not only backed by the Koch oil billionaires and U.S. tobacco giants, but by Bill Gates' Microsoft.
That the company that Gates founded and still chairs is backing an institute that has as its core mission the denial of established climate science is extremely revealing in terms of Gates' -- and his heavily Monsanto-linked .. http://www.saskfarmersmarket.com/0-13065-gates-foundation-invests-in-monsanto.html .. Gates Foundation's -- claims to be backing "science-based" innovation in the case of GM crops.
And in case anyone is in any doubt about Gates' degree of personal involvement, Microsoft, it turns out, has been funding the Heartland Institute for years, and the funding began long before Gates stepped back from a full-time hands-on executive role at Microsoft. http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Heartland_Institute
Indeed, the company has a record of funding a series of other hard core anti-environmental think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville_Institution
*Libertarian thinktank keeps prominent sceptics on its payroll and relies on millions in funding from carbon industry, papers suggest
The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks.
DeSmogBlog, which broke the story, said it had received the confidential documents from an "insider" at the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago. The blog monitors industry efforts to discredit climate science.
The scheme includes spending $100,000 on commissioning an alternative curriculum for schoolchildren that will cast doubt on global warming.
It was not possible to immediately verify the authenticity of the documents. "There is nothing I can tell you," Jim Lakely, Heartland's communications director, said in a telephone interview. "We are investigating what we have seen on the internet and we will have more to say in the morning." Lakely made no attempt to deny the veracity of information contained in the documents.
The Heartland Institute, founded in 1984, has built a reputation over the years for providing a forum for climate change deniers. But it is especially known for hosting a series of lavish conferences of climate science doubters at expensive hotels at New York's Time Square as well as in Washington DC.
If authentic the documents provide an intriguing glimpse at the fundraising and political priorities of one of the most powerful and vocal groups working to discredit the established science on climate change and so block any chance of policies to reduce global warming pollution.
"It's a rare glimpse behind the wall of a key climate denial organisation," Kert Davies, director of research for Greenpeace, said in a telephone interview. "It's more than just a gotcha to have these documents. It shows there is a co-ordinated effort to have an alternative reality on the climate science in order to have an impact on the policy."
The Valentine's Day exposé of Heartland is reminscent to a certain extent of the hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit in 2009. Those documents helped sink the UN's climate summit later that year.
In this instance, however, the Heartland documents are policy statements – not private email correspondence. Desmogblog said they came from an insider at Heartland and were not the result of a hack.
The documents posted on Desmog's website include confidential memos of Heartland's climate science denial strategy, its 2012 budget and fundraising plan, and minutes from a recent board meeting.
The fundraising plan suggests Heartland is hoping for a banner year, projecting it will raise $7.7m in 2012, up 70% from last year.
The papers indicate that discrediting established climate science remains a core mission of the organisation, which has received support from a network of wealthy individuals – including the Koch oil billionaires as well as corporations such as Microsoft and RJR Tobacco.
The documents confirm what environmental groups such as Greenpeace have long suspected: that Heartland itself is a major source of funding to a network of experts and bloggers who have been prominent in the campaign to discredit established science.
Heartland is anxious to retain its hold over mainstream media outlets, fretting in the documents about how Forbes magazine is publishing prominent climate scientists such as Peter Gleick. "This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out," Heartland documents warn.
But the cache raises an equal number of questions – such as the identity of an anonymous donor that has been a mainstay of Heartland. The unnamed donor, who contributed $4.6m in 2008, has since scaled back contributions. Even so, the donor's $979,000 contribution in 2011 accounted for 20% of Heartland's overall budget, the fundraising plan says
According to the fundraising document Heartland hopes to bump that up to $1.25m in 2012 [click for PDF].
The importance of one or two wealthy individuals to Heartland's operations is underscored by a line in the fundraising document noting that a foundation connected to the oil billionaire Charles Koch had returned as a donor after a lengthy hiatus with a gift of $200,000 in 2011. "We expect to ramp up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to the network of philanthropists they work with," the document said.
Heartland hopes to cash in on its vocal support for the controversial mining method known as fracking, the document suggests.
Heartland operates on a range of issues besides the environment. But discrediting the science of climate change remains a key mission. The group spends $300,000 on salaries for a team of experts working to undermine the findings of the UN climate body, the IPCC.
It plans to expand that this year by paying a former US department of energy employee to write an alternative curriculum for schoolchildren that will cast doubt on global warming. The fundraising plan notes the anonymous donor has set aside $100,000 for the project.
The documents suggest several prominent voices in the campaign to deny established climate science are recipients of Heartland funding.
They include, according to the documents, a number of contrarian climate experts. "At the moment, this funding goes primarily to Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be found," the documents say.
Heartland also hopes to expand that network in 2012 by raising around $90,000 for a project on temperature stations by the well-known blogger Anthony Watts.
Whether these funding arrangements actually exist cannot be verified. However, Heartland's website notes that Idso, Singer, and Carter were commissioned to write a report for the organisation.
The strategy memo as published by DeSmogBlog mentions "cultivating" as a potential ally Andrew Revkin, a respected journalist who enjoys a huge following at the New York Times DothEarth blog.
Dot Earth - New York Times blog February 15, 2012, 7:07 pm
The Heartland Files and the Climate Fight By ANDREW C. REVKIN
hmm, Revkin, throws some criticism of Heartland, while giving more to the "fake" line of theirs .. surely he must deal with his mention .. ah! .. the very end ..
"I’d be remiss if I didn’t visit one other point. There was a lot of blog discussion of a reference to me and Dot Earth in a section of the document that Heartland now says is fictitious. It always seemed dubious, given that the document said it might be worth “cultivating” me as a “neutral” voice. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that the group called me “a noted ally of the alarmist camp.” .. http://heartland.org/policy-documents/dialogue-global-warming
Updated: Heartland Institute funding revealed in "denier-gate" scandal .. one bit ..
Among the funders and prospective funders are companies that have in the past promoted their environmental credentials, including Microsoft, Diageo and General Motors.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
