Thread: Leaked Heartland Institute documents pull back curtain on climate scepticism

Leaked internal documents from US thinktank expose funding and policy strategies against climate science

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," pleaded the Wizard of Oz as Toto revealed the true identity of the man with the big, booming voice to Dorothy and her friends. But it was too late: the illusion was shattered.

The Heartland Institute, an influential rightwing thinktank based in Chicago, which has long pushed misinformation about climate change, is currently having its own Wizard of Oz moment following the leaking of internal documents which reveal the true extent of its funding and efforts to cast doubt on climate science.

The Register – a website well known for promoting climate scepticism – is describing the leak as "at least as good as the 'Climategate' e-mails". This refers, of course, to the dumping online in 2009 of thousands of private emails exchanged between climate scientists over the previous decade.

It's a little too early to tell if it will cause as many ripples as that. However, the documents certainly contain some startling revelations and the unambiguous, clear intent of language used will certainly act to shine a much stronger spotlight on how climate sceptics, particularly in the US, operate and collude. We suspected much of this for years, of course, but we now have hard evidence.

Leaked Heartland Institute documents pull back curtain on climate scepticism | Leo Hickman | Environment | guardian.co.uk



Uh-oh.

Then we move on to the direct funding by Heartland – and its "anonymous donor" – of various climate sceptic scientists:

Our current budget includes funding for high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist AGW message. 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.

Anyone well versed in the "climate debate" will know these names well. (Bob Carter's response to the leak has been posted here.) A separate document lists a further 11 scientists on monthly retainers for contributing to its "Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change" reports, including Willie Soon who receives $125 a month.

Another familiar name singled out for special funding by Heartland's anonymous donor is Anthony Watts of the high-profile climate sceptic online clearinghouse, Watts Up With That?

To use a conservative take on it.

Originally Posted by Charles Johnson

There’s more today on those devastating internal documents from the Heartland Institute; Heartland has confirmed that they were mistakenly emailed by a staff member.

The Heartland Institute has confirmed in a prepared statement that it mistakenly emailed its board materials to an anonymous third party - confirming the source of the documents released here on the DeSmogBlog yesterday.

Heartland then goes on allege that one of the documents (the Climate Strategy) is a fake.

The DeSmogBlog has reviewed that Strategy document and compared its content to other material we have in hand. It addresses five elements:

The Increased Climate Project Fundraising material is reproduced in and confirmed by Heartland’s own budget.

The “Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms” is also a Heartland budget item and has been confirmed independently by the author, Dr. David Wojick.

The Funding for Parallel Organizations; Funding for Selected Individuals Outside Heartland are both reproduced and confirmed in the Heartland budget. And Anthony Watts has confirmed independently the payments in Expanded Climate Communications.

The Heartland Institute is obviously very embarrassed by this leak, and now they’re threatening prosecution, claiming the documents are fake, and demanding that the Internet erase any record of the whole thing.

Good luck with that.

We respectfully ask all activists, bloggers, and other journalists to immediately remove all of these documents and any quotations taken from them, especially the fake “climate strategy” memo and any quotations from the same, from their blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.

The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.

How did this happen? The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to “re-send” board materials to a new email address. Identity theft and computer fraud are criminal offenses subject to imprisonment. We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison for these crimes.

The cat may be out the bag, but if all of you don't put it the fuck back in, we'll sue you!

Originally Posted by Dr Sampson Simpson

Won't change a thing for the deniers. They ignore stuff like this and anything that ruins there beliefs. It's like with the vaccine cause autism nonsense. dozens of reports claiming not link, one claiming a link, and those who wanted to believe vaccines cause autism ignored the others and chose that one. Even when that report was proven a fraud, they still believed that vaccines caused autism. Same thing here, doesn't matter what he truth is, they will ignore it, dodge, deflect, etc

Well look how many of the GOPPER/TEAS deny that POTUS Obama was born in the USA.... even after all that evidence was thrown at the GAMOKES

No statement of opinion regarding Solyndra or anything related to it has been made in this thread because that's not what it is about. "But you're okay with this???" both adopts a baseless presumption and injects a red herring into the discussion and both actions are extremely disingenuous and unproductive.

Do you have no opinion on what these events mean and what impact they will have?

oh boy.. this is great... now we know for positive sure that Global warming is real and the end of the world as we know it is about to befall us if we don't hurry up and act quickly.. You all have made a believer out of me, whew thats a load off my mind ,, now just one little question..

Just what are we supposed to do about it? do you really think we can affect the global change before it peaks and we are all doomed.. ?

This thread really should not devolve into a generic discussion about global warming. Other threads are more appropriate for that.

The question that needs to be posed is, if you are or at least consider yourself inclined towards AGW (anthropogenic, "man made") global warming/climate change skepticism, are you surprised by the revelation that one of the nation's largest AGW-skepticism lobbies has been revealed to have this sort of internal agenda and practices? Does it bother you that there is now hard evidence that the energy industry, among others, actively funds an organization where the goal of undermining these theories in any way possible is frankly discussed within its ranks? These questions can and should be addressed rather than GW as a topic, as a whole.