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Recently leaked documents from the Heartland Institute, a right wing funded think tank, outline a sinister plot to teach phony science and to dissuade teachers from teaching science in out schools. The documents were first published on desmogblog.com, a site dedicated to combating the disinformation campaign of climate change deniers.
Heartland reacted quickly on Wednesday when the documents first appeared, claiming they were stolen and that at least one was fake. One of the articles below is quite confident the the document, perhaps the most damning of the revelations, is in fact true. In the sixth link, “Leaked Docs From Heartland …,” Megan Mcardle of the Atlantic makes the case that the memo is in fact forged. Be sure to read both opinions. Then desmog blog responded to those comments in, “It’s a bird; it’s a hockey stick; it’s a faked document!” “Given the value of these documents to activists, it would be unfortunate to risk losing credibility by faking or altering any of the documents. Heartland had called on the press not to release any of the documents until they had verified them. How odd even for damage control. Most disgruntling for Heartland was that the many of their donors were identified. While the Koch brothers were identified as potential donors, they in fact have not donated to the institute for some time.
This became very personal for me when I saw that one of the articles listed USAA as a donor. USAA is “member owned” insurance company built on servicing past and present members of the military. I have been a member since 1963 and am incensed that they are using member funds to promote this anti-science foundation. I called the company and spoke to an aide in the CEO’s office. He promised to get back to me. I hope that the reference was wrong. Meanwhile, Bill Gates has made a statement disavowing the institutes climate denial. You can read that post here. Note that some of the commenters are not buying Gates explanation.
Several articles mention ClimateGate. For those who are unfamiliar with that incident, you can find details in Wikipedia: Climatic Research Unit email controversy. The hacked emails that were conveniently distributed just prior to Copenhagen Summit were shown to have been carefully selected and take out of context to in order to discredit the scientists and the science. The story received much press. The result of the investigations that exonerated the scientists went mostly unpublished and unnoticed. The following article at desmogblog, “Climategate victims chide Heartland double standard,” points out the Heartland was quick to take bits and pieces of the purloined emails out of context and at no time suggested that the hackers had been wrong to steal the information.
Two of the following articles compare the Heartland Institute leak as being a reverse ClimateGate without fingering Heartland as the culprit in the East Anglia incident. Note in these articles that Heartland is very busy with damage control. The first article is the original response by Heartland on February 15. The letter is almost surreal.
The last link is to the addresses of the Heartland Board of Directors. You may wish to send them a message expressing your opinion.
Heartland Institute responds to document theft
Heartland Institute Caught With Its Pants Down on Global Warming
Koch-Funded Institute Hopes To Make Kids Climate Change Skeptics: Video
Heartland Institute Exposed: Internal Documents Unmask Heart of Climate Denial Machine (Updated)
Leaked Docs From Heartland Institute Cause a Stir—but Is One a Fake?
ExxonSecrets Fact Sheet: Heartland Institute
Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science
A Reverse Climategate for “Deniers”?
A reverse ‘climategate’ stings Heartland Institute
NASA finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record
A think tank/lobby group wants to try to put out a message aimed at educating children. That's only scary if you live in a marxist world where kids aren't expected to take evidence from a variety of sources and think for themselves which is most reliable.
It isn't scary … if you don't think that information from the Heartland Institute will actually be taken a lot more seriously than your warmist propaganda … because like the key document, your warmist propaganda was faked!
The global warming data was not faked. What was faked is that it was faked. One of the real tragedies here is that the United States has already fallen behind in science knowledge and these traitors wish to dumb down our kids even more. Perhaps you do not think science is important.
Admin, if you look you will find that it is widely accepted by sceptics and non-sceptics that the key document was faked.
And yes I agree, we need science, we need to base our decisions on the real science and not hypothetical speculations. Real science indicates that a doubling of CO2 will lead to around 1C warming. That is what the accepted science is. The non-science is these hypothetical unproven, voodoo feedbacks which this charlatans use to increase the real science warming of around 1C to around 6C for a doubling.
Now unlike you, I'm not afraid for children to be taught about these possible feedback effects, so long as children are taught that there are possible positive feedbacks that increase the 1C and there are equally negative feedbacks that decrease it. Nor am I afraid to let children know that e.g. in the 1690s a quarter of Scotland's population died from cold during the maunder minimum nor that there are indications we may be entering a new maunder minimum … but I would ensure that this is not taught as hysterical non-science stoking up fears, and instead taught in a way that explains it is a normal part of natural climatic variation and whilst it may cause problems, if we plan we should be able to cope with any cooling, just as we will cope with the small amount of warming which will happen so slowly and to such a small degree that it will be almost impossible to distinguish within the usual climate variation.
Please identify what you mean by "Key Document" and please give me the source of your science that indicates that a doubling of CO2 will lead to 1 degree C increase in temperature. Which people are you calling charlatans? does that include all climate scientists with whom you disagree. Would you classify yourself as a climate change denier or sceptic. What are your scientific credentials.
The key document is the one that everyone is quoting from to get lines like this:
"teach phony science and to dissuade teachers from teaching science in out schools"
All I got from reading the other documents is that they want to put together modules on global warming for schools. If they are rubbish then I doubt any schools will use them. If they are unbiased and based on research what is there to fear?
One of the articles say that they contacted the contractor who verified that he was working on that and they went on to check his credentials and he is unqualified in the subject.