Leaked Heartland Institute Documents Reveal Opposition To Science

New submitter bheerssen writes with an excerpt from an article by The Bad Astronomer: "The Heartland Institute — a self-described 'think tank' that actually serves in part as a way for climate change denialism to get funded — has a potentially embarrassing situation on their hands. Someone going by the handle 'Heartland Insider' has anonymously released quite a few of what are claimed to be internal documents from Heartland, revealing the Institute's strategies, funds, and much more." At least one site has the documents in question.

Re:Relevant portion of one of the documents

[crawling_chaos]

part of those who deny that climate changes naturally.

And the straw men come out in force. I am not aware of anyone sane who denies that there is such a thing a natural climate change. If that's the best you've got, you are even weaker ground.

Interestingly enough, the Heartland Institute used to work for the Phillip Morris to deny that tobacco was a health risk. While this does not make their position automatically invalid, it doesn't help that they've been involved in the past to put profits ahead of scientific fact. Are you unwilling to cast any skepticism toward their positions based on that track record of paid for lies?

I think the real problem is that if humans are causing global warming, it is feared that there is no Libertarian solution to the problem, thus disproving the "markets, markets, uber alles" dogma rather conclusively. Rather than accepting the science and trying to find a solution that is compatible with deeply held political views, it is easier to deny the science. We see the same from the Greens with regard to modern nuclear plants, which are far cleaner suppliers of baseline power overall than the current alternatives.

Key climate-related takeaways

[AdamHaun]

The most damning part of the climate strategy document wasn't the curriculum stuff, it was this:

Expanded climate communications
Heartland plays an important role in climate communications, especially through our in-house
experts (e.g., Taylor) through his Forbes blog and related high profile outlets, our conferences,
and through coordination with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of
rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts).
Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high
profile climate scientists (such as Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own.
This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep
opposing voices out. Efforts might also include cultivating more neutral voices with big
audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of
the more extreme AGW communicators such as Rornm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who
has become popular with our supporters). AVe have also pledged to help raise around $90,000 in
2012 for Anthony Watts to help him create a new website to track temperature station data.

In other words, they don't want a debate.

The budget document says that their key projects are (in order of funding): eliminating or reducing FDA approval requirements for new medicines, opposing the Wisconsin recall elections (i.e. anti-union activity), opposing global warming, supporting charter schools and the privatization of education, supporting fracking, and a couple of Chicago-specific items. The Wisconsin work goes by the name Operation Angry Badger, for no apparent reason.

The fundraising document is the most interesting, and describes an "Anonymous Donor" who once gave them half of their money but is now merely the largest donor. This donor is particularly interested in climate change, and has earmarked the majority of his donations for related projects.

Heartland has an anonymous donor who has given as much as half the organizations’ entire
budget in some past years, and currently gives about one-fifth of total receipts. Renewing
him each year and keeping him informed and engaged is a major responsibility of the
President. We regularly solicite his ideas for new projects

There's a description of their anti-IPCC report project:

Heartland sponsors the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), an
international network of scientists who write and speak out on climate change. Heartland pays a
team of scientists approximately $300,000 a year to work on a series of editions of Climate
Change Reconsidered, the most comprehensive and authoritative rebuttal of the United Nations’
IPCC reports. Another $88,000 is earmarked for Heartland staff, incremental expenses, and
overhead for editing, expense reimbursement for the authors, and marketing.

NIPCC is currently funded by two gifts a year from two foundations, both of them requesting
anonymity. In 2012 we plan to solicit gifts from other donors to add to what these two donors are
giving in order to cover more of our fixed costs for promoting the first two Climate Change
Reconsidered volumes and writing and editing the volume scheduled for release in 2013. We
hope to raise $200,000 in 2012.

Again with the anonymous donors.

There's a long description of the anti-AGW curriculum project. It was proposed by a consultant who works with the Department of Energy, Dr. David Wojick. Wojick studies science education, and his knowledge of national test requirements and contacts in educational organizations are described as his key attributes. He is not described as a climate scientist.

Many people lament the absence of educational material sui

Re:So...

[GameboyRMH]

Knock yourself out buddy:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/ [realclimate.org]

Re:So...

[GameboyRMH]

Oh, and just in case you want to save yourself the effort of re-reproducing the effort:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/1021/Climate-study-funded-in-part-by-conservative-group-confirms-global-warming [csmonitor.com]

Re:So...

[epiphani]

Fred Singer was actually one of those same people denying that smoking caused cancer. [google.com]

It's the same asshole liars.

Re:Relevant portion of one of the documents

[forkfail]

There aren't any more.

Back in the '50's and '60's, there sure were.

Phillip-Morris famously hired doctors to tell folks that smoking was actually good for your health when the first medical studies were coming out that indicated that smoking was bad for you.

Then there were years of "second hand smoking doesn't cause harm" from the tobacco lobby sponsored "scientists".

Absolutely there were smoking denialists that wound up enabling the tobacco pushers to sell their deadly product for decades without full knowledge of the effect by their victims, and give smokers a much wanted mental crutch not to face the consequences of their actions.
 

Re:So...

[BasilBrush]

Which, like most things you read on the Heartland Institute funded WattUpWithThat blog, isn't true.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120130_CowardsPart2.pdf [columbia.edu]

Re:So...

[riverat1]

If you go here: Data Sources [realclimate.org]

You will find a link to Mann et al (1998/1999) [psu.edu] which has the data and code that Michael Mann and his coauthors used in the original "Hockey Stick" graph. If you want the original raw data I think you'll have to go to the original papers that Mann got his data from.