The Desmogblog revelation

[orogenicman]

http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-exposed-internal-documents-unmask-heart-climate-denial-machine
 
Internal Heartland Institute strategy and funding documents obtained by DeSmogBlog expose the heart of the climate denial machine – its current plans, many of its funders, and details that confirm what DeSmogBlog and others have reported for years. The heart of the climate denial machine relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more.
 We are releasing the entire trove of documents now to allow crowd-sourcing of the material. Here are a few quick highlights, stay tuned for much more.
-Confirmation that Charles G. Koch Foundation is again funding Heartland Institute’s global warming disinformation campaign. Greenpeace’s Koch reports show the last time Heartland received Koch funding was in 1999.

The January 2012 Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy states:
 <blockquote> “We will also pursue additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. They returned as a Heartland donor in 2011 with a contribution of $200,000. We expect to push up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to their network of philanthropists, if our focus continues to align with their interests. Other contributions will be pursued for this work, especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies.”</blockquote> -Heartland Institute’s global warming denial machine is chiefly – and perhaps entirely – funded by one Anonymous donor:
 <blockquote> Our climate work is attractive to funders, especially our key Anonymous Donor (whose contribution dropped from $1,664,150 in 2010 to $979,000 in 2011 - about 20% of our total 2011 revenue). He has promised an increase in 2012…”</blockquote> -Confirmation of exact amounts flowing to certain key climate contrarians.
 <blockquote> “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.”</blockquote>
  -As Brad Johnson reported today at ThinkProgress, confirmation that Heartland is working with David Wojick, a U.S. Energy Department contract worker and coal industry consultant, to develop a ‘Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Schools.’
-Forbes and other business press are favored outlets for Heartland’s dissemination of climate denial messages, and the group is worried about maintaining that exclusive space. They note in particular the work of Dr. Peter Gleick:
 <blockquote> “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.” (emphasis added)</blockquote> Note the irony here that Heartland Institute – one of the major mouthpieces behind the debunked ‘Climategate’ email theft who harped about the suppression of denier voices in peer-reviewed literature – now defending its turf in the unscientific business magazine realm.
-Interesting mentions of Andrew Revkin as a potential ally worth “cultivating,” along with Judith Curry.
 <blockquote> “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 Romm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who has become popular with our supporters).”</blockquote> -Confirmation that skeptic blogger Anthony Watts is part of Heartland’s funded network of misinformation communicators.
 <blockquote> “We 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.”</blockquote> Stay tuned for more details as DeSmogBlog and others dig through this trove of Heartland Institute documents. The Heartland Institute's legacy of evasion of this level of transparency and accountability has now been shattered.
Read the pdf documents, ALL of them:
Internal Heartland Institute strategy and funding documents obtained by DeSmogBlog expose the heart of the climate denial machine – its current plans, many of its funders, and details that confirm what DeSmogBlog and others have reported for years. The heart of the climate denial machine relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more.

Minutes of January 17 board meeting (.doc)

Agenda for January 17, 2012 Board Meeting
 
Board Meeting Package January 17, 2012

Board Directory January 2012

Binder 1 (maybe overlap with above documents)

2012 Heartland Budget

2012 Heartland Fundraising Plan

2010 Heartland IRS Form 990 (public document)

[orogenicman]

Now, in light of all the illegal and unethical activities that the climate deniers have engaged in (i.e., violating international law with regard to hacking into government e-mail servers and publishing personal e-mails on the internet), and particularly since the above was the result of actions by The Heartland Institute itself, isn't it rather ironic to see them crying fowl???
 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevezwick/2012/02/16/what-happened-at-heartland/
 
The Heartland Institute yesterday lashed out at the blogosphere for reporting on the contents of leaked documents that appeared on DeSmogBlog. Their prepared statement contained this appeal to the better angels of our nature:
 
“…honest disagreement should never be used to justify the criminal acts and fraud that occurred in the past 24 hours,” the statement said. “As a matter of common decency and journalistic ethics, we ask everyone in the climate change debate to sit back and think about what just happened.”
 
Yes, let’s think of what just happened – and why stop 24 hours ago (or, more accurately, 48 hours ago at this point)? Why not go back a decade or even two? Or a century? Or longer?
 
Let’s think of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which aggregates research from thousands of scientists and then summarizes it in conservative assessment reports that have been vetted hundreds of times over before being released to the public.
 
Let’s think of the people who attack the IPCC – people who have no qualms about pulling isolated sentences out of early drafts of thousand-page documents and then using them to try and discredit an entire body of research.
 
Let’s think of climate scientists – geeky types who, for the most part, grew up with a sense of wonder at the world around them, devoted their lives to learning, and now spend their time modeling clouds and currents or digging into ice sheets.
 
Let’s think of the community of climate science – which spent the last century modeling the skies and the seas as early generations grew old and died and subsequent generations carried on, tested the theories, discarded the ones that didn’t hold up, and kept the ones that did.
 
Let’s think of how the notion emerged that man’s activities were first going to alter the atmosphere, then might be altering the atmosphere, and – finally – were almost certainly altering the atmosphere.
 
Let’s think of how this evidence slowly began to mount across the scientific community, how it came into focus from data points across the globe, from ice sheets and tree rings to physical measurements.
 
Let’s think of how scientists – as is their wont – questioned this evidence, attacked it – “honestly disagreed” with it – until they had no choice but to acknowledge that their worst fears were, in fact, coming true.
 
Let’s think of how they came to realize that our current practices were bringing us to a cliff that will kill our crops, dry our prairies, and destroy our economy. Let’s think of the subsistence farmers in Kenya who are currently suffering a drought that Arizonans can’t even comprehend, or the indigenous tribes of the Amazon who will suffer under climate change – or the mass migrations that will threaten our national security.
 
Let’s think of the absurd belief that a global community of highly-educated scientists would collude to create a false body of knowledge just so they can make a buck.
 
Let’s think of the military, which is already taking steps to protect us from the consequences of our own apathy.
 
And let’s think of the unsavory tactics that were used to discredit credible scientists – tactics that have been documented over and over again in books like Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway and Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming by James Hoggan with Richard Littlemore (who also launched the DeSmogBlog in 2006).
 
Let’s think of the consequences of these tactics – of the inexpensive solutions that have been deferred – and made unnecessarily expensive – as a result, and of the nasty tone of our rhetoric – a tone that doesn’t come naturally to most of us, but which we will adapt if we have to.
 
Let’s think of a shepherd tending his flock, threatened by vandals. Let’s think of the moment he puts down his staff and takes up his spear. Let’s think of the costs of that action: the untended flock, the unwoven coat, the uneaten meat. Let’s weigh that against the cost of inaction.
 
Yes, let’s think of what just happened – and why it happened, and what’s at stake, and what we can do about it. Let’s look at the science and not the subterfuge. Let’s examine the costs of action and weigh them against the costs of inaction. Let’s examine the evidence for and against, and weigh the veracity of of both. Let’s get real.

[Mishka1]

Let's think of UEA violating FOIA laws. Of Jones urging others to delete public property emails. That Jones conspired to keep valid clare papers from being published, even if he has to change the peer review process. That he theatened editors if they printed articles from other scientists he disagreed with (is that like keeping dissenting voices out ofnthe public domain, what you accuse Heartland of doing?)
Let's put all of these parties under oath, with the threat ofmthose and or prison time for lying, and get to the truth. Are you game? We know Jones and Mann aren't.

[orogenicman]

Let's think of UEA violating FOIA laws. Of Jones urging others to delete public property emails. That Jones conspired to keep valid clare papers from being published, even if he has to change the peer review process. That he theatened editors if they printed articles from other scientists he disagreed with (is that like keeping dissenting voices out ofnthe public domain, what you accuse Heartland of doing?)
Let's put all of these parties under oath, with the threat ofmthose and or prison time for lying, and get to the truth. Are you game? We know Jones and Mann aren't.

Let's think of the fact that none of those claims have ever been found to be relevant to the fact that AGW is real.

[Mishka1]

It's been theroized and the data supporting the theories keeps getting knocked down. The supposed smoking gun paper of those released is a fake. Now known as FakeGate.

[orogenicman]

It's been theroized and the data supporting the theories keeps getting knocked down. The supposed smoking gun paper of those released is a fake. Now known as FakeGate.

De-nile is not a river in Egypt, but is a modus operandi of the "Denial Machine".  Congratulations.

[Mishka1]

But it for Jones, Mann, Briffa, et al. They deny every FOIA request and have lost every court case.

[orogenicman]

But it for Jones, Mann, Briffa, et al. They deny every FOIA request and have lost every court case.

Every court case?  Well, yes, they were required to abide by FOIA rules.  So what?  The fact remains that NOTHING produced by the deniers refutes the fact of AGW, because AGW is real.  And even some hard core deniers are now accepting this simple truth.  And yet, now the deniers find themselves on the other sie of the coin, having to answer to the facts found in their own "stolen" information.  Let's see Watt explain why, if he is such an "independent" observer, he is being paid for his efforts by the very folks who have a vested interest in climate change denials.

[Abraham3]

 derekcrane
Mr Zwick,

Are you talking about the same scientists who need the prodding of FOIA litigation to release their code and data to other scientists , information needed for replication of study results — the essence of the scientific process?

Are these the scientists who, with a wink and nod, approved the infamous “hockey stick,” which when statistically scrutinized fell harder than Building 7 on 9/11? The IPCC quietly dropped any reference to the hockey stick in all subsequent reports.

Are these the same scientists who conduct their research by “consensus” rather than by a rigorous scientific process not influenced by politics and the lucre of overly-generous government and foundation grants?

Are these the scientists who refuse to debate any element of the issue in public forum, claiming that no debate is necessary because “the science has been settled.”

No, organizations like The Heartland Institute are needed to present even the modicum of dissent the public needs to make an informed decision on an issue which can have considerable financial costs to them. Partisans like Al Gore and George Soros (and their paid accomplices) should not have the only word on the subject.
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 John P. Reisman 22 hours ago

1. Hidden code? Here are links to the code that has been available, much of it for many, many years:

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/hidden-code-data

2. Hockey Stick?The hockey stick is alive and well at the IPCC and in all the major datasets covering the recent past in the Holocene..

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/the-hockey-stick

3. Consensus? Consensus is what results from rigorous scientific process.

4. Lucrative? Scientists don’t get rich on grants they have to spend the money on research and equipment and expenses.

5. Debate? Science is actually not so much about debate as what the data indicates.

The Heartland Institute has proven unable and generally incapable of providing even a modicum of reasonability in the climate debate when it’s position is weighed against science. What you are saying is that we should place foolishness above evidence. That’s a pretty liberal stand.
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  Chris Harlos 21 hours ago

Good comebacks to denialist nonsense. Heartland is a front for Big Oil. Paid lobbyists. Their communications are fact free marketing and PR.
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  kj77nw 20 hours ago

“3. Consensus? Consensus is what results from rigorous scientific process.”

That is total and utter nonsense. “Consensus” is irrelevant in science. What matters if reproducibility, explicability, and mathematical correctness. If you can’t reproduce or derive a particular result yourself, your opinion about the veracity of that result is worthless, and most of the people who are supposedly part of that “consensus” clearly lack the training or expertise to do so.

If consensus settled things, we wouldn’t have quantum mechanics or relativity, because the overwhelming majority of physicists used to have a consensus that physics worked entirely differently.
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  John P. Reisman 20 hours ago

kj77nw

What is interesting about your comment is that you misunderstand what ‘rigorous scientific process’ means. It means precisely what you said. So your post seems confused. Consensus comes from what results from “reproducibility, explicability, and mathematical correctness”
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  derekcrane 19 hours ago

Mr. Reisman:

1)The IPCC is like AG Holder, who sends Congressional investigators thousands of documents about “Fast & Furious,” but withholds all pertinent info and claims that he has been totally cooperative with requests for information. The IPCC continues to restrict access to some of their most pertinent information. Read about Steve McIntyre’s latest experience with the IPCC: http://climateaudit.org/2012/01/26/another-ipcc-demand-for-secrecy/#more-15485
2) The original Mann hockey stick has, indeed, been replaced. You can call the replacement a “hockey stick” but it has been broken upward at the handle and flattened at the blade end. Recent data, continual statistical scrutiny and more sophisticated models will certainly flatten the blade in the next IPCC Report.
3) The results of rigorous scientific process is scientific knowledge. Consensus is too amorphous of a term to be tested. It can be influenced by politics, money, philosophy and, occasionally, the facts.
4) No one knows exactly how much is spent on climate change research annually, however, the GAO ( http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-317 ) found that the federal government allocated $8.8 billion to climate change activities in 2010. Additionally, each state funds research. Foundations give more. And many countries add to the pot. Someone, somewhere is getting rich!
5) Debate is an excellent tool in which to include the public in the process. After all, they are being asked to pay the bill. They should know the wheres and whys (and whethers) about the large amount of resources they are being asked to contribute to “The Cause.”
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 Author Steve Zwick, Contributor 19 hours ago

Actually, kj77nw, the consensus on quantum mechanics and relativity is fairly clear.

I think that what you’re trying to say is that the scientific community was initially skeptical of both because the ideas were new and untested.

That’s true, but the community came around, and it came around by subjecting the ideas to skeptical inquiry. They withstood that inquiry, and are now the consensus view.

Likewise, there was a time when the climate-change theory was new and untested — a time that spans more than 100 years. During that time, when evidence was foggy, it made sense to be “skeptical”. But as evidence mounted to the point of becoming overwhelming, it ceased making sense. Today, if you deny the existence man-made climate-change, you are not being skeptical of a new and untested theory — rather, you are denying the existence of overwhelming evidence.

You are, in other words, a denialist.
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  John P. Reisman 19 hours ago

Mr. derekcrane

1. Comparing ‘Fast & Furious’ with the IPCC is a non sequitur. The reason for secrecy in the IPCC process is increase the integrity of the process and not allow immature information that is not fully vetted to get out into a blogosphere that will say see, see, this information is not even fully vetted yet.

2. The original Hockey stick still stands as well though but within the constraints of its own study parameters. The other hockey sticks generally show the same pattern though. Stephen McIntyre proved it was wrong but only by about 3 hundredths of a degree and his correct in was found after review not be statistically insignificant and scientifically unsound in context.

3. Consensus by definition means general agreement. The data is clear, we are warming and we have increased the radiative forcing. Also, it’s not the consensus you test, it’s the evidence and the physics. The testable hypothesis that were raised in the 50′s through the 70′s (some as early as the 1890′s and 1920′s) have not proven true.

4. First, I’m not saying that scientists don’t like to get research grants, they do. Otherwise they would not apply for them. And there is always the jump on the bandwagon reality of hey, there’s gold in them thar hills, let’s go get some. That said, the great majority of scientists that receive monies for research, half often goes to institutional admin, and with what’s left, the scientist in charge needs to pay for supplies, travel and the research. What most people don’t know though is that often , the money for the grant is deducted form their salaries. The only extra money they make is from any overtime they put in. So if your saying they should not make any money for the extra work they do, as capitalist, I have to disagree.

5. A somewhat fair point, but keep in mind the facts as known and the relative confidence intervals are not debatable; but if they want to know the wheres and whys (and whethers) about the large amount of resources they are being asked to contribute then they need to learn the science, and not form the blogosphere, from the scientific papers and the consensus conclusion that have been reached.
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 Author Steve Zwick, Contributor 15 hours ago

No, derekcrane – the scientists I’m referring to actually exist.