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. ...
Interesting sidelight: links between anti-AGW fakery and the Tobacco Institute have been discussed for years. HERE‘s more confirmation (p. 22).
Also interesting: Heartland is bankrolling the Free To Choose Medicine project, which appears to be aimed at lessening FDA regulation of proposed drug candidates, as well as an anti-AGW curriculum for K-12 schools. (See HERE p. 18).
Thanks for posting this. I’ve had DeSmog Blog bookmarked for a long time, but haven’t looked at it in months. Time to put it back in my regular reading rotation. This information will come in handy when debating climate change deniers.
HERE‘s Chris Mooney’s take. He notes that the AGW deniers know that they are teaching crap, and that they want crap taught to K-12 students:
I have long defended the position that most global warming skeptics or deniers believe that they’re actually right about the science–they think it’s the environmentalists who are getting it wrong. However, such an interpretation doesn’t square well with this sort of language:
Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are pursuing a proposal…to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools…[this] effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.
This sounds as if the writer of the document knows that there is good science out there demonstrating that global warming is real, caused by humans–and still doesn’t want teachers to teach it.
Go Chris!
Note that the same ‘strategy’ of bamboozlement worked with the Tobacco Institute and now works with creationism.
One document, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute. It was not written by anyone associated with The Heartland Institute. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.
Reading the responses on that linked site I ran across this additional link where Chevron itself admits, and to their credit, claim to be addressing at least some of these issues.
Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science
By JUSTIN GILLIS and LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: February 15, 2012
Leaked documents suggest that an organization known for attacking climate science is planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools, the latest indication that climate change is becoming a part of the nation’s culture wars.
<snip>
While the documents offer a rare glimpse of the internal thinking motivating the campaign against climate science, defenders of science education were preparing for battle even before the leak. Efforts to undermine climate-science instruction are beginning to spread across the country, they said, and they fear a long fight similar to that over the teaching of evolution in public schools. ...
One document, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute. It was not written by anyone associated with The Heartland Institute. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.
The NYTimes article responded to this claim, making it appear essentially irrelevant:
Heartland did declare one two-page document to be a forgery, although its tone and content closely matched that of other documents that the group did not dispute. In an apparent confirmation that much of the material, more than 100 pages, was authentic, the group apologized to donors whose names became public as a result of the leak.
Finally, a mainstream news outlet lays out the truth:
It is in fact not a scientific controversy. The vast majority of climate scientists say that emissions generated by humans are changing the climate and putting the planet at long-term risk, although they are uncertain about the exact magnitude of that risk.
I hope the is the start of a trend in major newspapers.
Reading the responses on that linked site I ran across this additional link where Chevron itself admits, and to their credit, claim to be addressing at least some of these issues.
At Chevron, we recognize and share the concerns of governments and the public about climate change. The use of fossil fuels to meet the world’s energy needs is a contributor to an increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs)—mainly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane—in the Earth’s atmosphere. There is a widespread view that this increase is leading to climate change, with adverse effects on the environment
{...}
The two primary sources of our GHG emissions are combustion of fuels during our operations and, in some locations, flaring of the natural gas that is extracted along with crude oil. Chevron emitted 59.2 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent1
{...}
Chevron is working to minimize gas flaring and venting and the GHG emissions that result from this practice. and so on and so forth…
But then I’m reminded of the spill preparedness the oil companies promised us before shipping oil through the Prince William sound.
But when the drunken captain of the Exxon Valdez f’ked up… strike that… he was actually sleeping off a bender, leaving the third mate in charge and way out of his shipping lane…
It turned out most of those measures where long neglected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill
Ditto to the emergency response in the Gulf of Mexico…
Guess I’m saying pretty promises made for PR purposes don’t mean much in the real world. It’s the companies attitude and actions behind closed doors that matters.
Chevron has had the climate change stuff on its website for four or five years, maybe longer. Which Chevron executive was it that went to Congress and encouraged them to pass Obama’s fuel mileage standards? When did Chevron go to Congress and tell our representatives that adding corn ethanol to gasoline is a bad idea? What sustainable energy initiatives are Chevron working on?
