The Heartland Institute

Nu er der dokumentation

Mange har haft mistanke om The Heartland Instituts rolle.

Nu er der dokumentation.

Mange har haft mistanke om The Heartland Instituts rolle. Nu er der dokumentation

IMO, that is - taler ikke for andre

rick_uk skrev:
Heartland Institute responds

De interne notatene og rapportene avslører også et nettverk av forskere, forretningsfolk og lobbyister som får betalt av Heartland for å motarbeide FNs klimapanel.

If the memo was written in January, as it claims, how come it was scanned into a computer on February 13th, instead of being made into a PDF along with the rest of the board package in mid-January?

Unless there's an explanation I'm missing, that seems to clinch it--why would health care donations show up in their climate strategy report? Unless of course, it was written by someone who doesn't know anything about facts of the donation, but does know that the Kochs make great copy.

The fact that the document was created at a different time, place and manner, from the others, that it makes errors about things like the purpose of Koch funds, and that Heartland has unequivocally denied authorship while seeming to concede the authenticity of the other documents, should lead any honest observer to at least reasonable doubt.

There's a reason that the majority of the quotes in the early blogging and reporting on this story seem to have been taken from the memo, including the initial post on DeSmogBlog. For example, someone named Richard Littlemore wrote "It is clear from the documents that Heartland advocates against responsible climate mitigation and then uses that advocacy to raise money from oil companies and 'other corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies.' Heartland particularly celebrates the funding that it receives from the fossil fuel fortune being the Charles G. Koch Foundation." That is all taken from the memo, not the supporting documents. The fundraising document actually contains no record that I can see of contributions from oil companies.


The climate blogs presumably relied so heavily on the memo because the quotes were punchier, and suggested far darker motivations than the blandly professional language of the authenticated documents--and because it edited the facts into a neat, almost narrative story.

Full disclosure: One of the donors in the apparently authenticated documents is Charles Koch, and my husband did a year-long fellowship with the Koch Foundation. However, nothing I'm going to write either defends or indicts Mr. Koch, who's actually pretty incidental to both Heartland's funding, and this story.


I should also probably note that I disagree pretty strenuously with Heartland's position on global warming. I not only believe that anthropogenic global warming is happening, but also support stiff carbon or source fuels taxes in order to combat it. While I've expressed some dismay at the behavior revealed in the leaked Climategate memos, they haven't changed my mind about the reality, or the danger, of global warming. I'm not defending Heartland's stance on climate science; I'm mostly interested in this because I have a longstanding fascination with fake quotes and documents.


Now, caveats out of the way, here's why I think that memo is probably fake:


1. All of the documents are high-quality PDFs generated from original electronic files . . . except for the "Climate Strategy" memo. (Hereinafter, "the memo"). That appears to have been printed out and scanned, though it may also have been faxed........

Top Ten Things Heartland Institute Will Do With $6.4 Million in Funding

10. Build a secret oil-powered nuclear-powered coal-powered lair on a South Pacific Island.
9. Arrange Arctic polar-bear hunting expeditions for wealthy contributors. With bazookas for top donors.
8. Train an armada of millions of kamikaze pigeons to fly into wind turbines, gumming up the works.
7. Replace Mitt Romney with a remote-controlled animatronic robot. Oh wait, that's been done.
6. Exploit our Microsoft connection to install mind-controlling stroboscopic subliminal video messages in Windows Phone 7. People do use Windows Phone 7, don't they?
5. Create the "Happy Children Fund" to provide subsidized tobacco products to pre-teens. Better yet, put it in their school lunches.
4. Genetically engineer a breed of SuperFlatulenttm cattle to emit a Gaia-destroying flood of methane into the atmosphere.
3. Re-train the armada of pigeons to defecate on solar panels. Maybe do this before #8.
2. Hijack a nuclear warhead and hold the world to ransom for one million dollars!
1. Send an obviously faked-up memo to DeSmogBlog to make them look ridiculous. Oh wait...

Instead the hyped non-denier-gate shows just how incredibly successful the Heartland Institute is. Look at the numbers. The skeptics have managed to turn the propaganda around against a tide of money, and it is really some achievement.

...

Entity USD
Greenpeace $300m 2010 Annual Report
WWF $700m " ($524m Euro)
Pew Charitable Trust $360m 2010 Annual Report
Sierra Club $56m 2010 Annual Report
NSW climate change fund (just one random govt example) $750m NSW Gov (A$700m)
UK university climate fund (just another random govt example) $360m UK Gov (£234 m)
Heartland Institute $7m (actually $6.4m) US government funding for climate science and technology $7,000m "Climate Money" 2009
US government funding for "climate related appropriations" $1,300m USAID 2010
Annual turnover in global carbon markets $120,000m
2010 Point Carbon
Annual investment in renewable energy $243,000m
2010 BNEF
US government funding for skeptical scientists $ 0

These are annual turnovers or annual budgets

So what the expose shows is that the Heartland Institute punches far above its weight with an incredibly efficient budget. That is, of course, assuming that the so-called expose is real and not a fake, or altered, which it could be, watch the Heartland site for any confirmation or information. [UPDATE: It was, see here]

This is a wake up call to the freedom loving people of the world, it's time to make donations a regular part of your monthly budget to support all the people out there who work on your behalf. The fact that Heartland has only one major, generous donor is remarkable. Where are the rest?

The hypocrisy is flagrant. The Sierra Club listed a category for $1,000,000 donations by "anonymous donors" in their 2010 annual report. Strangely DeSmog didn't froth with anticipation. Their Sierra Club annual report mentions "Matching Gifts", and apparently supporters who matched gifts include the evil Exxon, not to mention GoldMan Sachs, Barclays, Google, Monsanto, Nestle, Yahoo, Bank of America, and many many more. But that's alright then.

And if Bob Carter receives an honorarium type amount of $1500 a month, the pull of those big dollars must be powerfully tempting for people like Tim Flannery who struggle along on about $1200 each day he works.

If the sceptics' conspiracy was real, why fake the evidence?
The problem with the great international conspiracy of climate sceptics is that it's so small and innocent that a disappointed warmist who steals documents from the Heartland Institute finds they must fake the main one to get media attention.

Sounds a bit like their tree-ring research.

...se lige her hvor godt Heartland Institute giver value for money

Eksempel: Buddhister kan brænde kirker og moskéer.

Den mere beskidte del af klimadebatten tager for tiden endnu en omgang. Mediedækningen i Danmark er fraværende. Det er måske meget godt, men her er et resume.

Du husker nok "Climategate"? I passende timing lækkede anonyme hackere lige inden klimatopmødet i København (COP15, 2009) uddrag af en række emails de havde stjålet fra klimaforskere. Klimaskeptikere og medier gik i forenet selvsving. Siden blev forskerne renset for anklager, hackerne efterforsket af myndighederne - imens medierne med røde ører pludselig enten fortiede historien eller fordrejede tilbagevisningen af Climategate.

For en lille uges tid siden kom der så et ny læk: Interne dokumenter fra Heartland Institute afslørede organisationens skruppelløse ageren i klimadebatten, deres økonomiske bagmænd og projekter. Vores værste frygt er velbegrundet og sand. De sædvanlige mistænkte samt f.eks. Bill 'Microsoft' Gates donerer, de står bag den partiske "forskning" bag misinformationen på de førende klimaskeptiske websites OG de planlagde at udarbejde undervisningsmateriale til skoler. Siden har Peter Gleick, forsker i vandforsyning, brødebetynget indrømmet at det er ham, der har narret Heartland til selv at udlevere dokumenterne.

De samme mennesker, der i sin tid hyldede de kriminelle hackere bag Climategate, fortier nu Denialgate og fordømmer Peter Gleick. Men hov? Hvis man er skeptiker, burde man vel imødekomme enhver "afsløring"? Ny information burde blive underkastet intens undersøgelse. Eksisterende viden burde holdes op imod den nye. Denialgate har en gang for alle afsløret klimaskeptikerne: De er ikke slet ikke skeptikere. De er et hylekor af politiske støjsendere.

Denialgate har også afsløret nogle bagmænd som hyklere. Stenrige folk der fører sig frem i offentligheden som filantroper har bag vores ryg undergravet videnskabens mulighed for at understøtte den demokratiske beslutningsproces.

At Peter Gleick, der blot fuppede Heartland med en mail, nu udsættes for heksejagt imens Climategate-hackerne blev hyldet som helte sætter vel blot en tyk streg under hykleriet.

Danske medier dækker groft sagt slet ikke Denialgate. Information havde en kort artikel tidligt i forløbet (Klimaskeptikere smager egen medicin) og 180grader (af alle) har en notits (Denialgate - Indsigt i hvordan klimabenægtelsen arrangeres) som sitets neoliberale brugere ihærdigt stemmer ned. Måske fordi debatten er slut i Danmark, og benægterne stort set begrænser sig til en sekt neoliberale eller bare dårligt informerede konspirationsteoretikere? - en lille gruppe i Danmark, en stor gruppe i USA. Måske fordi ingen er så meget som en smule overrasket over endnu en stak bevis for, at misinformationen om klimaforskningen stammer fra en velorganiseret og økonomisk velpolstret spin-maskine? Måske fordi visse danske journalister stadig er pinlige over dækningen af Climategate?

Whatever one thinks of skeptics, they do not see themselves as anti-science. Rather, they believe climate research leads to different conclusions than the warmers do. So true sceptics would never try to discourage the teaching of science, they would instead see their goal as the teaching of a more balanced science.

It is the warmers who have convinced themselves that their conclusions are irrefutable. Therefore anyone who doubts their conclusions must be antiscience. So it is likely a warmer masquerading as a sceptic who would think it sensible to write the line about discouraging the teaching of science.

But perhaps the most convincing evidence of the confidential memo's forgery is that, according its electronic signature, it was created on Feb. 13, a month after the documents Dr. Gleick obtained through deception, but only a day before DeSmog and the others posted the Heartland cache.

That just seems a little too coincidental.

I min bog er det kun evidensen der tæller, uanset hvem der betaler gildet, dette er og bliver IPCC´s største problem!

...When the history of the decline and fall of the world's most damaging scare comes to be written, l'affaire Gleick will only be a brief footnote. But it does suggest how desperate those who wish to keep the scare alive have become.

More importantly, however, it should focus our attention once again on the fact that we are still being presented with by far the biggest bill in history, to counter a threat that never actually existed.

Benno: At Peter Gleick, der blot fuppede Heartland med en mail, nu udsættes for heksejagt imens Climategate-hackerne blev hyldet som helte sætter vel blot en tyk streg under hykleriet.

Du husker nok "Climategate"? I passende timing lækkede anonyme hackere lige inden klimatopmødet i København (COP15, 2009) uddrag af en række emails de havde stjålet fra klimaforskere.

Klimaskeptikere og medier gik i forenet selvsving.

Siden blev forskerne renset for anklager

, hackerne efterforsket af myndighederne

- imens medierne med røde ører pludselig enten fortiede historien eller fordrejede tilbagevisningen af Climategate.

For en lille uges tid siden kom der så et ny læk

Interne dokumenter fra Heartland Institute afslørede organisationens skruppelløse ageren i klimadebatten, deres økonomiske bagmænd og projekter. Vores værste frygt er velbegrundet og sand.

De sædvanlige mistænkte

samt f.eks. Bill 'Microsoft' Gates donerer, de står bag den partiske "forskning" bag misinformationen på de førende klimaskeptiske websites OG de planlagde at udarbejde undervisningsmateriale til skoler.

Siden har Peter Gleick, forsker i vandforsyning, brødebetynget indrømmet at det er ham, der har narret Heartland til selv at udlevere dokumenterne.

De samme mennesker, der i sin tid hyldede de kriminelle hackere bag Climategate, fortier nu Denialgate og fordømmer Peter Gleick.

Men hov? Hvis man er skeptiker, burde man vel imødekomme enhver "afsløring"? Ny information burde blive underkastet intens undersøgelse. Eksisterende viden burde holdes op imod den nye. Denialgate har en gang for alle afsløret klimaskeptikerne: De er ikke slet ikke skeptikere. De er et hylekor af politiske støjsendere.

Denialgate har også afsløret nogle bagmænd som hyklere. Stenrige folk der fører sig frem i offentligheden som filantroper har bag vores ryg undergravet videnskabens mulighed for at understøtte den demokratiske beslutningsproces.

At Peter Gleick, der blot fuppede Heartland med en mail, nu udsættes for heksejagt imens Climategate-hackerne blev hyldet som helte sætter vel blot en tyk streg under hykleriet.

Danske medier dækker groft sagt slet ikke Denialgate. Information havde en kort artikel tidligt i forløbet (Klimaskeptikere smager egen medicin) og 180grader (af alle) har en notits (Denialgate - Indsigt i hvordan klimabenægtelsen arrangeres) som sitets neoliberale brugere ihærdigt stemmer ned. Måske fordi debatten er slut i Danmark, og benægterne stort set begrænser sig til en sekt neoliberale eller bare dårligt informerede konspirationsteoretikere? - en lille gruppe i Danmark, en stor gruppe i USA.

Måske fordi ingen er så meget som en smule overrasket over endnu en stak bevis

for, at misinformationen om klimaforskningen stammer fra en velorganiseret og økonomisk velpolstret spin-maskine?

Måske fordi visse danske journalister stadig er pinlige over dækningen af Climategate

When the University of East Anglia's servers were hacked and emails stolen, the victims — the climate scientists whose largely innocuous messages got misrepresented all over the blogosphere — were subjected to multiple independent investigations (and cleared). The hackers? Not so much. Nobody really knew who did it or apparently cared. But evidently they're cracking down now, because police in England just seized the computers of Roger Tattersall, a denialist blogger connected with the second hacked email release.

bennohansen skrev:
Men man burde måske gå over til at debattere hvordan klimaforandringerne bremses og afhjælpes, hvilke politiske valg, der skal tages, osv - og så lægge den tåbelige dagsorden for afsporing af videnskaben bag os.

Klimadebat er et af de steder hvor der rent faktisk foregår en debat hvor der argumenteres og diskuteres. Både på "den gode måde" og "på den mindre gode måde". Men oftest både berigende, lærerigt og ikke mindst tankevækkende. Endnu engang tak for rummeligheden på klimadebat.dk

Dog undrer det mig en smule, flere af ovenstående kommentarer noget så skråsikkert påstår, Climategate var et "læk" (underforstået retfærdigt).

hø...ørt

Den gode Kosmos, her vel ikke kortvarigt fået en sanseforstyrrelse der har forstyret talegaven eller i dette tilfælde skrivefærdigheden...

Ekkodalen!

Several days ago, Heartland Institute-aligned climate denial blogger Anthony Watts made an interesting suggestion. To prove whether or not the document was authored by Gleick, people could use stylometry and textometry. Watts even helpfully suggested a well-regarded open source java app called JGAAP that purports to do this, and directed people to give it a try.

I decided to take him up on it.

...

I used the program to perform analyses of documents written by Peter Gleick, Heartland Staff, and Heartland Institute president Joe Bast, and to compare their writing styles to the allegedly fake climate strategy memo. Surprisingly, the program indicated that of those three options, by far the most likely author of the allegedly forged Heartland climate strategy memo was not Peter Gleick, not Heartland staff, but Heartland Institute president Joe Bast.

...

considering only the "forger's" language not cut and pasted from other Heartland documents as identified by Heartland Institute president Joe Bast, the most likely author of the climate strategy memo is - still - Heartland Institute president Joe Bast.

Tror "benægterne" blot stille og roligt bliver færre og færre

Mehr als 75% der Teilnehmer waren anfangs eher neutral oder gar alarmistisch eingestellt. Dies zeigt einmal mehr auf: Je länger man sich mit der Klimafrage auseinandersetzt, desto skeptischer wird man gegenüber dem Alarmismus...

bennohansen skrev:
Tror "benægterne" blot stille og roligt bliver færre og færre.