The Circle of Lies: Koch Money, Front Groups & Conservative Media

The Heartland Institute lost its credibility with journalists after comparing climate scientists to the Unabomber. But in conservative media, credibility doesn't matter as long as you have huge piles of cash from polluters like Koch Industries to buy expensive advertising sections:

As you may know, The Heartland Institute is hosting a Washington Times Special section to showcase organizations and scientists from around the world who question whether “man-made global warming” will be harmful to plants, animals, or human welfare. This section will be featured prominently at the 9th International Conference on Climate Change next week.

With this, you are invited to be a part of this special print and digital section with an op-ed in print and digital formats.

You can support the section and have the chance to write an edit and compliment the issue with a full page, full color display ad for your organization for just $10,000. The section will appear online at www.washingtontimes.com and will be advertised with over a million impressions online and with over 500,000 emails.

SPACE IS LIMITED and we are closing space on the issue very soon - Deadline is END OF DAY FRIDAY for a reservation and next Monday to coordinate details/edit/Ad.

Anyway, please call or email as soon as possible if you would like to participate.

Thanks and look forward to our discussion.

Joe Corbe
The Washington Times

For the low low price of $10,000, grifters like you can have access to the Heartland Institute's marks! But ACT NOW, because SPACE IS LIMITED to any polluter front groups willing to pony up $10,000!

Climate Science Deniers: Really Old and Really Strange

The Heartland Institute has a new climate denial "book" out called The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism. I can only assume the title is a reference to the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even though the Heartland version is for some reason one "Mad" short.

How old are the folks over at The Heartland Institute? Their book title references a movie that came out a half century ago. Its star, Spencer Tracy, died when President Obama was six years old.

How strange are the folks over at The Heartland Insitute? Look at that "book" cover. Are those ... hip-hop polar bears? I think? Driving a convertible through ... a corn field that's getting hit by a thunderstorm? Also, the polar bears are terrible drivers taking up both lanes of what is apparently a one-way street through the middle of nowhere.

It's like something your old crazy conservative uncle would post to Facebook and think it was HILARIOUS, which tells you a lot about The Heartland Institute's membership and funders, and about the ability of climate deniers to connect with anyone outside their cocoon of crazy old conservatives.

Another Polluter Front Group Issues Fake Climate Report

The Cato Institute, a former big tobacco front group that now shills for big polluters, is putting out a phony report designed to fool reporters into thinking it's related to an actual U.S. government climate science report.

It's not the first time a polluter front group has tried to trick reporters. Back in 2008, the Heartland Institute put out the "NIPCC report," trying to glom onto the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

What's most bizarre is that Cato and Heartland then go around whining that no one takes them seriously as an authority on climate science.

It would be like me going up on stage in a wig & skinny jeans, calling myself Justin Biemer, and singing "Boyfriend," then complaining no one took me seriously as an artist.

Should We Teach Students Climate Reality or Polluter Fantasy?

Here's a new video from the Climate Reality Project - if you agree that the Heartland Institute's science denial has no place in America's schools, sign Climate Reality's petition:

Scientists Who Cross The Line Are Outcasts, Deniers Who Do Get CNN Contracts

After scientist Peter Gleick said he'd duped the Heartland Institute into handing over internal documents, Washington Post editorial writer Stephen Stromberg wrote:

Peter Gleick violated a principle rule of the global-warming debate: Climate scientists must be better than their opponents.

Stromberg is exactly right. Climate scientists are largely ignored by the media and almost completely absent from TV news, with exactly zero climate scientists interviewed about the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed limits on climate pollution compared to dozens of climate deniers. But make a prank call that gets the Heartland Institute to hand over documents and you'll be completely ignored (or however more ignored you could be than you already are).

Meanwhile, climate deniers like Erick Erickson who call for conservationists to be beaten to "a bloody pulp," compare a Supreme Court justice to a child molester, and hint that maybe President Obama should kinda die get signed by CNN as a full-time talking heads.

And people like Stephen Stromberg don't even notice when the Heartland Institute equates climate scientist Michael Mann with a child molester because, well, that's just how science deniers are expected to act.

The media doesn't even bother to hide the double standard.

Heartland Institute Greets Denialgate With (Wait For It) More Denial

Polluter front group the Heartland Institute is claiming it's the real victim of Denialgate. But as Jean Chemnick reports for E&E News (sub. req.), Heartland is providing little evidence to support its contentions:

The embattled Heartland Institute has roundly condemned journalists for writing about or posting a climate change strategy memo earlier this week that, while attributed to the organization, Heartland says is a "total fake."

But the memo was released late Tuesday night together with other budget and fundraising documents that the right-leaning think tank says appear to have been written by its president and mentions programs that are also detailed in the other documents.

The memo in question notes, for example, that one anonymous donor plans to pony up $100,000 to allow Heartland to develop a curriculum for schoolchildren that would "focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain." The project is to be spearheaded by consultant David Wojick. The same project is mentioned on page 18 of the budget of the fundraising plan, which Heartland says may be genuine.

An Associated Press investigation also finds no reason to doubt the Denialgate documents' authenticity.

Heartland's bleating about documents which it apparently willingly handed over to someone posing as a board member stand in stark contrast to its gleeful reaction to hackers stealing the emails of climate scientists, which remains the subject of an active criminal investigation. As Zachary Shahan at PlanetSave.com writes, "Three years of nonsense and praise for 'Climategate' combined with the continual misrepresentation of what it actually was, and now the Heartland Institute wants to call in the referees and have us all sit peacefully in a thoughtful moment on how wrong it is to steal information and misrepresent people?"

While It Complained of Being Silenced, Heartland Institute Worked to Silence Climate Scientists

The Green Miles has been tracking the Heartland Institute's shenanigans for years now, but even I couldn't imagine something like the scandal that's unfolding today. Leaked internal documents detail Heartland's plan to use a secret funder's money to replace climate science with polluter propaganda in America's school curriculum.

Having once come close to being forcibly ejected from a Heartland conference, I especially enjoyed an aspect of Heartland's public relations strategy as detailed by E&E News reporter Jean Chemnick (subscription required):

Later in the memo, its author warns that the business and financial magazine Forbes, which publishes a blog by Heartland Institute senior fellow James Taylor, has "begun to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as [Peter] 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," the memo states.

Here's Heartland's 2009 Washington Post ad complaining “politicians…and the media routinely ignore and silence the scientists, economists and other experts who say global warming isn’t a crisis”:

So while Heartland was complaining publicly that they were being ignored & silenced, the documents show they were working behind the scenes to make sure climate scientists were ignored & silenced.

In the sage words of Anchorman ... why don't you stop talking for a while? Maybe sit the next couple of plays out.

UPDATE: Heartland claims the documents were not theirs AND that they were stolen. Wrap your brain around that one.

NY Times Only Sees Bright Side of Global Warming Deniers

The New York Times has an article out Tuesday talking about how some TV weather presenters are global warming deniers. Reporter Leslie Kaufman goes out of her way to avoid taking the shine off some of the denial universe's biggest stars.

First, there's Anthony Watts, whose two primary occupations are denying global warming and peddling small weather gauges. As Joe Romm explains on ClimateProgress:

Watts uses his blogs to try to convince people that government weather sites are faulty, that their data can’t be trusted, enlisting the unpaid help of countless people — and he makes money selling weather stations?

Kaufman also cites the Heartland Institute, one of The Green Miles' favorite front groups -- and by "favorite" I mean "most comically inept." Heartland has received $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998. While Heartland stopped disclosing its funding after 2006, SourceWatch reports Heartland received around $260,000 in 2007 from energy companies -- "coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear." But Kaufman doesn't report any of that, merely calling Heartland "a free-market research organization."

And there's former weatherman John Coleman. A Columbia Journalism Review article on this same topic cast Coleman's denial not as scientific disagreement -- but as ignorance:

For the many Americans who don’t understand the difference between weather—the short-term behavior of the atmosphere—and climate—the broader system in which weather happens—Coleman’s professional background made him a genuine authority on global warming. It was an impression that Coleman encouraged. Global warming “is not something you ‘believe in,’” he wrote in his essay. “It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise.”

Except that it wasn’t. Coleman had spent half a century in the trenches of TV weathercasting; he had once been an accredited meteorologist, and remained a virtuoso forecaster. But his work was more a highly technical art than a science. His degree, received fifty years earlier at the University of Illinois, was in journalism. And then there was the fact that the research that Coleman was rejecting wasn’t “the science of meteorology” at all—it was the science of climatology, a field in which Coleman had spent no time whatsoever.

NYT's Kaufman touches on the same issue -- but where the CJR article boldly confronts it head-on, Kaufman merely tiptoes around the edges:

Resentment may also play a role in the divide. Climatologists are almost always affiliated with universities or research institutions where a doctoral degree is required. Most meteorologists, however, can get jobs as weather forecasters with a college degree.

“There is a little bit of elitist-versus-populist tensions,” Mr. Henson said. “There are meteorologists who feel, ‘Just because I have a bachelor’s degree doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on.’”

Those snooty climatologists! Thinking they know more about climate just because they've "studied it more" and "work in the field" and are "actual experts on the topic"! Weather presenters who aren't meteorologists but listen to Rush Limbaugh should be allowed to spout ignorance with just the same credibility!

UPDATE: Joe Romm responds to Kaufman's article, blogging NY Times once again equates non-scientists with climate scientists.

How Dare You Accuse Me of Being a Heartland Institute Member!

I'm not usually one to laugh at the misfortune of others. But when it comes to the Heartland Institute ...

HAHAHA:

Doug Southgate, Ohio State University professor of environmental economics, felt the plaintiff’s wrath after testifying for Chevron, based on his experience in Ecuador, dating back to the late 1970s. The plaintiffs attacked him for being a member of the Heartland Institute, which does not believe in global warming. He says he is not a member and only made one presentation to the Institute. It is remarkable, he says, how easy it is to spread anything on the internet.

How dare you smear me by repeating those vicious internet rumors that I'm a member of the Heartland Institute!

Awesome.

Big Oil Front Group: Drilling Will CLEAN Beaches

The Green Miles isn't anti-coastal drilling as part of some treehugging doctrine. If allowing some drilling is the price of getting a clean energy & climate action bill passed, I probably wouldn't be screaming for a veto. I just think that until we've grabbed the lowest-hanging fruit of renewable energy and energy efficiency (and we've barely started picking), we shouldn't put our coastal economies at risk.

But this is what makes rational discussion of the issue so difficult: Big Oil's willingness to lie right in Virginians' faces about the realities of drilling. Here's what the Heartland Institute, which admitted to taking more than half a million dollars from ExxonMobil before it stopped revealing its funders, is telling Californians about coastal drilling:

Offshore oil drilling has a proven track record as a safe and effective means of acquiring energy. Oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico weathered hurricanes Katrina and Rita with little or no spillage, according to the National Ocean Industries Association.

The "National Ocean Industries Association" is yet another industry front group that joined ExxonMobil to fund one of the worst global warming denier groups ever. So one polluter front group is quoting a lie from another polluter front group that Katrina and Rita caused no spills.

What does the actual historical record tell us? Just check this actual headline from 2005: "Katrina oil spills may be among worst on record." Considering Virginia is right in the line of fire every hurricane season, this is a huge worry.

But that's far from the biggest doozy:

Drilling would help clean up the coastline. According to the National Academy of Sciences, 60 percent of the oil found in the North American marine environment comes from natural seepage through the ocean floor. Only 1 percent comes from offshore oil and gas development. Drilling and removal of oil allows for less natural seepage, hence cleaner beaches and a cleaner marine environment.

Here's the problem: natural seepage happens in tiny amounts over long periods of time, while man-made spills happen all at once and in large quantities.

Let's do a visual demonstration. Natural seepage:


Now the man-made version:

With absolutely outrageous lies like this, how can we believe anything Big Oil tells us about the dangers of offshore drilling or how much revenue we could expect from it? ExxonMobil will spill oil on your leg and tell you it's raining.

Unfortunately, neither Creigh Deeds nor Bob McDonnell sound willing to take the tough stand against Big Oil. Expect to hear more questionable forecasts of black rain for the next four years.

On Eve of Live Earth, Big Oil and GM Still Attacking Gore

The Green Miles will be packing up the Purple Car tomorrow and driving up to New Jersey for the Live Earth climate change awareness concert. I'll get a review posted here next week!

Amazingly, just days before the concert, a front group with ties to General Motors and major funding from Big Oil was still attacking Gore and his beliefs.

James M. Taylor's op-ed appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, primary employer of that paragon of journalism, Robert Novak. It accuses Gore of citing disproven theories in his recent book, "The Assault on Reason."

Taylor is listed as "a senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute." It's immediately apparent that Taylor brings no substance to the table -- only a prodigal talent in a favorite conservative tactic, trying to establish a flaw in one of Gore's supporting anecdotes and claiming that one flaw invalidates the entire book. The column is a 681-word "yeah, but ...."

One of Taylor's claims in particular set of my BS alarm:

Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts. However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports, "Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."

A quick Google search revealed "New Scientist" magazine is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Even its own editor admits "New Scientist" is "an ideas magazine - that means writing about hypotheses as well as theories." Not exactly dripping with credibility.

On the other hand, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says climate change is drying up Africa's farmland, triggering war as groups compete for disappearing resources. And a blue-ribbon panel of 11 of the most senior retired U.S. admirals and generals, not exactly bleeding-heart liberals, says climate change threatens our own national security.

Now to the Heartland Institute. Its SourceWatch page is a veritable who's who of people and companies who profit by denying climate change and trying to keep America addicted to oil.

Just to name a few:

- Walter F. Buchholtz, an ExxonMobil executive, serves as Heartland's Government Relations Advisor
- James L. Johnston, Amoco Corporation (retired), member of Heartland's board of directors
- Thomas Walton, an executive of General Motors Corporation, member of Heartland's board of directors

It's not just leadership that Big Oil contributes to Heartland. According to ExxonSecrets.org, the Heartland Institute has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from ExxonMobil corporate and the ExxonMobil Foundation in just the last decade.

The science behind global warming is sound and solid. The planet is warming, greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are to blame, and we must cut carbon emissions at least 80% by 2050 at the latest to curb warming's worst effects.

To get the truth, read RealClimate.org. And to learn how to refute climate change deniers like Taylor, read Grist's "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic."