U.S. Temperatures Went Off the Charts in 2012

The US didn't just have a hot year. It blew past every record of the past 117 years. ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-preci… …. twitter.com/PeterGleick/st…
— Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) January 1, 2013

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.

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.