Riffing off last weeks excellent Spooner cartoon, the WSJ warms to the theme that there simply hasn’t been a well-funded, well-organised conspiracy underwriting global warming sceptics. First the cartoon.
Now for the WSJ op-ed.
When did it become received media wisdom that global warming skepticism was all the work of shadowy right-wing groups lavishly funded by oil companies? As best we can tell, it started with a 1995 Harper’s magazine article claiming to expose this “high-powered engine of disinformation.” Today anyone who raises a doubt about the causes of global warming is accused of fronting for, say, Exxon, whatever the facts.
Now comes a rare glimpse inside the allegedly antiscience behemoth, with the online publication last week of documents purloined from the conservative Heartland Institute. The files appear to contain detailed financial, donor and personnel information and outline the think-tank’s projects. Chicago-based Heartland says one of the documents is fake and warns that others may have been altered.
Given the coverage the story has generated, you’d think some vast conspiracy had been uncovered. Heartland is, according to the Associated Press, “one of the loudest voices denying human-caused global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change.” The Vancouver Sun reports that it is “heavily funded by right-wing industrialist Charles Koch,” while the Virginian-Pilot dubs it “the ideological center of the denial movement.”
So how flush is Heartland? The documents show the group is expecting revenues of $7.7 million this year, mostly from private donations and grants. Mr. Koch’s “heavy” funding came to $25,000 in 2011, though the Heartland “Fundraising Plan” has it hoping for an increase in 2012. To put those numbers in not-for-profit perspective, last year the Natural Resources Defense Council reported $95.4 million in operating revenues, while the World Wildlife Fund took in $238.5 million.
Press coverage has focused in particular on Heartland’s plans to produce and distribute “educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political.” Heartland is budgeting $200,000 this year for the effort, which in the past has “had only limited success,” per one of the documents. Little wonder if teachers aren’t returning Heartland’s calls: Last year the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million on “public education” alone.
As for “the largest international scientific conference of skeptics,” Heartland will, according to the documents, spend all of $388,000 this year on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. That’s against the $6.5 million that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change costs Western taxpayers annually, and the $2.6 billion the White House wants to spend next year on research into “the global changes that have resulted primarily from global over-dependence on fossil fuels.”
In the pages of Rolling Stone last summer, Al Gore warned of the “Polluters and Ideologues [sic] . . . . spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on misleading advertisements in the mass media.” He had the wrong spenders.
Omigod, Mr Koch put in $12,500 andn they are going to spend $200K indoctrinating innocent little kiddies in school. Just as well they can’t match the NSW Education Department, and the CSIRO Carbon Kids program!
Rafe
22 Feb 12 at 8:39 am
Rafe, don’t forget the money going to that ABC Kids program to indoctrinate the infants…
Token
22 Feb 12 at 8:44 am
I think what it shows – as does the modest income of the IPA that Sinclair pointed us to some time back – is that the internet has revolutionised the ease, speed and low cost with which flawed arguments can be spread through society now. (And also the persistence with which they can linger – given that webpages can cost nothing to maintain once they are up.)
Those who do want to push a line for their own ideological purposes need only provide modest funding, and much of what the funded put out will be picked up and re-published for free to a willing audience, many of which will not bother using the internet to check the response to an argument. (The refusal to even read rebuttal from actual climate science is a recurrent theme from the thread participants at Catallaxy.)
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 8:59 am
The deafening silence of all too many stalwarts in science as a whole to the cockamamie cimate scientologists and their activism is but one the really important backstories.
The few that did were left isolated by senior colleages as they were ridiculed or worse.
Science as a whole is damaged and its standing will actually worsen as more of the realisation of the sheer unadulterated utter madness of AGW alarmism dawns
JamesK
22 Feb 12 at 9:00 am
One of the many myths in the AGW scam has been that the ‘deniers’ have been receiving enormous funding. In fact the opposite is the truth; in Australia 10′s of billions have been and will be spent between now and 2015 on programs to do with AGW; money is funding all education levels, all industry levels and creating bloated, rancid bureacracies.
Along with the consensus myth and the science is settled mantra the funding hypocrisy is the dominant element of the AGW meme.
cohenite
22 Feb 12 at 9:01 am
Any money given to this scurrilous anti-science organisation is scandalous. And who donates this cash? – only individuals who want to advance their own selfish, anti-social causes. Organisations like this should be outlawed. Such a law wouldn’t be illiberal or undemocratic. After all you can’t start a fire in the bush on a day of total fire ban.
Incorrect thinking in the climate change area needs to be treated the same way as breaches of security in war time. Denialists have to be taught a lesson, and their incorrect thinking must be made to lead to seriously unpleasant consequences for themselves.
hammygar
22 Feb 12 at 9:04 am
Too right, hammygar. We must close down any alternative views and papers and funding for the sake of Gaia. We must be ruthless in doing so because, let’s face it, it’s not as if the climate “science” has been right. Is it?
Gab
22 Feb 12 at 9:07 am
He’s wrong quite often, aint he?
That is, ‘getting at’ people who think catastrophic AGW is bunch of horse dung through brainwashing their children.
What sort of sh*theads would preach a message of “reducing energy use”, FFS?
Oh that’s right, braindead, back to the dark ages, stalinist hippie zombies.
Rabz
22 Feb 12 at 9:08 am
Why are utopians – whether leftists or fascists – such utterly vicious totalitarians?
Jonah Goldberg wrote a wonderfuk book called ‘Liberal Fascism’ and I suspect he had thugs like hammy in mind.
JamesK
22 Feb 12 at 9:09 am
Such as death camps perhaps, you insane, bed wetting moron?
Rabz
22 Feb 12 at 9:13 am
Dear Hammygar
I was considering drafting a formal reply but do not have your North Korean mailing address.
p.s. my sympathies on your recent loss…the dead guy…forget his name.
John Williams
22 Feb 12 at 9:13 am
Hammy has to be a parody.
.
22 Feb 12 at 9:15 am
North Korean climate science is a happy and abundant research discipline!
.
22 Feb 12 at 9:16 am
If I want to look at rubbish, I’ll visit a tip, oops, I mean waste transfer station.
Rabz
22 Feb 12 at 9:17 am
True, he’s certainly seems to have flicked the switch to vaudeville of late…
Rabz
22 Feb 12 at 9:19 am
North Korea has low carbon footprint!
Rabz
22 Feb 12 at 9:21 am
I see my critics (above) every day. They’re the one shooting past me doing 100kmh in a 60 zone, or if can’t get past, tailgaiting me for keeping to the speed limit. They also zoom across pedestrian crossings to just miss mothers with prams already on the crossing. I see them harassing passers-by outside the pub, up to their eyeballs with grog. They’re the ones who bump me off the footpath riding their bikes are 70kph, and cursing me for not moving off the path quickly enough while they pass. Nice types of
peoplethugs.hammygar
22 Feb 12 at 9:36 am
hammygar’s tragedy is that he knows the rest of the world hates him
JamesK
22 Feb 12 at 9:38 am
North Korea sure has a low carbon footprint !!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-410158/North-Korea-The-Bomb-doesnt-electricity.html
John Williams
22 Feb 12 at 9:39 am
@hammygar…”riding their bikes are 70kph, and cursing me for not moving off the path quickly enough while they pass.”
Nah.
Cursing because you DO move off the path quickly enough.
I need to get a better bombsight.
John Williams
22 Feb 12 at 9:41 am
Well Catallaxy isn’t the “world” JamesK. When you look outside you’ll see I’m very much part of mainstream thinking. Most people in Australia are responsible human beings.
hammygar
22 Feb 12 at 9:43 am
Hammy sounds like some programmed communist mouthpiece.
he seems to think the HI donatees shouldn’t be allowed to support what they like with their own cash
Ah, but I bet he’d never knock back their union affiliation fees or ALP or Greens memberships should they be offered, or even their income tax, none of which supports HI!
Does he know how the hospital cleaners feel about THEIR money allegedly supporting repeated prostitute visits and lavish spending by an official,when they think they pay it for the purposes of action to protect their jobs and rights?
Fool!
I vote we take over his money and dole it out for things WE let him do and see how he likes it–or we could lobby Tony Abbott PM in waiting to stifle Labor and Greens mouthpieces when HE takes power and see how Hammy and co like that!!
Jazza
22 Feb 12 at 9:45 am
Notice hammaygar, like most other trolls here, cannot stay on topic. Sloppy diversions becuase really that’s all the climate “science” believers have left to them now. That and their memories.
Gab
22 Feb 12 at 9:46 am
Let’s stay on topic.
Sinclair Davidson
22 Feb 12 at 9:47 am
Lol No you’re not Ham. You a far leftwing nutcase who on another blog was advocating the nationalization of all businesses in the country and leveling incomes something the early soviet union actually moved away from.
You are not us, Hammy. You’re a far left troll whose ideas are basically hated by most people in the country save for a human repugnance like Lee Rhiannon.
JC
22 Feb 12 at 9:49 am
The refusal to even read rebuttal from actual climate science
I’m sorry, but the tendentious cut & pastes of ‘Skeptical Science’ are not “actual climate science”.
dover_beach
22 Feb 12 at 9:50 am
Ever read Real Science, d-b? It’s usually written directly by the scientists concerned.
Other peer reviewed climate scientists, or employed climatologists, who run their own blogs:
James Annan
John Neilsen-Gammon
Tamsin Edwards (climat modeller, new to blogging)
Bart Verheggen (although now seems to concentrating on Planet 3, which is a bit more political in orientation)
Tamino (important paper co-authored recently showing continuing underlying trend in warming)
Possibly cohenite reads some of these: the rest of Catallaxy readership (including, I would bet my bottom dollar, not Rafe) probably not at all.
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 10:11 am
including Rafe, that should be.
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 10:11 am
Can’t do time series analysis.
.
22 Feb 12 at 10:12 am
While it might seem a tad hypocritical to be joyous about Climategate leaks and outraged by Heartlandgate thefts, there are some differences. The former concerned revelations about unscrupulous scientists, using public funding, who were engaged in distorting their findings, at least in part, to ensure the tax based faucet remains open.
The Heartland papers were different in the first instance because their most damaging component was a clear forgery that greatly distorted Heartland’s approach to fund raising. Secondly, in revealing funders it was denying the possibility of anonymity, potentially subjecting donors to harassment or worse from the sort of unprincipled eco-warrior types that Gleick represents. And from Heartland’s perspective the loss of donor anonymity would also threaten the institutional funding.
I appeared before a Senate Committee yesterday (on Mining taxes) and the Greens, not for the first time, tried to prise information from me on the identity of the IPA’s donors (they are always somewhat unbelieving when told that our annual revenue is not much more than $2 million). In the past, politicians have used this to write to our donors threatening them that they would be considered unfriendly if they continued to donate to us; doubtless that or worse would again happen if the Greens had such information.
Alan Moran
22 Feb 12 at 10:42 am
You mean the same kind of email harassment and threats to climate scientists that people here like to laugh about?
I’d take the concern more seriously if those here did not deny that there are thousands of climate change denying nutters busy shooting emails to climate scientists or advocates daily.
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 10:51 am
SFB@moralgranstanding.com.au
sean
22 Feb 12 at 10:58 am
Hammy has to be Alene Composter’s re-incarnation.
Steve’s just gutted as, like everything else in his life, he’s backed the wrong horse.
Harrys on the Boat
22 Feb 12 at 11:01 am
Steve plays the moral equivalence card. Mind you, Kelvin Thomson is hardly a nutter.
Sinclair Davidson
22 Feb 12 at 11:06 am
Isn’t SoB just satire like Dame Edna and Alene Composter?
Token
22 Feb 12 at 11:10 am
Didn’t I read that in the immediate wake of Gleicks criminal activity that Heartland donations have soared? It rates as one of the most spectacular own goals of all time.
Harrys on the Boat
22 Feb 12 at 11:14 am
“thousands of climate change denying nutters busy shooting emails to climate scientists or advocates daily”
Evidence? Bearing in mind the well-documented lack of credibility of climate alarmists.
Rafe
22 Feb 12 at 11:41 am
The ones that saw scientists “rushed to a secure location” (ABC)?
C.L.
22 Feb 12 at 11:44 am
Ever read Real Science, d-b? It’s usually written directly by the scientists concerned.
What is it with these websites you vist, Steve from B: Real Science, Real Climate, Skeptical Science, and so on? Maybe you should aggregate their ‘contributions’ under the banner, Real, Skeptical Climate. Sounds like a winner.
dover_beach
22 Feb 12 at 12:27 pm
What are you trying to tell me, d-b: you don’t read websites written directly by climate scientists because you don’t like their title?
A very sophisticated approach being shown.
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 12:31 pm
By the way – it was Real Climate I was referencing – my mistake.
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 12:33 pm
Other peer reviewed climate scientists, or employed climatologists,
Guys like Dr. Glieck?
dover_beach
22 Feb 12 at 12:33 pm
What are you trying to tell me, d-b: you don’t read websites written directly by climate scientists because you don’t like their title?
No, only that I don’t read them imagining that they are disinterested scientist/ bloggers.
dover_beach
22 Feb 12 at 12:36 pm
Real Science, as it happens, is Steve Goddard’s climate denialist site – which kind of disproves your nomenclature theory of what you think is reliable or not.
Glieck’s ethical lapse in a matter of climate change politics does not, of course, necessarily reflect on his climate change science work at all. And in fact, I know nothing of his published work, which I see has been about the impact of climate change on water resources. Rejection of all his papers (an improbable and illogical thing to do as a result of this type of ethical breach) would in any event seem hardly to have an effect on the bulk of science to do with temperature rises.
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 12:51 pm
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Gab
22 Feb 12 at 12:53 pm
This is how I know Stepford SoB is just pure satire, no sane or rational person would say that without having his tongue firmly planted him is cheek.
Token
22 Feb 12 at 12:58 pm
Premise 1 on Climate Science: If someone’s work is accepted by the IPCC, they’re feeding at the trough. Assume prejudiced until proven otherwise.
Driftforge
22 Feb 12 at 1:06 pm
Gab: you’re a twit.
D-b: of course they are “not disinterested” – I referred you to a list of climate scientists who believe climate science is real.
You objected to Skeptical Science because you think they don’t represent the science fairly – so I referred you to climate scientist blogs directly.
What you mean is: I will take a climate science blog or commentary seriously unless they doubt it is real.
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 1:13 pm
I will not take a climate science blog or commentary …etc
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 1:13 pm
Fakegate: It’s what they do.
Gab
22 Feb 12 at 1:16 pm
Real Science, as it happens, is Steve Goddard’s climate denialist site – which kind of disproves your nomenclature theory of what you think is reliable or not.
I was positing a ‘theory’? About reliability?
What I mean is:
I will not take a climate science blog or commentary seriously unless they doubt the possibility of it being real.
dover_beach
22 Feb 12 at 1:30 pm
I don’t think you mean that in quite the way it reads.
Was it “unless they are open to the possibility of it not being real”?
steve from brisbane
22 Feb 12 at 1:41 pm
I thought I had ticked the Exxon box on the funding application but I haven’t been paid.
Just went back and checked – Enron, damn it!
Occam's Blunt Razor
22 Feb 12 at 1:49 pm