Update: The Heartland Institute is challenging the veracity of some of the documents which this article cites. In a statement, they claim one of the documents, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” is a “total fake”. Heartland says it is checking the eight remaining documents to ascertain if any have been altered.
The institute’s full statement can be found here.
In addition, the Koch foundation mentioned in the story says claims in the leaked fundraising document that they are to make a $200,000 contribution are false, and that the foundation has made no such commitment to fund climate change work at Heartland. A 2011 grant of $25,000 went to Heartland for work on healthcare, the statement clarified.
The Koch foundation statement is available here.
Leaked financial reports and documents from a US-based think tank that denies the risks of human-caused climate change show links to an Australian academic and detail a strategy to pursue funds from corporations affected by climate policies.
The documents from the Chicago-based Heartland Institute — leaked online by climate news site DeSmogBlog — also reveal the think tank has been moulding its messages to fit the requirements of funders, contrary to its own public claims.
According to a “proposed budget” statement for 2012, Australian scientist Bob Carter will receive $1667 per month for his work on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change — a rebuttal written by Heartland-paid scientists to question the well-regarded UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Carter’s affiliation is listed in the document as “James Cook University & Institute for Public Affairs”.
The Institute for Public Affairs has previously sponsored Heartland’s climate change conferences — where Carter has been a regular speaker — which almost exclusively feature experts and academics who disagree that human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases through burning fossil fuels represent a significant risk.
The document also discloses that the foundation of oil magnates Charles and David Koch gave the institute $200,000 last year. Also discussed is a key but unnamed “anonymous donor” who has given more than $2.5 million in the past two years for the institute’s climate work. According to Heartland’s website:
“We do not take positions in order to appease or avoid losing support from individual donors … People contribute to The Heartland Institute because they share our belief that better information and understanding can improve public policies in such important areas as education, environmental protection, and health care.”
Yet in the leaked memo, Heartland states that “if our focus continues to align with their interests” then they expect the Koch brothers to contribute more funds. The memo also states it will actively pursue funding from corporations who stand to lose out from climate change policies:
“Our climate work is attractive to funders, especially our key Anonymous Donor (whose contribution dropped from $1,664,150 in 2010 to $979,000 in 2011 — about 20% of our total 2011 revenue). He has promised an increase in 2012 — see the 2011 Fourth Quarter Financial Report.
“We will also pursue additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. They returned as a Heartland donor in 2011 with a contribution of $200,000. We expect to push up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to their network of philanthropists, if our focus continues to align with their interests. Other contributions will be pursued for this work, especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies.”
In 2011, the documents show Heartland paid a team of writers $388,000 to work on a series of reports under their Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change project. This project, the report says, is being funded by two foundations that have “both requested anonymity”. Professor Carter was a lead author on the NIPCC’s latest “interim report“.
In a document titled “2012 Fundraising Plan”, it is revealed that its “anonymous donor” has given $8.6 million since 2007 for “global warming projects”. Funders to other general Heartland projects are revealed to include some major corporations, including Microsoft, Pfizer, Time Warner Cable, Eli Lilly and Bayer.
The “confidential memo” dated January 2012 outlines a climate strategy for Heartland, which claims is “leading the fight to prevent the implementation of dangerous policy actions to address the supposed risks of global warming”.
The memo also states how Heartland “plays an important role” in broader communications on climate change. In particular, Heartland highlights the work of its senior environment policy fellow James Taylor’s blog on Forbes:
“Through his Forbes blog and related high-profile outlets, our conferences and through co-ordination with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of rapidly mobilising responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavourable blog posts).”
The memo says that Heartland is concerned Forbes has begun to publish articles containing “warmist science” that “counter our own”:
“This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out.”
If funding can be obtained, the memo concludes, then existing efforts will be expanded and new ventures developed.
DeSmogBlog (for which this author is a paid contributor) has made all the documents available on its website.
B……………….s
This is an absolutely stunning set of revelations…
HeartlandGate?
HeartGate?
DenialistGate?
But I do have a general question, I am wondering whether James Cook University
a) knew whether Bob Carter was receiving a monthly stipend from the Heartland Institute (are academics / teaching staff supposed to declare monies like this to their employers?) or
b) will be happy with their new-found association with a denialist lobby organisation or remove Carter from his position?
Either way its pretty damming for them.
It also raises some timely questions around the tax status of lobbyist organisations that masquerade as NFP thinktanks: not too dissimilar to the discussions that are emerging in Australia.
From the article
“…..the well-regarded UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
Someone who regards the IPCC as a crook and corrupted body which has still not redeemed itself might say “well-regarded” before proceeding to demolish its reputation. But the author of this article is obviously happy with its work and willing to treat it as the legitimate authority on which thousands of well meaning people who have no, or no relevant (important word) scientific qualifications rely when they accept that there is reason to squander vast amounts of money on windfarms, solar power with prematurely adopted technologies, ETSs etc. So…. read Donna Laframboise’s “The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Scientist” (from memory) and, unless you are prepared to put the hard research work into the question of the IPCC’s performancee that she did you should be wary of contining to trust the IPCC or the conclusions it would have us draw from its 6 or 7 inconsistent models. Please don’t be like one its unnamed (I think) targets, one Peter Gleich, and make fool of yourself (as he did in an Amazon.com review) by attacking a book that clearly hasn’t been read.
Oh Warren, you have truly been suckered if you believe what Laframboise has written.
She omitted to outline in her book that the IPCC does not conduct climate research, it reviews and summarizes scientists’ studies of climate change. The assessment reports have three volumes consisting of 10-20 chapters. Each chapter has around 7-10 lead authors and 2 coordinating lead authors and goes through two rounds of scientific review. Four of the lead authors could have been chimpanzees and it wouldn’t have made a dent in the scientific heft of these massive reports.
That whole book was written on a premise that was basic misunderstanding of how science and scientific publications work. In evaluating a scientific study, prior to acceptance and publication, scientists look at the quality of the research and whether the conclusions are well supported by data. They do not need to know the educational level or afilliation of the author(s).
Her argument in that book was that if you don’t have a PhD, plenty of experience and published papers to your name then you should be ignored on any given subject? Then by that standard she, Anthony Watts, Lord Monckton and every other bellowing crank on the internet should be ignored forthwith. Unlike the scientists in question, Laframboise is a former journalist and a photographer. She has a degree in Women’s Studies! Great qualifications to comment on the process of scientific review.
More importantly though, the excerpts Readfearn has quoted in this article have been lifted directly from the Heartland documents in question. These documents expose a (tax exempt) “thinktank” as a lobbyist organisation with views paid for by companies and individuals with a clear financial interest in denying the existence of climate change.
If that’s not a symptom of “crook and corrupted” I don’t know what is.
What a bunch of a***holes.
“Money doesn’t talk, it swears”… – Bob Dylan