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Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Leak Exposes How Heartland Institute Works to Undermine Climate Science

Author:     SUZANNE GOLDENBERG
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Tuesday 14 February 2012 22.30 EST
 Link: Leak Exposes How Heartland Institute Works to Undermine Climate Science
Stephan:   This is how the Deniers operate. Does it surprise you that the Koch brothers who are deeply involved with the nastiest, dirtiest carbon energy are bankrolling the small cadre of scientists willing to hire themselves out for money writing papers that confuse and obfuscate this critical issue? Do you notice, by the way, that you very rarely hear climate change even being discussed on the cable news networks -- be they Social Progressives or Theocratic Rightists? Or that I found this in the U.K. on what is probably the newspaper with the highest integrity in the English speaking world. We are gliding into catastrophe while arguing contraception.

The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks.

DeSmogBlog, which broke the story, said it had received the confidential documents from an ‘insider’ at the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago. The blog monitors industry efforts to discredit climate science.

The scheme includes spending $100,000 on commissioning an alternative curriculum for schoolchildren that will cast doubt on global warming.

It was not possible to immediately verify the authenticity of the documents. ‘There is nothing I can tell you,’ Jim Lakely, Heartland’s communications director, said in a telephone interview. ‘We are investigating what we have seen on the internet and we will have more to say in the morning.’ Lakely made no attempt to deny the veracity of information contained in the documents.

The Heartland Institute, founded in 1984, has built a reputation over the years for providing a forum for climate change deniers. But it is especially known for hosting a series of lavish conferences of climate science doubters at expensive hotels at New York’s Time Square as well as in Washington DC.

If authentic the documents provide an intriguing glimpse […]

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