Diageo brands.jpg The London-based liquor giant Diageo has joined the companies that are criticizing or cutting off the Heartland Institute in protest over its campaigns to confuse people about climate science and to cast prominent climate activists as "murderers, tyrants and madmen." As Leo Hickman reports in the Guardian, a
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DeSmogBlog: Microsoft Fail: Computer company criticizes Heartland but won’t withhold future support
Microsoft corp citizenship.png Microsoft is finally taking a clearer position denouncing the Heartland Institute's irresponsible position on climate science, but the computer megacorp still won't shut the door on providing Heartland with free software in the future. In the wake of Heartland's highly offensive advertising campaign, in which Heartland said, flatly,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Cue the Defections: Rep. Sensenbrenner First To Pull Out of Heartland Institute’s Denial-a-Palooza Conference
heartland_billboard.jpg Although not likely to be the last, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) became the first speaker to distance himself from Heartland Institute's outrageous billboard stunt today, telling the Washington Post that he will no longer attend Heartland's forthcoming denier conference in Chicago, a.k.a. Denial-a-Palooza. Washington Post's Greg Sargent reports in his
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Will Heartland Institute’s Corporate Funders Tacitly Endorse Comparing Climate Realists to bin Laden and the Unabomber?
heartland logo.jpg UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that Joe Bast and the Heartland Institute will discontinue the outrageous billboard campaign in a matter of hours. Bast issued the following statement to the Washington Post: We will stop running [the billboard] at 4:00 p.m. CST today. (It’s a digital billboard, so a
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Billboard: "the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists; they are murderers, tyrants, and madmen"
Heartland Billboard.png The Heartland Institute's current President, Joe Bast, has launched a billboard campaign denouncing science, scientists, conscientious political activists – and by association EVERYONE else who speaks with concern about climate change – as murderous, tyanical or insane. Settling on that third descriptor, it's difficult to imagine what kind of
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Institute Attacks Forecast the Facts, Denies Its Climate Change Denial
heartland logo.jpg This is a guest post by Daniel Souweine, Campaign Director, Forecast The Facts On April 24, Heartland Institute President Joe Bast issued an angry missive attacking Forecast the Facts, a new campaign that successfully petitioned automobile giant General Motors to end their financial support of Heartland earlier this month.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Payments to University of Victoria Professor Susan Crockford Probed
heartland logo.jpg University of Victory adjunct professor Susan Crockford doesn't seem interested in discussing the monthly payments she appears to receive from the climate denying Heartland Spinstitute. "Crockford would not respond to emails, and refused to speak with the Martlet," reports a UVic student newspaper attempting to probe the payments. The
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: GM Defunds Heartland Institute
General Motors, the world’s largest carmaker, has confirmed that it is pulling funding from the Heartland Institute, an ultra-conservative thinktank known for its scepticism about climate change. This is a result of the efforts of the much maligned Peter Gleick, who several months back conned Heartland out of some of
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: GM Dumps Heartland Institute, Will No Longer Fund Climate-Denying Spinstitute
heartland logo.jpg General Motors is breaking up with the Heartland Institute, announcing recently that the company will discontinue funding to the notorious climate-denying spin shop. The move by GM comes in direct response to a national outreach campaign organized by Forecast the Facts, which garnered more than 20,000 people, including
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: ALEC Climate Change Denial Model Bill Passes in Tennessee
alec-exposed-600x400_0 (2).jpg The month of March has seen unprecedented heat and temperatures. A rational thinking, scientifically-grounded individual could only posit, "Well, hmm, I bet climate change has something to do with the fact that in Madison, WI, it is 80 degrees in mid-March. Sometimes it's 60 or 70 degrees colder
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: SPINalysis: Heartland’s Echo Chamber Shifts the Target
heartland logo.jpg President Joe Bast Dodges Responsibility – for Now It’s been a month since the Heartland Institute was caught in a St. Valentine’s Day Striptease – inadvertently exposing its entire budget and fundraising plan. Yet an objective analysis of the resulting internet and mainstream media coverage has to credit Heartland’s
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: See No Evil At George Mason University
monkeys.shutterstock_10567591.jpg George Mason University (GMU) has labored for 2 years on simple plagiarism complaints. It has just written self-contradictory findings that avoided seeing plagiarism in the 2006 Wegman Report (WR) while admitting the same text elsewhere was plagiarism. In March 2010, climate scientist Ray Bradley complained to GMU of 2.5 pages
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Double Standard: Institute Tried to Scam Greenpeace for Internal Documents
heartland logo.jpg A Heartland Institute front man* phoned a Greenpeace activist and lied about his identity in an effort to get her to turn over UN climate conference documents to which he had no legitimate access. Heartland senior fellow James Taylor then boasted about the scam in a press release
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Climate Change Denial Isn’t About Science, or Even Skepticism
David Suzuki.png Cross-posted from the David Suzuki Foundation's Science Matters blog. By David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Editorial and Communications Specialist Ian Hanington. Let's suppose the world's legitimate scientific institutions and academies, climate scientists, and most of the world's governments are wrong. Maybe, as some people have argued,
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: GM To Cancel Funding For Heartland Institute?
They are thinking about it, and that’s a start. Another online pressure campaign may have paid off.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland has Long History of Blowing Smoke
Joe Camel ad.jpg One of the most bizarre reactions to the St. Valetines Day Striptease, in which the Heartland Institute was tempted by a mild-mnannered scientist to completely expose itself – its strategies, funders and plans for the new year – is the complaint by "neutral" observers like Judith Curry
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Kochtopus Cato Institute Power Grab: A Historical Perspective
Kochtopus-3_0.png A new chapter is being added to the ongoing Kochtopus saga. On March 1 the Washington Post, in a story sure to fill the airwaves for the weeks and months to come, revealed the Kochtopus is suing the Cato Institute for control of the recently deceased and former Cato Chairman William Niskanen's ownership share in the think-tank.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Don’t Blame the Victims: Why Public Outreach By Climate Scientists is More Vital Than Ever
speakout.jpg In the last few years—and especially in the wake of the ClimateGate pseudo-scandal—climate researchers have become much more politically engaged. They’ve sought to become better at communication, and to have a greater influence on public policy. They’ve tried to establish rapid response capabilities, and also, better ways of protecting
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Institute: A Manifestation of the Kochtopus Empire
Kochtopus-3.png It is nearly impossible to discuss the vast climate change denial echo chamber and not mention the Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, and what some have called the Koch Empire. Perhaps unsurpisingly then, the origins of the Heartland Institute — whose internal documents were recently leaked to DeSmogBlog — have a direct historical link to the rise
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: How Heartland-style Climate Sceptic Campaigns Play "Hide the Deniers" Using Secretive Fund
donorscapital.jpg A LOW–PROFILE funding organisation acting as a middleman for wealthy conservative businesspeople has been quietly backing climate denial campaigns across the US. The Virginia-based Donors Capital Fund and its partner organisation Donors Trust has been giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups blocking attempts to limit greenhouse gas pollution
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