by Judith Curry
UPDATE: Email from Joe Bast
“You can not simultaneously say that you want to promote a debate while equating the other side to terrorists and mass murderers.” — Ross McKitrick
This past week, Heartland held its 7th Climate Conference in Chicago. I’ve looked at the program, nothing in particular caught my interest, I’ve seen previous presentations from most of the scientific participants. I would much rather glance at ppt files, than take the time to watch a podcast; unfortunately no ppts are available and I didn’t go through any of the podcasts. Seems that some of the astronauts were in attendance, they have written a new letter which is highlighted at WUWT.
A talk by Vaclav Klaus highlighted at WUWT seems to articulate best what is going on at the Heartland Conference:
To sum up my today’s simple message: empirical data are important; scientific discoveries are important; the disclosure of malpractices in the IPCC and other “bastions” of the GWD are important; but we have to take part in the undergoing ideological battle. The subtitle of my five years old book was “What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?” There is no doubt that it is all about freedom. We should keep that in mind.
Fighting the battle
What is most interesting about the Conference is the ‘battle’ part of all this, which Heartland seems to be losing. Joe Bast describes the ‘battle’ in this recent blog post:
Regarding tactics, since the “Fakegate” scandal, Greenpeace has contacted the employers of every scientist who works for us, demanding that they be fired for having the temerity to question the official dogma of global warming. Can you imagine a more egregious attack on free speech and open academic debate? Donors to Heartland in the past two years have been the subject of hate mail, letter-writing and telephone campaigns, and online petitions demanding that they stop funding us. All of this happened BEFORE we ran a controversial billboard for a single day a few weeks ago.
Finally, regarding the billboard, after 15 years of being the target of vicious ad hominem attacks, we decided to punch back instead of stand back. Our billboard was factual: The Unabomber was motivated by concern over man-made global warming to do the terrible crimes he committed. He still believes in global warming. We simply put his picture on a billboard, pointed out the “inconvenient truth,” and asked, “do you?”
The mainstream media, which has tolerated and even promoted people who call global warming skeptics “Nazis” and “traitors’ and called for the death penalty for skeptics, now pretends to be “outraged” by this billboard. We took it down immediately and admitted that it was in poor taste and a mistake, but they continue to promote madmen on the other side of the issue including Michael Mann and Bill McKibben, and hypocritically pound on us for our “ethical lapse.” This is fake indignation, being staged by ideological extremists as part of the ongoing attack on us and our donors. It is not sincere, it is not accurate, and it is not ethical.
Losing the battle
That Heartland is losing the battle is discussed by several recent articles in the Guardian:
The Guardian has several articles on this [here and here], some excerpts:
But as the latest Heartland climate conference opens in a Chicago hotel on Monday, the thinktank’s claims to reasoned debate lie in shreds and its financial future remains uncertain.
Over the last few weeks, Heartland has lost at least $825,000 in expected funds for 2012, or more than 35% of the funds its planned to raise from corporate donors, according to the campaign group Forecast the Facts, which is pushing companies to boycott the organisation.
The organisation has been forced to make up those funds by taking its first publicly acknowledged donations from the coal industry. The main Illinois coal lobby is a last-minute sponsor of this week’s conference, undermining Heartland’s claims to operate independently of fossil fuel interests.
Its entire Washington DC office, barring one staffer, decamped, taking Heartland’s biggest project, involving the insurance industry, with them.
Board directors quit, conference speakers cancelled at short-notice, and associates of long standing demanded Heartland remove their names from its website. The list of conference sponsors shrank by nearly half from 2010, and many of those listed sponsors are just websites operating on the rightwing fringe.
Could the turmoil and discontent at Heartland eventually prove its undoing? Campaigners would certainly hope so. “We are watching the consequences of organisation that acts quite randomly and that is actually an extremist organisation in the end,” said Davies. “They are not built to be at the hump of the climate denial movement.”
But while more mainstream corporate entities are deserting Heartland, others are stepping into the breach, including the coal lobby and conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation.
Heartland had hoped to use the Gleick episode, which it calls “Fakegate”, to gain sympathy, and rebuild a donor network. But even well-wishers acknowledged it would be an uphill climb for an organisation that was once at the hub of the climate contrarian network.
“It certainly raises the cost of doing business when your arch-enemies or a very vocal segment knows what you are up to in every little detail,” said Marc Morano, who runs the contrarian website Climate Depot and spoke at the conference.
But he said he was hopeful that Heartland would come back. “I think it’s a temporary feeding frenzy,” he said. “If Heartland had just started last year and only had 10 donors when that happened it could have been fatal. But this is a hiccup.”
I found this to be especially interesting:
But this year’s event had a sense of desperation. Speakers spoke about being “victimised” by “warmists” and “alarmists” – scientists and politicians who accept that carbon dioxide emissions from industry are a main driver of climate change.
And after nearly 30 years in operation, it is unclear what Heartland stands for when it comes to climate change – beyond resistance to putting any kind of restraint on business.
Some people are rejoicing over this turn of events. Desmog blog announces the death of the denial palooza:
During his closing remarks at the Heartland Institute’s Seventh “International Conference on Climate Change,” Heartland President Joseph Bast revealed that the group has no plans to hold another conference and is struggling to pay its staff following the defections of corporate sponsors in the wake of the disastrous Unabomber billboard campaign and Deniergate document dump.
JC comments: I strongly agree with the following assessments:
And after nearly 30 years in operation, it is unclear what Heartland stands for when it comes to climate change – beyond resistance to putting any kind of restraint on business.
They are not built to be at the hump of the climate denial movement.
To: curryja@eas.gatech.edu
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2012 11:36:54 AM
Subject: Your post on Heartland
Dr. Curry,
Thanks for reproducing in your recent post my account of the left’s attacks on our scientists and donors. It’s a story that isn’t getting nearly enough attention in the blogosphere. I’m disappointed, though, that you also reproduced, at length and even endorsed, the lies and distortions written about us by Suzanne Goldenberg. A simple call or email to me or Jim Lakely would have given us a chance to correct her many misstatements.
I won’t ask for a correction or apology, but please understand that …
(a) Concerning ICCC-7, we set a record for the number of cosponsors (60), 12 speakers asked to speak after only 2 withdrew, and the mood was decidedly upbeat. Opponents (including “Forecast the Facts” and Occupy Wall Street) promised to disrupt the conference and failed utterly – fewer than 50 people showed up for their rallies. Those who did show up wore boots on their heads and refused Christopher Monckton’s invitation to debate.
(b) You didn’t see many new faces on the program because 50 warmists invited to speak refused to show up, and we had set aside space on the program for them. I’ve said after nearly every conference since the 3rd one that “this is probably our last conference,” and I’ve made a fundraising pitch, because the ICCCs are expensive and I suspect they are subject to the law of diminishing returns, but we keep doing them due to popular demand. Stay tuned for news about ICCC-8.
(c) Concerning Heartland’s financial health, we’ve raised more money since the Fakegate incident than in the previous 11 months, and are on track to double our income this year. We’ve doubled the number of current donors since February. With only one exception so far, the donors we’ve lost either didn’t give in 2011 (or even in 2010) or have agreed to fund spin-off organizations we are creating, such as the R Street Institute, so the result is no net loss of our effectiveness, and actually an increase.
(d) The campaign against our directors and donors being conducted by “Forecast the Facts,” 350.org, and Greenpeace – not by “anonymous individuals” as you strangely suggest – in fact is unprecedented because it could not have occurred had not Peter Gleick stolen and revealed our donor list. But we are obviously well on our way to building a new and much larger donor base that is “Greenpeace proof.”
(e) Our PR response to Fakegate has been called “brilliant” even by the folks at DesmogBlog. History will record it as another major scandal that helped bring down the man-made global warming movement. But the MSM and environmental groups doubled down on their strategic mistake, understanding that the only way to prevent Fakegate from “becoming another Climategate” is to take down Heartland and its network of scientists and donors. Their tactics compelled us to match their intensity.
(f) I am not surprised or disappointed that you and other bloggers disapprove of our tactics. It is simply not your role in the controversy to be aggressive or controversial. But it is ours.
(g) The billboard, which cost $200, generated more than $5 million in earned media so far, and that figure doesn’t include television, radio, and tens of millions of page visits and online commentaries. Was the MSM coverage overwhelmingly negative? Of course. How could it be otherwise? There has been no positive coverage of skeptics since Fakegate broke, none at all, and reporters have made it clear that they will not report the debate fairly, so there is no longer any point in trying to appeal to their ethics or honesty. Thanks to the billboard, 37 million Americans now know that the debate over climate change continues.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me or Jim Lakely if you have questions or suggestions.
Joseph Bast