Fake list fury
The Heartland Institute is a think-tank dedicated to "debunking" global warming. But now it's being debunked.
Environmental activists running a website called DeSmogBlog published an article recently showing that several scientists purported to doubt climate change actually have no such doubts -- and are angry that the Heartland Institute has misrepresented their positions.
DeSmog's target: An earlier piece by Heartland Senior Fellow Dennis T. Avery that listed 500 scientists whose work allegedly contradicts the scientific consensus that human-induced climate change is a serious threat. To read the Heartland article, click here.
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Here is what the DeSmogBlog wrote: "DeSmog Blog manager Kevin Grandia emailed 122 of the scientists yesterday afternoon, calling their attention to the list. So far - in less than 24 hours - three dozen of those scientists had responded in outrage, denying that their research supports Avery's conclusions and demanding that their names be removed.
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This is a brief taste of some of the responses that have been copied to the DeSmogBlog:
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'I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite,' wrote Dr. David Sugden, professor of Geography at the University of Edinburgh.
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'I have NO doubts ..the recent changes in global climate ARE man-induced. I insist that you immediately remove my name from this list since I did not give you permission to put it there," wrote Dr. Gregory Cutter, Professor, Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University.
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'I don't believe any of my work can be used to support any of the statements listed in the article," wrote Dr. Robert Whittaker, Professor of Biogeography, University of Oxford.
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'Please remove my name. What you have done is totally unethical!!' wrote Dr. Svante Bjork, Geo Biosphere Science Centre, Lund University.
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'I'm outraged that they've included me as an "author" of this report. I do not share the views expressed in the summary,' wrote Dr. John Clague, Shrum Research Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University."
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On a different blog, some Canadians are raising questions about whether the Chicago-based Heartland Insitute is flooding Canadan schools with misleading information suggesting there is still a scientific debate over the existence of global warming.
Check out this site, from a Canadian radio station (AM770 in Calgary).
The Canadian blog reports: "An American think-tank has sent out more than 11,000 brochures and DVDs to Canadian schools urging them to teach their students that scientists are exaggerating how human activity is the driving force behind global warming.
The Chicago-based group, the Heartland Institute, said its goal is to ensure that students are provided with a "balanced" education about "an important and controversial issue," but critics, including a leading climate scientist, described it as a campaign of misinformation.
The mailout, sent in February, included results from international surveys of climate scientists conducted in 1996 and 2003, along with a 10-minute DVD called Unstoppable Solar Cycles, The Real Story of Greenland.
Right away, it seems the "American" card is played, as though this were some foreign intrusion into Canadian schools - guess what people: Al Gore is not from Saskatchewan. The story continues:
"It took me a while to figure out what they were up to," said Eric Betteridge, who teaches at Hillcrest High School.
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The Sierra Club of Canada said the Heartland Institute's information was far from being balanced.
"It's alarming that an American think-tank is distributing misinformation on the most important issue of our time in Canadian schools, to actually create an illusion that there is a scientific debate," said Emilie Moorhouse, a spokeswoman for the environmental group.
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The brochure and DVD said scientists were "deeply divided" about "the notion that climate change is mostly the result of human activities." It also suggested that the sun was the main factor behind recent warming recorded on the planet.
The package does not make reference to the conclusions reached by governments and scientists from around the world in their 2007 assessment of the latest peer-reviewed research on climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in its summary of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning report that global warming is unequivocal and that there is a 90-per-cent chance it is being caused by humans.
After reviewing the Heartland Institute package, Mr. Betteridge said he was left feeling amused and distressed that someone would try to promote this material to children in the classroom.
"I think I would be concerned because it was well written, and if somebody hadn't been aware of what the general consensus is among climatologists about global warming, you would begin to think, 'Wow, somebody's giving me the wrong story here'."
I'm not sure what qualifies "Mr. Betteridge" as an expert here - or the Sierra Club, for that matter - but it's interesting to note that nowhere in this story does anyone point out any factual errors in the Heartland Institute material.
And while the package may not reference the IPCC report, I highly doubt the scientific minutia of the IPCC report is part of your typical school curriculum (that could prove interesting). Which, I suppose, begs the question of what is being taught when it comes to the issue of climate change? We've certainly heard about extensive use of Al Gore's error-plagued film, but what else?
Maybe Mr. Betteridge could discuss this with his students (emphasis added):
Over eight out of ten American climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming, according to a new survey released by the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. The researchers also report that belief in human-induced warming has more than doubled since the last major survey of American climate scientists in 1991. However, the survey finds that scientists are still debating the dynamics and dangers of global warming, and only three percent trust newspaper or television coverage of climate change.
Or this:
Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said.
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This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.
Maybe this, too:
Four of the past 5 months are “all-time” records for Southern Hemisphere sea ice anomalies, “unprecedented” since the data set began in 1979."
Comments
Just take a look at the funding and some of the Board of Directors and a clearer picture can be drawn.
Heartland’s extreme anti-environmentalism no doubt spawns from its supporters. Between 1998 and 2005, oil giant ExxonMobil gave nearly $800,000 to Heartland. The group’s Board of Directors also explains the group’s climate change denials:
– Thomas Walton is the Director of Economic Policy at General Motors.
–James L. Johnston is a former
senior economist for oil company Amoco Corporation.
–Walter F. Buchholtz is a former member of Heartland’s board of directors and worked as ExxonMobil’s Senior Issues Advisor.
Posted by: Eric Strobel | May 8, 2008 11:50 AM
As a Canadian, I'm appalled that the Heartland Institute is spamming Canadian schools with specious ‘educational’ materials.
This is unacceptable!!!
Posted by: Marc Kobayashi | May 8, 2008 1:22 PM
Perhaps you are unaware that Desmog Blog, while it smears scientists who do not toe the alarmist line, is funded by real dirty money. Their main funder John Lefebver is a convicted money launderer, who used that dirty cash to start the site.
So before you pile on in the smear campagin you should check your facts first.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22611&CFID=3892739&CFTOKEN=86028232
Posted by: Mark Newgent | May 9, 2008 4:34 AM
I see that, even though Heartland's list of 400 scientists is obviously bogus -- in fact, 5 New Zealand scientists themselves have publicly said so, to the NZ Herald -- Mark Newgent has still decided to use Heartland as a credible information source!
Are some people really this dense?
By the way, I have a category on my blog dedicated to this "Heartland 500" debacle. Have fun. :-)
-- bi, International Journal of Inactivism
Posted by: bi -- Intl. J. Inact. | May 11, 2008 12:42 PM