Moved prior submission, seems more appropriate here:INFLUENCE GAME: Leaks Show Group's Climate EffortsLeaked documents from a prominent conservative think tank show how it sought to teach schoolchildren skepticism about global warming and planned other behind-the-scenes tactics using millions of dollars in donations from big corporate names.
More than $14 million of the money used by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute would come from one anonymous man, according to the leaked documents prepared for a meeting of the group's board.
Heartland is one of the loudest voices denying man-made global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change. Several of its documents were leaked this week to the news media, showing the planning and money behind its efforts. Heartland said some of the documents weren't accurate, but declined to be more specific.
As detailed in the papers, Heartland's plans for this year included paying an Energy Department consultant $100,000 to design a curriculum to teach school children that mainstream global warming science is in dispute, even though it's a fact accepted by the federal government and nearly every scientific professional organization. It also pays prominent global warming skeptics more than $300,000 a year and plans to raise $88,000 to help a former television weatherman set up a new temperature records website.
More here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/influence-game-leaks-show-groups-climate-efforts-15693816#.T0CPNfWXv5x------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...internal documents acquired by ThinkProgress Green reveal that the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by the Koch brothers, Microsoft, and other top corporations, is planning to develop a "global warming curriculum" for elementary schoolchildren that presents climate science as "a major scientific controversy"...".
Climate Change Hoax For Kids - Documents Expose Corporate-Funded Plan
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Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate scienceThe billionaire Charles Koch, a key financier of the Heartland Institute, which works to undermine the established science on climate change.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartland-institute-climate------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In case you haven’t seen this, several world-leading climate scientists have published an open letter to the Heartland Institute. Here it is:
An Open Letter to the Heartland InstituteAs scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate science in the classroom.
We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said. Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.
So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.
We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.
These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative sources agree on these points.
What businesses, policymakers, advocacy groups and citizens choose to do in response to those facts should be informed by the science. But those decisions are also necessarily informed by economic, ethical, ideological, and other considerations. While the Heartland Institute is entitled to its views on policy, we object to its practice of spreading misinformation about climate research and personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.
We hope the Heartland Institute will begin to play a more constructive role in the policy debate. Refraining from misleading attacks on climate science and climate researchers would be a welcome first step toward having an honest, fact-based debate about the policy responses to climate change.
Ray Bradley, PhD, Director of the Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts
David Karoly, PhD, ARC Federation Fellow and Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia
Michael Mann, PhD, Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University
Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona
Ben Santer, PhD, Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Gavin Schmidt, PhD, Climate Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Kevin Trenberth, ScD, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research
http://planetsave.com/2012/02/18/open-letter-to-heartland-institute-from-climate-scientists/
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Topic: Global Warming Debate (Read 4315 times)
