Interesting leaked docs fro the Heartland folk: see DeSmogBlog.
[Update: in all fairness, I should point out that Heartland are currently claiming that some of the documents are fake. The truth or otherwise of this is yet to be determined. See follow-up.]
From their highlights,
funding goes primarily to Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals… We have also pledged to help raise around $90,000 in 2012 for Anthony Watts to help him create a new website to track temperature station data.
Should be fun. I haven’t read the things yet. There is also John Mashey’s work trying to tease apart SEPP’s finances.
Ah, now from Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy this bit is horrible:
effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science
which I think really shows the Heartland folk in their true light: their aim is to prevent people being taught science.
WTD has an interesting admission:
That isn’t quite what they say about themselves; they think they are an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who have come together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. But I think their Heartland paymasters are rather more honest.
Update: this is now quite widely covered, and made slashdot and El Rego. Over at slashdot, someone makes a point that I’d wondered about myself Just to point out that the real incriminating evidence comes from the “2012 Climate Strategy” document that could be falsified. The other documents, like the budget, look pretty legit but the document you are citing is a page and a half. Wouldn’t take much for me, someone who is ultra opposed to the Heartland Institute, to dream that up in a short afternoon with a six pack. I’m poking through the rest of them and am not finding the same sort of evidence. So it’s possible that someone could have gotten their hands on a few legit documents (like the budget) and created this one and added it to the group.
Incidentally, looking through the fundraising doc throws up some humour:
Bruno Behrend, hired in January 2010 to fundraise on school reform, was unsuccessful in doing so in 2011. He was moved to part-time and then to volunteer status by the end of the year. He continues to speak at public events and talk to donors, but we do not expect him to be sufficiently successful to return to paid status in 2012.
A reader writes:
I also like how carefully crafted Bast’s (rather empty) statement about funding was: “no more than 5% of total budget from a single corporate entity”. No mention that 20% came from a single individual with as-yet-unknown ties, and no mention of the foundation+companies within sectors…
Refs
* DeepClimate
* The dead are allowed to vote – on the Board of Directors of a denialist, tax-supported charity – John Mashey, via RR.