heartland institute
gregladen | May 16, 2017I had the immense pleasure and great honor of joining Molly, Nick, and Tim on the Geeks Without God podcast to talk about the recent mailing of a book and some other material about climate change to science teachers, by the Heartland Institute. This mailing was an effort to sow seeds of doubt about climate science, but the way they pulled off this little caper will probably have the opposite effect.
The Heartland Institute does not survive this conversation. No kittens or puppies were harmed, though.
Go Here To Listen To the Podcast, and Support Geeks Without God (not safe for work,…
oracknows | February 10, 2016Last week, I wrote about how conspiracy theories have been flowing fast and furious about the Zika virus and microcephaly. Even if you didn't see that post (perhaps instead having seen this one), you've probably seen the news reports describing how last fall the observation of a large number of cases of microcephaly, characterized by an abnormally small head and delayed brain development, in Brazil led researchers investigating the problem to suspect a link to a virus. That virus, the Zika virus, as you recall, is a mosquito-borne flavivirus related to dengue virus and transmitted primarily…
gregladen | June 15, 2015This is a press release from the Center for Inquiry:
Skeptics Dare Heartland Institute to Take Up $25,000 Climate Challenge
A leading science advocacy group is throwing down the gauntlet to the Heartland Institute, a group that claims that global warming stopped in 1998, with a stark, simple challenge: If the 30-year average global land surface temperature goes up in 2015, setting a new record, the Heartland Institute must donate $25,000 to a science education nonprofit.
The challenge is presented by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), a program of the Center for Inquiry, which held…
gregladen | March 3, 2015And by "me" I mean all the children of future generations.
Willie Soon is a soft-money scientist at Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has been producing highly questionable 'science' casting, for several years, faux light on the reality of the human caused process of global warming. It appears that most or all of Soon's funding came directly or indirectly from the fossil fuel industry or supporters of that industry. (See also John Mashy's comment below about tax breaks.) Recently the dung has struck the rotating blades and the nexus of denialist 'science,' fossil fuel funding…
gregladen | November 13, 2013That nefarious leech of an organization, the Heartland Institute, the one that put up the billboards implying that people who think climate change is important are mad bombers, has done something really offensive, again. They made a fake packet of information with fake stuff about climate change and sent it to teachers and other educators, as well as graduate students, to try to trick them into passing the lies and deceptions on to their students. According to the National Center for Science Education:
Around Halloween, thousands of science teachers, science professors, and graduate…
gregladen | June 24, 2013A few climate change related items I know you will be interested in, especially since you will want to be very current for the big event Tuesday.
There is now a new profession: Extreme Weather Architect. (Hat tip: Paul Douglas)
You may hear again and again that climate change is over, that warming has stopped. This is wrong in many many ways, and I've written about that here. Dana Nuccitelli has this important piece as well: We haven't hit the global warming pause button. Also, see this brand new item for a detailed discussion of how surface warming varies across time.
You've heard of the…
illconsidered | March 15, 2013What do they have in common? Apparently some methodologies, uncovered by the hacktivist group Anonymous.
Details can be found in an interesting, if dense, article at The Nation, which describes how Anonymous revealed dealings the Chamber of Commerce was having with a Cyber Security firm that did not limit itself to defensive measures.
Attorneys for the Chamber were caught negotiating for a contract to launch a cyber campaign using practically identical methods to those attributed to the Chinese, which reportedly could be used to cripple vital infrastructure and plunder trade secrets from…
gregladen | February 14, 2013Peter Gleick, my sbling here at scienceblogs.com (see his blog here) is famous for a lot of things, but about one year ago he went up against the Heartland Institute and in a daring effort of investigative (if avocational) journalism, revealed that right wing conservative/libertarian "think" tank's nefarious plans to interfere with science education in an effort to discredit climate scientists in the eyes of the American public and our students through a series of rather smarmy tactics, including some really obnoxious billboards.
Scott Mandia at "Global Warming: Man or Myth?" has written a…
gregladen | February 22, 2012You know about the Heartland Strategy memo. It is one of several documents produced and used internally by the Heartland Institute, a minor Libertarian "Think" Tank, demonstrating some rather unsavory activities, which are now under preliminary investigation by the US Congress. The memo contains little that is not found in other documents already admitted by Heartland to be genuine but there are a few details added and a much finer point is put on such nefarious programs as intruding into the public school system to trick teachers into "not teaching science" in science classes.
This memo is…
illconsidered | March 6, 2009
Heartland Institute is hosting a "scholarly" event in New York this weekend. Here is a description of what to expect.
illconsidered | November 11, 2008How far do you have to lower your standards if you are the Heartland Institute and want four Texans for a list of "experts" on global warming?
Pretty low. Despite "dozens if not hundreds" of working climate scientists in Texas, to get four deniers for their list, the Heartland Institute had to use an energy expert, a policy analyst, an emergency physician and a petroleum engineer!
Like damning with faint praise, that list says alot about the opinions of the actual community of experts.