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THE WITNESSNo one would argue that Heartland Institute is in turmoil. The Guardian summed it up pretty well last night .
The historic Joe Bast backfiring blunder of a billboard campaign featuring Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, the non-apology that followed, corporate funders running for the exits, the collapse of the Heartland DC office, former friends and colleagues jumping Bast’s ship in his “hour of need”…
Desperate times indeed for climate denial central….
PolluterWatch: Greenpeace Investigates Heartland Institute Leaked Documents – click to see investigation and ongoing updates.
As Greenpeace questions universities about payments to faculty members from the Heartland Institute for its campaign to discredit climate science, we have made some interesting discoveries. Our newest letter is to the University of Missouri concerning professor Anthony Lupo, who leads the schools Global Climate Change Group and is slated to receive a total $18,000 from the Heartland Institute from 2011-2012 as a consultant for “Climate Change Reconsidered” reports. As you would expect from a Heartland Institute project, these reports are designed to confuse the scientific conclusions of 97% of climate researchers around the world.
While credible climate scientists and institutions have understood global warming for decades now, Anthony Lupo’s position on climate has fluctuated significantly. A thorough article in the Kansas City Pitch back in 2008 revealed the following evolution of Dr. Lupo’s public statements on global warming:
PolluterWatch: Greenpeace Investigates Heartland Institute Leaked Documents – click to see investigation and ongoing updates.
Perhaps the most outrageous revelation of “Denialgate,” the leak of internal Heartland Institute budget and fundraising documents detailing their 2012 work plan to obstruct global warming policy, is a project to develop school curricula to teach K-12 students that there is doubt over the causes and implications of global warming.
What hasn’t been reported is the complementary role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has peddled laws written by corporate lobbyists through state legislatures that make it easy for its dirty energy members, such as Exxon, Koch Industries and Peabody coal, to influence how climate science is presented to students. The so-called “Environmental Literacy Improvement Act,” which has been introduced in seven states and became law in at least three, would establish a state-level council to oversee all scientific material presented to students, allowing companies to smother classroom science with K street politics. This council would notably exclude anyone with environmental science credentials, instead composing itself in the following proportions:
“Section 4. {Appointment and Composition of the Council}
A. Composition: The Council shall consist of members who have expertise in the following areas in the respective proportions:
40 percent natural sciences (not environmental science)
40 percent economic sciences
20 percent educational curriculum”
Basically, it ensures that climatology will be underrepresented. Note that environmental science is interdisciplinary, open to a variety of natural science expertise in order to study complex natural systems that cannot be confined to a single topic of study. See our annotated version of the ALEC bill showing how ALEC’s language can be used to peddle global warming denial in schools. Continue reading