A line-by-line evaluation of the Climate Strategy memo, which the Heartland Institute has repeatedly denounced as a “fake” shows no “obvious and gross misstatements of fact,” as Heartland has alleged. On the contrary, the Climate Strategy document is corroborated by Heartland’s own material and/or by its allies and employees.
It also uses phrases, language and, in many cases, whole sentences that were taken directly from Heartland’s own material. Only someone who had previous access to all of that material could have prepared the Climate Strategy in its current form.
In all the circumstances – taking into account Peter Gleick’s explanation of the origin of the Heartland documents, and in direct contradiction of Heartland’s stated position – DeSmogBlog has concluded that the Climate Strategy memo is authentic.
Judge for yourself:
January 2012
Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy
Given the increasingly important role the Heartland Institute is playing in leading the fight to prevent the implementation of dangerous policy actions to address the supposed risks of global warming, it is useful to set priorities for our efforts in 2012.
DeSmogBlog: Heartland has in fact played an increasingly important role in attacking the science of global warming. After the UK Royal Society publicly attacked Exxon for its financial support of the leading climate-change-denying think tanks, the Competitive Enterprise Institute stepped back as the most prominent and public policy house. That opened ground for the Heartland Institute, which launched its International Conference on Climate Change series (the “Denial-a-palooza”) in 2008.
Heartland material about climate change also regularly employs terminology such as “dangerous policy actions” and “supposed risks of global warming”. One of Heartland’s long-standing arguments is that addressing global warming will have catastrophic consequences for the economy.
This document offers such a set of priorities.
DeSmogBlog: It is entirely logical that Heartland’s Board would want to consider setting priorities for its anti-global warming activities at its first meeting of the calendar and fiscal year.
I propose that at this point it be kept confidential and only be distributed to a subset of Institute Board and senior staff.
DeSmogBlog: Peter Gleick’s explanation that he received this memo in hard copy form by anonymous mail is consistent with it not having formed part of the complete package given to the Board. It appears that Gleick must have scanned the printed document to create the electronic version that he could distribute with the later material he obtained from Heartland.
If the document had been given to all Institute Board members and formed an element of the complete package, Gleick would presumably have received it twice – the second time when he requested and was sent the Board documents.
Assuming the Climate Strategy memo was not shared with the Institute’s entire Board, it would be extremely embarrassing for the memo’s author and inner circle recipients to admit they had withheld it from other Board members. This would create a powerful incentive for the author to deny this document’s authenticity: the implied insult to Board members that Heartland treats as second-class could be more damaging to Heartland than the public embarrassment of its inflammatory subject matter.
More details can be found in our 2012 Proposed Budget document and 2012 Fundraising Strategy memo. In 2012 our efforts will focus in the following areas:
DeSmogBlog: Peter Gleick now confirms that he received these documents by email directly from Heartland.
Yet the Institute has refused to acknowledge their authenticity, even going so far as to accuse the DeSmogBlog and other sources of publishing “stolen” documents without admitting their origin. Given the overlap between these documents and the Climate Strategy, it will be hard for Heartland to continue to disavow the latter as “a fake” now that the main tranche of documents has been authenticated.
Increased climate project fundraising
Our climate work is attractive to funders, especially our key Anonymous Donor (whose contribution dropped from $1,664,150 in 2010 to $979,000 in 2011 – about 20% of our total 2011 revenue).
DeSmogBlog: Various documents confirm there is an “Anonymous Donor.” The contribution figures in brackets are confirmed in the Heartland Budget document and corroborated in Table 5 at page 21 of the 2012 Fundraising Plan document. Table 5 shows that in 2010, $964.150 received from the Anonymous Donor was allocated to “Global Warming Projects.” In 2009, the sum of $1,732,180 was allocated to Global Warming Projects and in 2008, the sum of $3,300,000.
The general financial downturn in 2008 may well explain the subsequent year-over-year decline in donations from the Anonymous Donor. (The other conclusion would be that the Anonymous Donor thought Heartland was not effective.)
He has promised an increase in 2012 – see the 2011 Fourth Quarter Financial Report.
DeSmogBlog: This statement is corroborated by the 2012 Fundraising Plan which states at page 20 under the heading “4. Anonymous Donor”:
Because the Anonymous Donor has given a large percentage of the Heartland’s budget in past years, it is useful to single out his expected gift at the beginning of the year.
In 2011, he gave Heartland $979,000, less than any year since 2005. In January 2012, he pledged $1 million. We project that he will give $250,000 more over the course of the year.
Table 6 at page 21 confirms the Anonymous Donor’s million dollar pledge for the first quarter of 2012, of which $194,000 is allocated for the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) Project, $44,000 for the (Anthony Watts) Weather Stations Project, and $100,000 for the Global Warming Curriculum Project.
Further corroboration is found in the 2012 Proposed Budget which states at page 3:
Anonymous Donor: We expect the Anonymous Donor to contribute $1,250,000 in 2012 in gifts for budgeted projects, 28 percent more than he contributed in 2011, but still less than he contributed in any other year since 2004. He already pledged to give $1 million in January.
We will also pursue additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. They returned as a Heartland donor in 2011 with a contribution of $200,000. We expect to push up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to their network of philanthropists, if our focus continues to align with their interests.
DeSmogBlog: This appears to be a misstatement but only as to timing: the budget and fundraising documents confirm that the Charles G. Koch Foundation gave $25,000 in 2011, and that Heartland expected that figure to jump up to $200,000 in 2012. For example, the Fundraising Plan which states at page 7:
“The Charles G. Koch Foundation returned as a Heartland donor in 2011. We expect to ramp up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to the network of philanthropists they work with.”
The same document states at page 13:
NIPCC is currently funded by two gifts a year from two foundations, both of them requesting anonymity. In 2012 we plan to solicit gifts from other donors to add to what these two donors are giving in order to cover more of our fixed costs for promoting the first two Climate Change Reconsidered volumes and writing and editing the volume scheduled for release in 2013. We hope to raise $200,000 in 2012.
See also the 2012 Proposed Budget at page 4 where a table of Projected Income from Lapsed and First-Time Donors by Project allocates a budget of $200,000 to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and a budget of $200,000 to the Global Warming Curriculum Project.
Heartland donors’ apparent appetite for anonymity – and Koch’s toxic profile as a major funder of anti-democratic and anti-climate science activism – would explain why the 2012 Fundraising Plan does not explicitly mention the source of the large infusion of precisely $200,000 in 2012. DeSmogBlog also assumes that the reference to a $200,000 contribution (and not $25,000) in 2011 was probably a slip-up by the Climate Strategy memo’s author, who probably meant to refer to a promise made in 2011 in that amount.
A disavowal from the Koch Foundation suggests that Heartland will have to abandon its hopes of a $200,000 payment from Koch in 2012.
Other contributions will be pursued for this work, especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies.
DeSmogBlog: The Heartland 2012 Fundraising Plan explicitly states at page 12:
While ideologically motivated individual donors are apt to contribute for general operating, corporations and (increasingly) foundations want project-specific proposals…During 2012 we plan to fundraise for 10 new or relaunched projects designed to attract new donors.”
Table 3 at page 6 identifies “Target Groups for Potential Major Donors” which include “Officers, PR and GR officials at corporations with an interest in free-market policy messages on topics covered in Heartland publications.” (Heartland has numerous publications concerning global warming.) The sources for that target group include “Media coverage of corporations and industries under attack.”
Development of our “Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms” project.
Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective.
DeSmogBlog: The word “alarmist” is part of the Heartland lexicon. It is their terminology for real climate scientists. The word appears continuously in Heartland publications concerning climate change.
To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms.
DeSmogBlog: This statement is corroborated by the 2012 Fundraising Plan which states at page 18:
H. Global warming curriculum for K-12 Schools
Many people lament the absence of educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political. … Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. …
The 2012 Fundraising Plan then proceeds to detail how Heartland will arrange for the preparation of alternative materials for K-12 classrooms.
We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools.
DeSmogBlog: The 2012 Fundraising Plan states at page 18:
Dr. David Wojick has presented Heartland with a proposal to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools that appears to have great potential for success.
Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science.
DeSmogBlog: The 2012 Fundraising Plan states at page 18:
Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science.
His 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.
DeSmogBlog: This is corroborated by the 2012 Fundraising Plan which states at page 18:
Dr. Wojick proposes to begin work on “modules” for grades 10-12 on climate change (“whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy”), climate models (“models are used to explore various hypotheses about how climate works. Their reliability is controversial”), and air pollution (“whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global food supply and natural emissions are 20 times higher than human emissions”).
We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.
DeSmogBlog: This is corroborated by the 2012 Fundraising Plan which states at page 18:
We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $5,000 per module, about $25,000 a quarter, starting in the second quarter of 2012 for this work. The Anonymous donor has pledged the first $100,000 for this project, and we will circulate a proposal to match and then expand upon that investment.
Wojick, who by the way has no background or expertise in climate science, has confirmed independently that he has been engaged to do this work.
Heartland’s suggestion that climate change is controversial and uncertain bears no relation to the true state of science, which is perhaps why the author of the Climate Strategy Memo admits (in what may be a Freudian slip) that those “two key points … are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.”
Funding for parallel organizations.
Heartland is part of a growing network of groups working the climate issues, some of which we support financially. We will seek additional partnerships in 2012. At present we sponsor the NIPCC to undermine the official United Nations’ IPCC reports and paid a team of writers $388,000 in 2011 to work on a series of editions of Climate Change Reconsidered. Expenses will be about the same in 2012. NIPCC is currently funded by two gifts a year from two foundations, both of them requesting anonymity.
DeSmogBlog: The 2012 Proposed Budget states at page 7:
The two tables below summarize the multi-year budget for the project and personnel costs for the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), an international group of scientists that produces critiques of the reports of the United Nations’ IPCC. Heartland hosts and funds the effort. A growing number of scientists have been recruited by Craig Idso to be contributing authors and editors of NIPCC’s major reports, a series titled Climate Change Reconsidered. Two volumes have been published so far.
Further, the 2012 Fundraising Plan states at page 13:
Heartland sponsors the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), an international network of scientists who write and speak out on climate change. Heartland pays a team of scientists approximately $300,000 a year to work on a series of editions of Climate Change Reconsidered, the most comprehensive and authoritative rebuttal of the United Nations’ IPCC reports.
The use of “rebuttal” in this context certainly supports the interpretation that the NIPCC’s purpose is “to undermine the official United Nation’s IPCC reports.
Another $88,000 is earmarked this year for Heartland staff, incremental expenses, and overhead for editing, expense reimbursement for the authors, and marketing.
DeSmogBlog: This is corroborated in the 2012 Fundraising Plan which states at page 13:
Another $88,000 is earmarked for Heartland staff, incremental expenses, and overhead for editing, expense reimbursement for the authors, and marketing.
Note that the political – rather than scientific – nature of the NIPCC‘s work has been well-documented elsewhere.
Funding for selected individuals outside of Heartland.
Our current budget includes funding for high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist AGW message. At the moment, this 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, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be found.
DeSmogBlog: This is corroborated by table 3 at page 7 of the 2012 Proposed Budget which describes Craig Idso as a Senior Editor, Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change; Fred Singer as Co-Editor, Science and Environmental Policy Project; and Robert Carter, Co-Editor, James Cook University and Institute for Public Affairs, Australia.
Note that Heartland’s propensity for inadvertent misstatement spills into its own budget documents. For example, Heartland’s Budget speaks of paying “Susan Crockford” for a chapter “2.2 Terrestrial Animals,” at the University of Victoria in “Australia.” Crockford is in fact a professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia (which Joe Bast ought to realize is in Canada). Crockford advertises herself as an expert in “the evolution and history of the domestic dog.” There is no mention in the Heartland material of any qualifications relevant to climate change.
Bob Carter (who really IS from Australia) confirmed the information about him in the 2012 Proposed Budget during an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald.
Expanded climate communications
Heartland plays an important role in climate communications, especially through our in-house experts (e.g., Taylor) through his Forbes blog and related high profile outlets, our conferences, and through coordination with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts).
DeSmogBlog: This is corroborated by Heartland’s website which lists James Taylor as a Senior Fellow. Taylor does, indeed, write periodically in Forbes. Heartland also appears to have a close relationship with WUWT, which is weather forecaster Anthony Watts website, What’s Up With That. For example, when Peter Gleick publicly acknowledged his role in getting Heartland to hand over their Board package, the Institute chose to use WUWT to release their reaction, even in priority to publishing the information on their own website.
Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high profile climate scientists (such as Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own.
DeSmogBlog: Dr. Peter Gleick, who explained the origins of the leak of Heartland documents, is also a frequent contributor at Forbes. And again, throughout this document, as on its website and in other documents, Heartland uses the adjective “warmist” to indicate someone who gives an accurate interpretation to the human cause – and likely effects – of global warming.
This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out. Efforts might also include cultivating more neutral voices with big audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of the more extreme AGW communicators such as Romm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who has become popular with our supporters).
DeSmogBlog: This is mostly editorial comment, although Forbes has distinguished itself on many previous occasions by choosing to concentrate on material that suggests there is still some debate over the causes of climate change.
Andrew Revkin commented on his blog that he felt this reference undermined the credibility of the Climate Strategy memo, saying, “It (the strategy document) always seemed dubious, given that the document said it might be worth ‘cultivating’ me as a ‘neutral’ voice. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that the group called me “a noted ally of the alarmist camp.” Certainly, it would be embarrassing for a former New York Times environment reporter to be labelled “neutral” by an organization such as Heartland. But Revkin’s attack on Peter Gleick tends to corroborate the Climate Strategy memo’s assessment, especially given that Revkin failed, in the same article, to offer any direct criticism of an organization that has dedicated itself for years to climate disinformation.
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.
DeSmogBlog: This is corroborated in the 2012 Fundraising Plan which states at pages 19-20:
Anthony Watts proposes to create a new Web site devoted to accessing the new temperature data from NOAA’s web site and converting them into easy-to-understand graphs that can be easily found and understood by weathermen and the general interested public. …The new site will be promoted heavily at WattsUpwithThat.com.
Heartland has agreed to help Anthony raise $88,000 for the project in 2011. The Anonymous donor has already pledged $44,000. We’ll seek to raise the balance.
Further, Anthony Watts himself has confirmed the details of this project, but he later stated that the rounding up from $88,000 to $90,000 indicated that the document is a fake, saying the Climate Strategy, “gets the operational details (budget) wrong – especially the points about my project, rounding up to $90,000 from a very specific budget number of $88,000. This suggests trying to inflate the number for a purpose. There’s no evidence of rounding budget numbers in any other document in the set.”
Watts’ criticism of the $2,000 variance is patently absurd.
Finally, we will consider expanding these efforts further, or developing new ones, if funding can be obtained.
DeSmogBlog: This seems unlikely to represent an “obvious and gross misstatement of fact.”
SUMMARY:
The foregoing analysis demonstrates that the Climate Strategy Memo is an accurate executive summary of the information contained in budget and fundraising documents that were to be put before the Board at its January meeting.
DeSmogBlog therefore sees no basis whatsoever for Heartland’s assertion that the Climate Strategy memo is a ‘fake” which contains “obvious and gross misstatements of fact.”
