From the Heartland Institute, they call out the Center for American Progress for posting falsehoods, but invite them to the conference anyway. Class act.
Liberal Think Tank’s ‘Prebuttal’ Gets Facts Wrong About The Heartland Institute, Climate Conference
Today at 2 p.m. EDT — a day before The Heartland Institute opens its Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, (ICCC-6) — the Center for American Progress will host a conference call to offer what amounts to a “prebuttal” to Heartland’s event.
The following comments by Jim Lakely, director of communications for The Heartland Institute, may be used for attribution. For additional comments, email Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org or call 312/377-4000. For information on Heartland’s climate conference — held June 30 and July 1 at the Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, DC — visit the conference Web page. To register for media credentials for the conference, click here.
“This is ‘progress,’ all right — for The Heartland Institute,” Lakely said. “For years, the global warming alarmists thought the best counter-strategy to The Heartland Institute’s climate conferences was to ignore them. No matter how many scientists we brought in to talk about what the observational and historical data say about the climate, the enviro-left’s strategy never wavered — until now. This is proof Heartland’s years-long effort to help restore the scientific method to the debate is cutting through the fog of politics and panic.
“I want to take this opportunity to invite staffers from the Center for American Progress to ICCC-6, as well as the folks who will be countering Heartland’s conference on their press call,” Lakely said. “There’s time allotted for Q&A after every presentation, and the scientists in attendance will gladly field their questions.”
(You can watch Heartland’s climate conference live starting at
8:30 a.m. Thursday, June 30 and Friday, July 1.)
Lakely adds it is a “myth” that only skeptics are invited to Heartland climate conferences.
“We always invite the ‘other side,’ but few accept the challenge,” Lakely said.
One scholar who accepted the challenge, atmospheric scientist Scott Denning of Colorado State University, made a point to mention how well he and his views were received at ICCC-4 in Chicago last year and urged his colleagues to join him. Heartland’s YouTube page has a four-minute clip of Denning’s remarks here. Some excerpts:
“I learned a lot here. … I actually feel that it’s really too bad that more of my colleagues from the scientific community didn’t attend this, and haven’t in the past. And I hope we can remedy that in the future. … We can learn quite a bit from each other. … I think the most important thing that we have in common is the following: that we think we need public policy that is based on facts, rather than facts that are based on a policy agenda.”
The Center for American Progress press release has another error of fact. The organization’s Christina DiPasquale writes: “The Heartland Institute, a conservative group funded by Exxon Mobil and Charles Koch …”
“This is a common and inaccurate charge of the left when mentioning The Heartland Institute,” Lakely said. “ExxonMobil has not contributed to Heartland since 2006 — and even then, the company’s gifts were modest. In addition, the Kochs have not sent money Heartland’s way for more than a decade. And neither ‘bogeyman’ of the left is funding this conference, nor has funded any of Heartland’s past conferences. None of the organizations Heartland listed as cosponsors contribute toward the cost of these events, either.”
More information on The Heartland Institute’s funding can be found here.
Bloke down the pub says: June 29, 2011 at 1:27 pm.
Thirded, UK also but I think the common theme here is the attack on science we are seeing with the AGW theme and don’t really see any connection to science. I’m probably pretty middling myself with what may be described with a leftish tendency from the comments here.
Mooloo, FAIL. Monckton is neither a party nor a representative of one.
The UK is, we rightists opine, committing political, social, and economic suicide. We’ll abide by the verdict of events in the (near) future on whether our opinion is valid or mere blather, as you transparently imply.
I agree with Mooloo’s quite thoughtful post, probably because we are both New Zealanders and therefore share some of the same values and influences. I get very tired of of the tendency many commenters from the USA have of demonising those whose politics are different from their own. New Zealand, it can be argued, is essentially a small-s socialist democracy which has enshrined the ideal in law that the many who can look after themselves should take care of the few who cannot. This is not because we Kiwis are all evil Socialists, but because we are not very far removed from our settler origins when we were impelled to act collectively to survive. We have our own party-political differences, but don’t tend to see the Right/Left political labels as life-or-death matters.
Most Kiwis who are also sceptical of CAGW tend to focus on the science and on the forces that promote alarmism. Shouting at someone whose politics differ from our own seem not only irrelevant but rather counterproductive to us.
I am currently living in the UK and have done so for a few years now, but I am still appalled by the unthinking and extreme tribalism of voters’ political behaviour here when I encounter it. Political tribalism seems a slightly-less uncivilised cousin of Football hooliganism but, as far as the politics of CAGW are concerned, I can see little difference between any of the poltical parties in the UK.
As far as I can see, none of the mainstream political parties in the UK seem very interested in or aware of science in any meaningful and rational way and their environmental policies are remarkably similar to each others.
I met Fred Koch and 2 of his 4 sons. If Romm wants to say koch money is toxic, I guess when David Koch gave 100 million to MIT, MIT is now run by the family. Makes MIT a bad school. Ooops, that is where Joe Romm went.
Fred and his sons, i believe all 4 attended MIT. So guilt by association reaches how far?
About “Left” and “Right” –
While the climate change debate isn’t party-specific, the Heartland Institute is a favorite target of left-leaning organizations. If you bring the Koch brothers into a debate, you have already made it Left/Right political aligned. The initiator of the rhetoric here is NOT THI, it’s the left-aligned “Center for American Progress”.