Jim Lakely, Heartland’s communications director, takes Daniel Souweine of the TV meteorologist hassling group Fabricate Forecast the Facts to task in this piece on the Heartland blog:
Reports of Heartland’s Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated
By Jim Lakely
Yesterday, the boss addressed an article in a recent edition of The Economist reporting wishing for the downfall of The Heartland Institute. Definitely check it out — especially for the part in which the esteemed international publication acknowledged Heartland’s important and influential position in the climate debate.
On the heels of that Economist story came a piece at the Huffington Post by Daniel Souweine, the campaign director for Forecast The Facts — a recently cooked-up astroturf outfit that has engaged in a social media and letter-writing campaign against some of Heartland’s corporate donors.
The title of Souweine’s piece is, “The People-Power-Inflicted Downfall of Heartland.” Hate to break it to you, Dan, but there is no “downfall.” While you and your leftist activist buddies have been exchanging high fives and taking a “victory” lap, Heartland has been keepin’ on keepin’ on — and better than ever.
Below is what I wrote in the comment section below Souweine’s piece. The response to my dousing of rain on their parade brought predictably lame counter-comments — which have added amusement to my weekend. Anyway, on to what I wrote:
The big trouble with your piece, Daniel, is that its overall theme – that Heartland is in “decline” and has brought about its own “downfall” – is simply not true. Or, to borrow from Mark Twain: Reports of Heartland’s demise are greatly exaggerated.
As Mr. Bast explains in his blog post, the idea Heartland lost nearly $1 million in donations is false: “Most of the donors who have said they won’t continue to support us have agreed to fund new or existing groups that will continue our work; some already contributed this year before their announcements; and others had indicated they would not fund us even before the billboard controversy. We have now raised considerably more from current and new donors than we may have lost due to the controversy.”
So not only is Heartland not “down” a net $1 million, Heartland is not even at a net “zero” after spinning off its dedicated insurance projects. We’re up in funds, overall. Heartland has already doubled the number of individual donors since Peter Gleick’s Fakegate scandal, and we expect that number to continue to rise steeply throughout 2012.
In short, exactly the opposite of what leftist activists intended – let alone claim to have achieved – has actually occurred. If you think 2012 marks the “demise” of The Heartland Institute, I suggest you check back with us in five, 10 or 20 years. We’ll still be here, fighting for smaller government, individual liberty and free markets – just as we have for the last 28 years.
And I’m betting Forecast the Facts won’t exist anymore in three years. Any takers?
We might have more to say about this, and in greater detail, at a later date. But know this: The leftist “victory” over Heartland is all in their heads.
If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donatation to The Heartland Institute, visit this site.
This could be big
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/6/our-planet-saving-science-lobbyist-the-integrity-of-the-australian-academy-of-science
That’s cool and all but they’re still a bunch of neo-cons.
I’m with non-partisanship.
Jim Lakely says:
June 2, 2012 at 10:12 pm
If you’re up for some punchy fun, head over to HuffPost and read those comments — and perhaps consider a comment of your own. Of course, such action would give Daniel Souweine more traffic than he deserves — and WAY LESS than Anthony gets on his slowest day (I expect this thread at WUWT to have more comments) — but it still might be worth it. Just for fun. Your call.
Living in UK I don’t see HuffPuff very much, which is fine by me. I put them in a similar category to the Grauniad, although not as good at it! I won’t even think of writing to or blogging at HuffPuff. Waste of space!
Their transgression was minor. However, they should resist further appeals to emotion. This tactic cannot effectively be exploited by both sides in an endogenous conflict (irrespective of the funding source). Good luck, Heartland.
Time is the liars worst enemy. Time is what proves liars and false prophets for what they really are. Time is also the honest persons best friend and that is why organizations founded on truth survive for long, even for 2000 years. The US constitution has seen 200+ years, OTOH, Communism in the Soviet Union managed 70 years. Nazism a decade give or take a year. Socialism, another big lie, is having it’s greatest fall ever in the EU and possibly it’s brief experiment in Obama’s USA.
On the science front (or is it political?), AGW, a big scientific lie at par with alchemy is having a Humpty Dumpty sort of great fall and is breaking up into smithereens in such a way that no kings’ or presidents and their horses will be able to bring together again.
Heartland is, IMHO, is in the truth category and until it remains so it will have its raison d’etre.
I just wanted to thank Smokey for Heartland t-shirts and Fakegate mug!
Awesome!
Mike Jowsey says:
June 2, 2012 at 11:59 pm
.”…….Too scared????”
===============
Good question.
Scared ?, yes.
Not sure if I should thank you for your concern, or to tell you to take a flying f##k..
I will assume it is the latter.
I’m afraid that, – arch sceptic though I am – I found the billboard adverts in very bad taste, and could see little moral superiority over the 10:10 video or the ‘we know where you live’ memo.
I thoroughly disliked all of them. It is a great shame that after Fakegate firmly established the mendacity of the alarmists, Heartland descended so quickly into the same gutter.
If I had ever been tempted to contribute to Heartland, I have completely beaten that tendency.
Hi Jim
Sounds like it has turned into a full blown political battle now, and the science left behind (courtesy, of Gleick, etc). ie scientists will have to choose side, or just not speak (not speaking is my concern)
This is perhaos a sign of nearing the endgame, ie stakes raised ever higher, then collapse.
Sadly, this was probably inevitable in the USA.ie with issue divided across political lines aswell, in the UK all parties believed in AGW, and now have to deal with the consequences of energy policy, thus oddly the ‘climate’ is better for sceptics.. ie Labour Graham Springer CAN be sceptical alongside Conservative Lord Lawson).. and sceptics (and sceptical scientists) and scientists cand and do have civil chats.. whilst the political falls apart..
ie gas power stations just defined as green (otherwise the lights might go out) and even new coal plants might get built, with a token gesture towards, some sort of CCS.
And of course when the Eurozone collapses in finacial chaos (Spain is on the edge, contagion next) all thoughts of emissions will be forgotten
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9307106/Spain-is-in-total-emergency-the-EU-in-total-denial.html .
Mike Jowsey says: June 2, 2012 at 10:23 pm
Pretty well seconded here, Mike.
Jim Lakely, I wonder if you would consider doing an article on the conference and the presentations? I added Ilarionov’s 2010 presentation to my page on UHI, and regard his work as really important in helping to flag up the still-under-compensated UHI factors – which then allow the “homogenized” data to still be used though I regard this fundamental of Climate Science as still suspect. It was only by chance I found Ilarionov.
Fakegate certainly was an inspiration to us in Scotland to get something going.
Where do we get the fakegate mug?
Latimer Alder says:
June 3, 2012 at 1:24 am
I’m afraid that, – arch sceptic though I am – I found the billboard adverts in very bad taste, and could see little moral superiority over the 10:10 video or the ‘we know where you live’ memo.
I thoroughly disliked all of them. It is a great shame that after Fakegate firmly established the mendacity of the alarmists, Heartland descended so quickly into the same gutter.
Latimer, I as well thought the billboard counter-productive PR. Heartland has a better handle on whether it actually was. As to descending into the alarmists’ gutter, let’s distinguish between a factually accurate billboard on the one hand and criminal activity on the other.
u.k.(us) says:
June 3, 2012 at 12:57 am
Scared ?, yes.
=======================
That’s cool. I think we are all a little scared of the future. It’s healthy.
“Jim Lakely, I wonder if you would consider doing an article on the conference and the presentations?”
Great idea, Lucy! I saw and found the Sebastian Luning presentation (about an hour) to be a tour de force. However, I’d love to get more of a sense for the content and spirit of the conference as a whole — without having to invest the time and energy to actually view it all. Maybe with a better sense for it, WUWTers will have a better idea which specific presentations to view.
Latimer Alder says:
June 3, 2012 at 1:24 am
I’m afraid that, – arch sceptic though I am – I found the billboard adverts in very bad taste, and could see little moral superiority over the 10:10 video or the ‘we know where you live’ memo.
I thoroughly disliked all of them. It is a great shame that after Fakegate firmly established the mendacity of the alarmists, Heartland descended so quickly into the same gutter.
If I had ever been tempted to contribute to Heartland, I have completely beaten that tendency.
==============
I thought it a very neat way of holding up a mirror to the alarmist propaganda tactics.
I began watching a Monckton talk on tv last night, but gave up when the satellite feed kept breaking up. Of what I did hear one point particularly lends itself to a billboard campaign – the “science consensus” is one scientist the IPCC drafted in to change the real consensus of the scientists putting together that report. Santer the puppet took out the real scientist consensus conclusions and the some 200 mentions of in the body of the report supporting the conclusions, and hey presto, Anthropogenic Global Warming was born. The Science Consensus is a Consensus of One Scientist and His Fraud.
Without that change there would have been no need for the IPCC to continue to exist..
Here, just found this: http://larouchepac.com/node/12823
LAROUCHEPAC:
Green Fascism..IPCC’s Santer Admits Fraud
December 18, 2009 • 9:16AM
Ben Santer, a climate researcher and lead IPCC author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC Working Group I Report, admitted last night on Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory national TV show, that he had deleted sections of the IPCC chapter which stated that humans were not responsible for climate change. Accusing Santer of altering opinions in the IPCC report that disagreed with the man-made thesis behind climate change, Lord Monckton told the program, “In comes Santer and re-writes it for them, after the scientists have sent in their finalized draft, and that finalized draft said at five different places, there is no discernable human effect on global temperature — I’ve seen a copy of this — Santer went through, crossed out all of those, and substituted a new conclusion, and this has been the official conclusion ever since.”
He’s admitted it.
@ur momisugly Pointman -totally agree with your linked article.
Neil says
H’mmm …not sure that I want to get into a debate about moral relativism. I found all of it – on both sides – distasteful and unpleasant. You do not win a war of ideas by chasing your opponent down the slippery slope. You let him destroy himself by showing his true colours not by gratuitously giving him powerful ammunition to fight back with.
as Shakespeare very nearly said.
Jim Lakely,
Based on what I saw this May in Chicago at my first attendance at a HI sponsored ICCC (#7), you have increased my confidence in HI from medium to high.
Although I supported HI’s billboard experience right from the very first WUWT post about it, I think you need to expand much more on the discussion of the philosophical roots of irrationalism in ‘scientific’ alarmism. At your next ICCC conference I suggest several panels in the area of irrationalism vs. reason in the philosophy of science. I volunteer to support you in doing so.
John
“At 81, this ex Hitler Youth member is rapidly closing on the average life expectancy of 82.6 years”
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but live expectancy conditional on being alive and healthy (?) at age 81 is much higher than 1.6 years. I would guess it is more like 10.
James
Myrrh says:
June 3, 2012 at 4:22 am
“…”
__________________
They may have printed the truth of Santer’s actions, but as far as I’m concerned, anything connected with l***pac is highly suspect and it is a travesty that you brought that name into these pages.
Never gave to them before. But since I know that they funded some of your work and that they are under attack by the looney tunes set, They got something from me. The clincher is that Barrie Harrop thinks they are a “hornet’s nest”. If Barrie is for it, I am against it in general.
I agree with Mike Jowsey as well, to a point (6/2/12 10:23 pm). We are in a kind of warfare about “the truth” and “the scientific method”. However, the billboard was not smart; it used a certifiably psychotic (sociopath) as its headliner. Better to use officials in positions of power who are using “cooked data” and “lying language” as the examples (hidden sociopaths), one billnostf every week or two weeks. Billboard those who want to eliminate human beings and end opportunity, prosperity, and the developed world. This would be taking the moral high ground and counterpundching twice as hard. I could even see a fund set up so that the billboards could be smart, punchy, scientifically exact, and numerous. Headliners for what Heartland stands for. Thanks for the conference, the live streaming,and all the efforts. If anyone has time to write a summary, that would be very much appreciated.
This is sort a sampler of ICCC7:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/2/
neil,
Thanks for the link. It is a good summary of current climate status and what went on at the HI conference.