Last updated on June 13th, 2012 at 04:55 pm
The New York Times article, Heartland Institute Leak, a Plan to Discredit Climate Teaching, obtained some leaked documents from the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that denies the link between second hand smoke and cancer; and denies anthropomorphic global warming (human-caused climate change). These documents outlined “plans to promote a curriculum that would cast doubt on the scientific finding that fossil fuel emissions endanger the long-term welfare of the planet.” According to the Heartland Institute, “Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective (pdf file).”
The New York Times further discovered:
❝The documents say that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation contributed $25,000 last year and was expected to contribute $200,000 this year. Mr. Koch is one of two brothers who have been prominent supporters of libertarian causes as well as other charitable endeavors. They control Koch Industries, one of the country’s largest private companies and a major oil refiner.
The documents suggest that Heartland has spent several million dollars in the past five years in its efforts to undermine climate science, much of that coming from a person referred to repeatedly in the documents as “the Anonymous Donor.” A guessing game erupted Wednesday about who that might be.❞
In other words, the same Koch Brothers who appear to be doing everything they can to save Governor Scott Walker from recall in Wisconsin, are doing the same to destroy the real science behind global warming.
The junk science purveyors like the Heartland Institute have a long history of trying to support industry goals over scientific evidence. Many of you are too young to know that the tobacco companies would publish articles that there was no science supporting the link between tobacco smoke and cancer. Even today, 40 years after the issue has been settled, I hear individuals tell me that “there’s no evidence that smoking causes cancer,” or “it’s government conspiracy to stop smoking.”
I hope the climate change group has learned from the wars against the anti-evolution and anti-vaccination gangs to start early and never stop in the battle for the hearts and minds of the public.
