I am hacked off by almost everything about the breathless exposé of Heartland’s (purported) internal strategic documents. Here’s Think Progress’s measured presentation of the scoop:
Heartland Documents Reveal Fringe Denial Group Plans to Pursue Koch Money, Dupe Children and Ruin Their Future
So what do we have? Nothing less or more than you’d expect. Papers that show the organisation believes climate change is a hoax and that it wants to raise money to promote that view. As if any of that’s a surprise.
There’s really no news here at all. No smoking gun. No admission that Heartland knows global warming is real, for example, but isn’t saying so. Or that it was behind the hacking of UAE’s Climate Research Unit. Rarely has so much hot air (geddit?) been expended over so little.
Now I know why I am supposed to get all riled up by this story. (i) Heartland is wrong. (ii) It’s wrong in a way that is convenient for its funders. (iii) And, of course, this is sweet revenge Climategate – where the media also got its knickers-in-a-twist about innocuous emails written by climate scientists.
But none of these reasons stop this being a stupid non-story. Especially not the fact that something similar (or worse) was done to ‘our’ side.
But then… then… there’s Heartland’s asinine reaction. I know that, in the media age, s/he who is most offended against wins, but this is truly ridiculous:
The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.
It’s a criminal offence even to comment on this story? And you’re worried about your reputation? What reputation?
Anyway – I have commented on Heartland-gate and will continue to do so if I don’t have anything better to do. And, if Heartland doesn’t like it, I think the gentleman below captures my sentiment very well….
Update (21/2/12): Predictably enough, this sorry saga has degenerated further. On the one hand – and quite extraordinarily – the Heartland crew has followed through on its threat to get legal with the blogosphere, going after sites that have:
Posted links to a document titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy.”
Posted links to certain other documents purporting to be those of The Heartland Institute.
Posted blogs or web pages discussing any or all of these documents.
The final clause would draw into its net most of the Western world’s media – and Global Dashboard. And this from an allegedly libertarian think thank.
Then we have last night’s confession by Peter Gleick that he obtained and then leaked the documents. Time will tell if he also faked one or more of them. Idiot.
(BTW how long until Gleick resigns from this Task Force on Scientific Ethics?)
