The Heartland Institute Background for reporters The Heartland Institute is a Chicago-based, libertarian think tank that promotes “public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, and free markets.” Heartland has been one of the organizations at the forefront of US campaigns denying the scientific consensus on man-made climate change and attacking progress on climate and clean energy policies. Heartland’s views run against 97 per cent of all peer-reviewed scientific research on climate change and are counter to every major science academy in the world. Heartland is a key player in pushing climate science denial in the US, where the vast majority of the Republicans in Congress refuse to accept global warming science. These Republican elected officials draw heavily on climate denying “science” published by the Heartland Institute.      The Heartland Institute has organised nine so-called “international conference on climate change” events set up to challenge the science of climate change, and will hold its tenth conference in Washington in June 2015. In 2012, Heartland ran a billboard campaign that equated climate change advocacy with mass murder and terrorism. The billboard featured a picture of Ted Kaczynski (the “unabomber”) next to the text “I still believe in Global Warming. Do You?” Heartland intended to follow this with billboards featuring Charles Manson and Osama bin Laden. Heartland claimed: “The most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists; they are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” Heartland funds and hosts the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change” (NIPCC), a document series that looks like the reports issued by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The NIPCC produces a report called "Climate Change Reconsidered.” The last edition’s (2014) main focus: C02 is good for plants and agriculture. Heartland routinely attacks climate science and scientists, especially after “climategate,” when the emails of prominent climate scientists were hacked and stolen from East Anglia University. Heartland used various lines from the emails, taken out of context, to promote the myth that a conspiracy of international science bodies are hiding the truth about the global climate. When it was revealed recently that climate denying scientist, Willie Soon, of Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had received - but not disclosed - more than $1.25 million from the fossil fuel industry for his papers that purported to claim climate change wasn’t real, it was the Heartland Institute that ran his defence, issuing press releases on his behalf. A July 2011 Nature editorial points out the group's lack of scientific credibility: "Despite criticizing climate scientists for being overconfident about their data, models and theories, the Heartland Institute proclaims a conspicuous confidence in single studies and grand interpretations....makes many bold assertions that are often questionable or misleading.... Many climate sceptics seem to review scientific data and studies not as scientists but as attorneys, magnifying doubts and treating incomplete explanations as falsehoods rather than signs of progress towards the truth. ... The Heartland Institute and its ilk are not trying to build a theory of anything. They have set the bar much lower, and are happy muddying the waters. Funding: While the Heartland Institute has not disclosed its funding sources since 2006, it received at least $676,500 from ExxonMobil from 1998-2006. But even ExxonMobil dropped its funding of Heartland after 2006. It has also received funding from the Koch Brothers. Donors Capital Fund (DCF) and its partner organization Donors Trust (DT) are explicitly aligned to conservative political views and allow donors to fund organizations anonymously. Heartland has received large anonymous donations of “dark money” through DCF and DT, with a combined total of at least $10,815,644. In the latest tax year available, 2013, Heartland was one of the largest recipients of money from Donors Capital Fund, receiving $1.7 million in grants. History: The Heartland Institute was founded in 1984 by Chicago-based investment banker David Padden. In the 1990s, Heartland worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking secondhand smoke to health risks, and lobbied against government public health reforms. Heartland continues to maintain a “Smoker's Lounge” section of its website with policy studies, Op-Eds, essays, and other documents that purport to “[cut] through the propaganda and exaggeration of anti-smoking groups.” In the early 1990's, Heartland fought government regulations on tobacco by denying the health effects of secondhand tobacco smoke, while taking significant funding from tobacco corporations like RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris. References: http://desmogblog.com/heartland-institute http://www.polluterwatch.com/heartland-institute http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=41 DeSmog Media Contacts: UK: Brendan Montague brendan@desmog.uk +44 7590 030201 US: Brendan DeMelle brendan@desmogblog.com +01 206-295-4399