PolluterWatch: Greenpeace Investigates Heartland Institute Leaked Documents— click to see investigation and ongoing updates.
As Greenpeace questions universities about payments to faculty members from the Heartland Institute for its campaign to discredit climate science, we have made some interesting discoveries. Our newest letter is to the University of Missouri concerning professor Anthony Lupo, who leads the schools Global Climate Change Group and is slated to receive a total $18,000 from the Heartland Institute from 2011-2012 as a consultant for “Climate Change Reconsidered” reports. As you would expect from a Heartland Institute project, these reports are designed to confuse the scientific conclusions of 97% of climate researchers around the world.
While credible climate scientists and institutions have understood global warming for decades now, Anthony Lupo’s position on climate has fluctuated significantly. A thorough article in the Kansas City Pitch back in 2008 revealed the following evolution of Dr. Lupo’s public statements on global warming:
- In 1998, Tony Lupo boasted that climate skeptics outnumbered the consensus view that global warming is happening and caused by people, proclaiming, “there is no scientific consensus whether global warming is a fact and is occurring.” This is despite the fact that in 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” Dr. Lupo has participated in the IPCC as a reviewer, one of the few scientists involved who rejects the IPCC’s research conclusions.
- In 2000, Dr. Lupo cited an influential oceanographer calling for more study on global warming in “recent statements”…after the oceanographer had been dead for nine years.
- In 2005, Dr. Lupo contradicted his previous op-ed statements and told the Kansas City Star that “the climate is warming” but that the warming was not “unprecedented.”
- In 2007, Dr. Lupo said that because of increasing global surface temperatures, “Columbia’s [Missouri] probably become a more ideal place to live.” This notion is consistent with that of industry apologist Craig Idso, who coordinates the work of Heartland’s Climate Change Reconsidered reports.
Our new letter to Mizzou quotes Dr. Lupo this year telling the Columbia Daily Tribune that he still doubts humans are the primary cause of global warming, contrasting the explicit climate statements of scientific institutions he is affiliated with, such as the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorology Society. Anthony Lupo’s work for the Heartland Institute even flipped a long-time climate skeptic columnist at the Daily Tribune, who publicly explained why the scandal convinced him that global warming is indeed occurring.
Questions posed to other schools have unearthed more potentially scandalous activity.
First and foremost, we want to know why the Heartland Institute has Michigan Technological University (MTU) professor David Watkins listed in their budget. When we wrote to MTU asking if Watkins had disclosed his Heartland payments, they were shocked at the association. Turns out, Watkins is neither a climate skeptic nor a Heartland Institute contractor, something the Heartland Institute has not explained.
As Michigan Tech made it clear they want nothing to do with Heartland’s junk science, Harvard University again confirmed that career climate denier and Heartland contractor Willie Soon has no formal affiliation with the school beyond office space on their campus. This hasn’t stopped Willie from claiming he’s a “natural scientist at Harvard” while dismissing the dangers of mercury pollution in the Wall Street Journal. Last year Greenpeace revealed that Willie Soon is exclusively funded by fossil fuel interests like Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Southern Company, a major contributor to mercury air pollution from its coal plants.
Moving southwest, a meeting with Greenpeace student activist Erica Kris prompted an “investigation” at Arizona State University (ASU), although there was no third party involved to prevent bias. ASU’s longtime climate skeptic Robert C. Balling continues to reject conclusive scientific evidence that humans are the primary cause of global warming and was listed as a recipient of prospective payments in Heartland’s leaked budget for work on their “Climate Change Reconsidered” reports. According to Arizona State Vice President for Academic Personel Mark Searle, who conducted the review of Dr. Balling’s disclosure forms to the school, Balling isn’t going to review Heartland’s latest climate denial report:
With respect to any consulting work with the Heartland Institute, other than the previously reported $1000 honorarium Dr. Balling received for giving a speech some years ago, he has not received any compensation from them. The purported budget from the Heartland Institute was prospective and was not a commitment and Dr. Balling told me he has not engaged in any such activity.
Robert C. Balling
Historically, Dr. Balling has taken plenty of money from fossil fuel interests, which brings in funding not only to Balling’s predetermined “research,” but hundreds of thousands of dollars in overhead payments to Arizona State University (see Balling’s 1997 testimony to the Minnesota News Council). Balling teamed up with oil industry scientist Pat Michaels at the Exxon- and Koch-funded Cato Institute to write three books that have served as faux counter-arguments to settled science. Two of those books were published by Cato, while The Heated Debate was published by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), another cog in the climate denial machine. Balling claimed to know “nothing” about the Pacific Research Institute even though PRI and published his book promoting global warming doubt:
“I know nothing of their history. I’m aware that they have been a conservative public policy group. But I did not investigate who these people were that asked me to prepare a book for them.” –From Ozone Action’s Ties that Bind [PDF]
Dr. Balling has reluctantly owned up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fossil fuel funding as well as direct research support from Exxon [PDF] and the Kuwaiti government [PDF] to downplay global warming. As part of an extremely small group of PR scientists for hire, both Michaels and Balling worked for the Western Fuels coal coalition and its fraudulent Greening Earth Society project, led at the time by Peabody coal lobbyist Fred Palmer.
Given his history as an oil and coal industry consultant who ignores 97% of working climate scientists worldwide, why doesn’t Arizona State consider it a problem for Dr. Balling to promote his political positions as if they were factual? What about his role in ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability, of which climate change research and mitigation is listed as a top priority? What about his attempts to directly influence policy based on scientific misinformation? ASU’s Office of Research Integrity and Assurance lists “Objectivity in Research” among its responsibilities to “support for the responsible conduct of research.” Freedom of expression does not equate to freedom to repeatedly misrepresent scientific fact on behalf of industry policy groups like Cato, Pacific Research and Heartland.
Although Heartland’s reputation has become increasingly toxic, most recently indicated by General Motors announcing it would stop sending money to Heartland, they haven’t given up. Perhaps Heartland President Joseph Bast would be lost in a world where he’s not paid to promote tobacco products, deny global warming, and force junk science into classrooms.
You can continue to follow Greenpeace’s Investigation of Heartland Institute Leaked Documents on PolluterWatch.
