The Heartland Institute was founded in 1984 by David Padden, a “radical and devoted libertarian” and a longtime member of the Cato Institute. Its mission is to “discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems” The Heartland Institute is most well-known for its climate change skepticism and denial.
Heartland on Climate Change
Currently on the website, the Heartland Institute says that “Global warming is not a crisis. The threat was exaggerated” and that “there is no need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and no point in attempting to do so.” Heartland has maintained this stance since its foundation. In the past, Heartland has claimed that “a modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization.” This stance is still current, as in 2017 Heartland said that “even if [climate change] were real, it would probably not be harmful, because many areas of the world would benefit from or adjust to climate change.”
Heartland also made the claim in their “Instant Expert Guide on Global Warming” that “the most reliable temperature data show no global warming trend” and that “global computer models are too crude to predict global warming.” Heartland has also stated that politicians and scientists who believed in global warming did so because it “justified their ideological convictions” and allowed them to raise taxes.
Additionally, the Heartland Institute published the findings of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, which evaluates the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which claims that “nature, not human activity, rules the climate.”
In 2015, when Pope Francis released his Laudato Si encyclical about climate change, Gene Koprowski, the director of marketing at Heartland, said that pagan rituals and “nature worship” was making its way back into the Church, and that he was “wondering, as a scholar, if pagan forms are returning to the Church this day.”
Media Campaigns
In 2012, the Heartland Institute launched their “unabomber” campaign. For 24 hours, the Institute had a billboard on the Eisenhower Expressway that featured a mugshot of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, with the words “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” There were plans to include Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden, and James J. Lee on future billboards, as well. Heartland’s reasoning for this campaign was that “the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” Joseph Bast, the then president of Heartland, said that “the leaders of the global warming movement have one thing in common: they are willing to use force and fraud to advance their fringe theory.” Heartland also released a statement saying that they wanted to make an “emotional appeal,” and, in a statement since removed from their website, that they wanted to show that “these rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it.”
Another outreach campaign initiated by the Heartland Institute in 2017 sent packages to 25,000+ science teachers in the public education system containing Heartland’s book, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, and a DVD that “rejects” the role of humans in climate change. The foreword of the book was written by Marita Noon, the executive director of a pro-fossil fuel lobbying group. It contained the statement that Obama’s description of climate change as the greatest threat currently facing human beings is “laughable” when “ISIS is beheading innocent people.” The cover letter, written by the project manager of the Institute’s Center for Transforming Education, Lennie Jarratt, asks that teachers “consider the possibility” that the science is not conclusive or settled. In response, the National Center for Science Education said that the book “is not science, but it’s dressed to look like science…it’s clearly intended to confuse teachers.”
International Conference on Climate Change
Since 2008, the Heartland Institute has hosted an annual conference called the International Conference on Climate Change. The 14th annual conference, postponed from 2020, will take place in April 2021 in Las Vegas, though most conferences are hosted in D.C. The 13th (when) annual conference took place at the Trump International Hotel in D.C. Thus far, confirmed speakers for the 14th conference include William Happer, Ph.D., Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, Ph.D., and Kevin Dayaratna, Ph.D. Previous speakers include Dr. Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT and notable climate change skeptic who believes that the clouds will react to counter greenhouse gasses.
Funding
From 1998 to 2006, ExxonMobil donated $600,000 to the Heartland Institute before distancing itself from the organization. The Cato Institute has also donated to the Heartland Institute. Organizations like Charles Koch Charitable Foundation and the Mercer Family Foundation also contribute large amounts of funding to Heartland, with the Mercer Family donating around $900,000 annually in 2012-2014 and $100,000 in 2015.
See Also
Scott Pruitt
Dr. Richard Lindzen
Climate of Denial