I had been getting ready to write something about the effort by our Canadian national government to paint any opposition to the Northern Gateway as traitorous, foreign-inspired, or even terrorism. It seemed a lot like pandering to big oil as far as I could see. But while it is only tangentially related, the news about the Heartland Institute deserves to be commented on. Bear with me.
The often intense criticism of scientists reporting on climate change or other aspects of the environmental crisis has led many to suspect that the criticism was coordinated and well funded by powers anxious to keep things the way they are. Now, in an interesting reversal to ‘climate gate’ (when e-mails were lifted from climate scientists at University of East Anglia and taken out of context), somebody managed to get hold of confidential documents intended for the Heartland Foundation’s board members. Some of the details, like which climate deniers get stipends of what size from this foundation, or how the foundation anticipates continued substantial financial support from certain corporations so long as it continues to push doubt re climate change, make for titillating reading. If you want to delve further, go to climateshift, DeSmogBlog, or The Guardian.