Heartland Institute's Climate Award Winners 2014-17: Of 19 Awardees, 5 Have Climate Science Degrees
Everyone loves to win, but, unfortunately, not everyone can. Over at Heartland, though, the spirit of participation trophies is strong. To recognize leaders in the field of protecting fossil fuels, Heartland has been giving out awards at their annual conferences over the past few years.
What sort of luminaries is Heartland rewarding? Certainly the honorees must be scientific titans if they know better than the thousands of scientists responsible for developing the vast body of evidence that has given rise to the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.
Well, Pam Wright over at weather.com took a look last week at the award winners between 2014 and 2017. The results are predictably pitiful.
Of the 19 “winners,” only six have published on climate change in peer reviewed journals, and only five have a degree in climate science. Seven have no background in science whatsoever, one has no degree at all (glorified weather-reader turned blogger Anthony Watts, who last week formally joined Heartland) and another claims his expertise comes from reading “some 50 books… on the science of climate change.” What’s more relevant than their actual credentials, though, is that all 19 are connected to Heartland or other nodes in the organized denial network.
EDIT
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/8/1848636/-Weather-dot-com-Exposes-Just-How-Unqualified-Heartland-s-Award-Winners-Are-For-Anything-But-Denial