Heartland Under Fire: from Whistleblower on Tax Status, Climate Scientists on Denier Agenda

[wtmusic]

Heartland Institute faces fresh scrutiny over tax status

"The Heartland Institute, the libertarian thinktank whose project to undermine science lessons for schoolchildren was exposed this week, faces new scrutiny of its finances – including its donors and tax status.

The Guardian has learned of a whistleblower complaint to the Internal Revenue Service about Heartland's 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

There was also a call from a group of climate scientists who have personally been on the receiving end of attacks from Heartland and bloggers funded by the thinktank, and whose email was posted online after a notorious 2009 hack, for Heartland to "recognise how its attacks on science and scientists have poisoned the debate about climate change policy," in a letter made available exclusively to the Guardian."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/17/heartland-institute-fresh-scrutiny-tax?newsfeed=true

An open letter from seven top climate scientists to the Heartland Institute

"As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate science in the classroom.

We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said. Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.

So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists."

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2012/02/17/heartland.pdf

[drm604]

1. I applaud these scientists for taking the high road and being as gracious as they are.

Considering how they've been treated in the past it would be hard to blame them if they reacted with more anger than they have.

Their behavior is far above and beyond that of the Heartland Institute and it's supporters.