Heartland-Gate Day 5: Green Coalitions Dump Institute, Forbes Slams Anthony Watts of WattsUpWithThat

[kristopher]

Forbes slams Watts?
What's up with that?

Heartland-Gate Day 5: Green Coalitions Dump Institute, Forbes Slams Anthony Watts of WattsUpWithThat

It is the fifth day of the Heartland Institute’s online offensive comparing people who accept climate science with serial killers and mass murderers. The billboard is down, but the radical climate deniers of Heartland have explicitly refused to apologize for the ad. Worse, they’ve kept the more offensive hate speech on their website.

Unsurprisingly, corporate sponsors have started to flee, senior staff have left, partnerships have started to crumble, and all but the most extreme anti-science deniers have condemned Heartland. But as we’ll see, the origins of this smear go back many years for both Heartland and its long-time partner, Anthony Watts of the blog WattsUpWithThat.

First, Heartland has been quietly dropped from two significant coalitions with top environmental organizations, Climate Progress has learned. Under pressure from Forecast the Facts and Greenpeace, insurers who funded Heartland’s Washington DC vice president, Eli Lehrer, ceased their support and helped to convince Lehrer to leave the organization. With Lehrer’s departure, the Heartland Institute has been excised from the websites of two green coalitions:

The Smarter Safer Coalition...

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/08/479965/heartland-gate-day-5-green-coalitions-dump-institute-forbes-slams-wattsupwiththat/

[drm604]

1. I'm confused by that article.

There were environment groups that supported the Heartland Institute?

[kristopher]

2. Yeah, that jumped out at me too.

It was also the first post in the comments section.

It is poor writing but judging by what is written plus what is on the websites of the coalitions mentioned, I believe that Lehrer has a subgroup within Heartland, the " Center on Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate". I'm guessing that institute or Lehrer himself is one member in these coalitions that are formed to advocate for specific policies.

SmarterSafer.org, formerly Americans for Smart Natural Catastrophe Policy, was formed in 2008 and has since expanded as a variety of different voices have come together to support and advocate for smarter, more effective policies to help people in need, promote disaster safety and preparedness, and foster sounder environmental stewardship of our fragile coastal ecosytems.
http://www.smartersafer.org/coalition

Think Progress identifies this a an organization formed by insurers who fund Lehrer. I'm not surprised that the specific policies are of interest to legitimate environmental organizations since critical and sensitive ecosystems are profoundly affected by policy in this area.

Green Scissors is similar; it is an area of overlapping interest between conservatives and environmentally conscious liberals.

Here is their organizing principal:

Green Scissors 2011 identifies wasteful government subsidies that are damaging to the environment and could end up costing taxpayers more than $380 billion.

Green Scissors 2011 builds on last year’s report by advancing cuts that could potentially save taxpayers $380 billion or more over five years. The report makes the case that the federal government can help protect our natural resources, reduce the growth of government spending, and make a significant dent in the national debt by eliminating harmful spending.

The Green Scissors report finds cuts in energy, agriculture, transportation, and land and water projects. Targets include massive giveaways of publicly-owned resources such as timber, oil and natural gas and minerals, poorly conceived road projects and a bevy of questionable Army Corps of Engineers water projects.

I would imagine Lehrer's Center on Fiinance etc was interested in this too.

Both of those websites and groups have apparently disassociated themselves from Heartland and Lehrer has quit. Coalitions like this are often a good thing. People often want the same thing for different reasons, so you can't expect NGOs to reject an alliance that might help them achieve a desirable goal just because you don't agree with everyone on everything. When you act like that you have the Republican House of Representatives.

Anyway, that is my guess.

[hatrack]

3. Exactly - WTF?!?

Seriously, what would any environmental organization have to do with a bullshit mill like Heartland?

On edit: beyond that, a story I posted on this yesterday noted that State Farm was leaving. Again, why would any insurance company, given what their actuaries have been showing for lo these 20 years, have anything to do with Heartland?

The mind boggles . . .