This story has generated more coverage of The Heartland Institute than we can remember in a long while. Below are some of our favorite quotes in the media about our organization and the Fakegate scandal.
Seth Borenstein, Associated Press, February 18:
“One of the loudest voices denying human-caused global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change.”
Justin Gillis and Leslie Kaufman, New York Times, February 15:
“Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Heartland documents was what they did not contain: evidence of contributions from the major publicly traded oil companies, long suspected by environmentalists of secretly financing efforts to undermine climate science.”
Megan McArdle, The Atlantic, February 16:
“Basically, [the fake memo] reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern.”
Andrew Revkin, New York Times, February 15 (in an email to a Heartland senior fellow):
“Looking back, [the fake memo] could well be something that was created as a way to assemble the core points in the batch of related docs.”
Miranda Devine, Daily Telegraph, February 22:
“Heartland makes an impact, not because of money, but because of the power of its ideas, the logic of its arguments and the intellects of the experts it attracts.”
Steven F. Hayward, The Weekly Standard, March 2:
“The climate change fight doesn’t even rise to the level of David and Goliath. Heartland is more like a David fighting a hundred Goliaths. Yet the serial ineptitude of the climate campaign shows that a tiny David doesn’t need to throw a rock against a Goliath who swings his mighty club and only hits himself square in the forehead.”
Ace of Spades blog (comment), February 21:
“Memogate 2: Electric Boogaloo”
Editorial board, Los Angeles Times, February 20:
“According to the New York Times, the curriculum would claim, among other things, that ‘whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy.’ That is a lie so big that, to quote from ‘Mein Kampf,’ it would be hard for most people to believe that anyone ‘could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.’ ”
(See: Godwin’s Law and Reductio ad Hitlerum)
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, February 14 (caption of a photo with story):
“The billionaire Charles Koch, a key financier of the Heartland Institute, which works to undermine the established science on climate change.”
(Comment: Pretty amazing, since the stolen documents say the Charles Koch Foundation gave less than one-half of one percent of Heartland’s budget in 2011, and even that amount was earmarked for its work on health care, not climate. Maybe the picture and its capture were chosen BEFORE the stolen documents were read?)
Kevin Knobloch, president, Union of Concerned Scientists, February 16 (title of news release):
“Documents Show Direct Link Between Corporate Money, Anti-Science Campaigns.”
(Comment: See previous comment. Did they read any of the stolen documents before they wrote this?)
The Reference Frame blog, February 21:
“Unfortunately for Gleick, his identity theft has led to no other results except for an entry in his thickening criminal record. All those documents show that the Heartland Institute only does things that every think tank on the science-policy interface should be doing, with the professionalism we would like to expect.”
DaTechGuy, February 21:
(In response to DeSmogBlog’s refusal to take down the faked and stolen documents.)
“Really? You publish a set of documents from a 2nd or 3rd party source claiming to be from an organization and it is THEIR job to prove that they are false? As you did not obtain the documents yourself would it not be logical that the burden of proof is on you?”
Chicago Tribune editorial – February 25
When scientific truth becomes sufficiently compelling, it matters little what the critics or skeptics say. It doesn’t matter if everyone doesn’t believe. Doubters cannot make the Earth flat.
But stunts such as Gleick’s — this effort to sully opponents with dishonest tactics — undercuts scientists around the world as they marshal evidence to convince an increasingly skeptical public about the dangers of global warming.