There are times when one wonders just how crazy the people associated with The Heartland Institute can get – then this sentence pops up a 6-page email from the Institute’s CEO Jim Bast to its Director of Communications Jim Lakely:
sue a company for not increasing CO2 emissions, force a court to consider the evidence on CO2 benefits.
The October 2017 email exchange can be read at https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4112082-Joe-Bast-Email.html
A list of people on The Heartland Institute’s mailing list who would be receiving such suggestions, courtesy of DeSmog Blog:
Heartland Institute's Climate Scientists Mailing List
Heartland Institute's Climate Economists Mailing List
As far-right global warming denialists in the Turnbull Government tend to mimic US moves against science-based policy, I suspect that this pared-down version of the latest Heartland playlist will be used in Australia in 2018 whenever they plan strategy or are quoted in the media on the subject of climate change:
* be briefing news reporters and news readers
* simplify the issue by focusing on one or only a few arguments and images
* identify a few good spokespersons and focus on promoting them
* stop chasing the other side’s latest argument and focus instead on the benefits of CO2
* focus on the “tuning scandal” that discredits the models
* turn debate from referring to median temperatures to high temperatures, which show no trend
* find independent funding for [insert climate change denier of choice]
* respond to [insert climate report of choice]
* get good people onto EPA advisory boards
* we need to be able to say “EPA is reconsidering whether CO2 is a pollutant”
* document instances where EPA etc. fail to cite research findings that contradict their agenda
* conduct a new survey of scientists to refute the 97% consensus claims
* sue a company for not increasing CO2 emissions, force a court to consider the evidence on CO2 benefits
* read The Business of America is Lobbying to understand the tactics of those we are really up against
* never use the phrases “windmill farms,” “all of the above,” “carbon pollution,” “social cost of carbon,” or “air pollution”
* use “industrial windmills,” “reliable and affordable,” “carbon dioxide emissions,” “benefits and costs of fossil fuels,” and “air quality”
* emphasize that we are pro-science and pro-environment… and the other side is not
* always think about what is most important to your audience
* when being interviewed, deliver your headlines first, don’t let the reporter lead you astray or cut you off
* prepare to answer the “what if you are wrong?” question with “what if you are wrong? How much damage will you have caused by costing the average household $4,000 a year for nothing?”
* fundamentally challenge, reform, or replace the [insert government agency of choice], the source of much pseudoscience
* stop funding “more research”
* clearly distinguish “safe” – a policy concept – from “risk” – a scientific concept, and keep scientists from pontificating on the former and advocates from misrepresenting the latter
* doubling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would increase plant productivity by 35%.
* any SCC calculation that doesn’t include the benefits of CO2 should be rejected out of hand
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