{"id":184363,"date":"2012-05-22T21:26:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T02:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/05\/22\/your-moment-of-schadenfreude\/"},"modified":"2012-05-22T21:26:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T02:26:00","slug":"your-moment-of-schadenfreude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/05\/22\/your-moment-of-schadenfreude\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Moment of Schadenfreude"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Heartland Institute, the phony “think tank” bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, is imploding as a result of revelations proving this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The first Heartland Institute conference on climate change in 2008 had all the trappings of a major scientific conclave \u2013 minus large numbers of real scientists. Hundreds of climate change contrarians, with a few academics among them, descended into the banquet rooms of a lavish Times Square hotel for what was purported to be a reasoned debate about climate change.<\/p>\n

But as the latest Heartland climate conference opens in a Chicago hotel on Monday, the thinktank’s claims to reasoned debate lie in shreds and its financial future remains uncertain.<\/p>\n

Heartland’s claims to “stay above the fray” of the climate wars was exploded by a billboard campaign earlier this month comparing climate change believers to the Unabomer Ted Kaczynski, and a document sting last February that revealed a plan to spread doubt among kindergarteners on the existence of climate change.<\/p>\n

Along with the damage to its reputation, Heartland’s financial future is also threatened by an exodus of corporate donors as well as key members of staff.<\/p>\n

In a fiery blogpost on the Heartland website, the organisation’s president Joseph Bast admitted Heartland’s defectors were “abandoning us in this moment of need”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They flipped out, and this was inevitable once they were outed as bought and paid for<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The pressure point occurred last February when the scientist on the conference mugs, Peter Gleick, used deception to obtain confidential documents from Heartland, including a donors list and plans to indoctrinate school children against belief in climate change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Once the Charade was outed, they had no choice but to go full wingnut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Heartland Institute, the phony “think tank” bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, is imploding as a result of revelations proving this: The first Heartland Institute conference on climate change in 2008 had all the trappings of a major scientific conclave \u2013 minus large numbers of real scientists. Hundreds of climate change …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1054,970,969,1019],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropogenic-climate-change","category-corruption","category-evil","category-schadenfreude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}