[alleged] Heartland Institute Climate Strategy

January 2012
Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy
Given the increasingly important role the Heartland Institute is playing in leading the fight to
prevent the implementation of dangerous policy actions to address the supposed risks of global
warming, it is useful to set priorities for our efforts in 2012. This document offers such a set of
priorities. I propose that at this point it be kept confidential and only be distributed to a subset of
Institute Board and senior staff. More details can be found in our 2012 Proposed Budget
document and 2012 Fundraising Strategy memo. In 2012 our efforts will focus in the following
areas:
Increased climate project fundraising
Our climate work is attractive to flinders, especially our key Anonymous Donor (whose
contribution dropped from $1,664,150 in 2010 to $979,000 in 2011 - about 20% of our total
2011 revenue). He has promised an increase in 2012 - see the 2011 Fourth Quarter Financial
Report. We will also pursue additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. They
returned as a Heartland donor in 2011 with a contribution of $200,000. We expect to push up
their level of support in 2012 and gain access to their network of philanthropists, if our focus
continues to align with their interests. Other contributions will be pursued for this work,
especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies.
Development of our "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" project.
Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are
considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are
pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12
schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the
U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort will
focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and
uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We
tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by
the Anonymous Donor.
Funding for parallel organizations.
Heartland is part of a growing network of groups working the climate issues, some of which we
support financially. We will seek additional partnerships in 2012. At present we sponsor the
NIPCC to undermine the official United Nation's IPCC reports and paid a team of writers
$388,000 in 2011 to work on a series of editions of Climate Change Reconsidered. Expenses will
be about the same in 2012. NIPCC is currently funded by two gifts a year from two foundations,
both of them requesting anonymity. Another $88,000 is earmarked this year for Heartland staff,
incremental expenses, and overhead for editing, expense reimbursement for the authors, andmarketing. -
Funding for selected individuals outside of Heartland.
Our current budget includes funding for high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly
counter the alarmist AGW message. At the moment, this funding goes primarily to Craig Idso
($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per
month), and a number of other individuals, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be
found.
Expanded climate communications
Heartland plays an important role in climate communications, especially through our in-house
experts (e.g., Taylor) through his Forbes blog and related high profile outlets, our conferences,
and through coordination with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of
rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts).
Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow highprofile climate scientists (such as Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own.
This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep
opposing voices out. Efforts might also include cultivating more neutral voices with big
audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of
the more extreme AGW communicators such as Rornm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who
has become popular with our supporters). AVe have also pledged to help raise around $90,000 in
2012 for Anthony Watts to help him create a new website to track temperature station data.
Finally, we will consider expanding these efforts further, or developing new ones, if funding can
be obtained.