Just Who Has Bailed On The Heartland Institute?

Yesterday, I noticed this in the UK Gaurdian re. The Heartland Institute's ongoing travails:

A number of other experts meanwhile began cutting their ties with Heartland, according to a tally kept by a Canadian blogger BigCityLiberal.

But I noted that they just linked  to my blog front page.  So I thought I would work up a proper tally of those Heartland "experts" who have responded to my email re the now infamous billboard:

On May 11, Heartland Institute fellow Dennis Avery became the first to bite, penning this passionate if somewhat cracked defense of the institute.  You can see the form letter I've been using  underneath his  diatribe.

On Sunday, May 13th, well-known climatologist Chris Landsea became the first respondent to inform me that he no longer wished to be associated with Heartland.   Given his centrality to some aspects of the AGW debate, Mr. Landsea's renunciation generated a number of MSM stories, here and here.

On Monday, May 14th, both Miklos Zagoni of Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, and well-known medical entomologist Paul Reiter asked that Heartland remove them from their list of experts.

On May 15th, I received stirring defenses of the Institute from Sonja A Boehmer-Christiansen, S. Fred Singer, and Brian Valentine, all of which I noted in this post.  I also had a brief contact I had with G. Cornelis van Kooten (discussed in the same post), who insisted that he had no idea what I was on about, but whose name was removed from the list somewhere between the 14th and 15th.  This was the first suggestion from any of the Heartland experts that the Institute might have volunteered them for the position without asking consent.  I would also note that Dr.Sonja A.Boehmer-Christiansen has since disappeared from the list, though this may be the result of an accident on HI's part.  I have emailed her regarding the matter but received no response.  


Later on the 15th, I was contacted by economist Henry "Jake" Jacoby, who told me that he would contact HI and have his entry deleted.  This is the first confirmed case where Heartland slapped up someone on their website as an expert without letting that person know in advance.

On May 16th, Joe Bast posted an open letter to all those scholars who had "abandoned" HI, in which he bitched at length.

On Saturday, May 19th, Economist Peter Cramton  informed me by email that he too would no longer be associated with HI.

So far, Mr. Cramton is the last person on the Heartland list to have contacted me.  In addition, I am informed that Roger Pielke Jr. has had his entry deleted, though this was not due to efforts on my part.  And Benny Peiser disappeared from the list way back on May 5th or so, presumably because of the billboards but well before my email campaign began.

So far that makes about 80 emails sent but unanswered.  I don't expect too many more responses, although I think some U.S. academic institutions may be in the middle of final exams, so perhaps when those are done  I might get another note or two.

Update: Sometime between about May 24th and 26th Bjørn Lomborg's name was removed from the Heartland list.  He confirms his removal here.

Heartland/Hudson Senior Fellow Dennis Avery Doubles Down On Billboard Campaign

So, for the past couple of days I have been sending out emails to those scientist/intellectual types on the Heartland Institute's Expert pages, letting them know that 1) they are in fact listed as HI experts (which some of them may not realize), and 2) that HI recently launched a horribly tasteless billboard campaign, which they quickly abandoned, comparing  scientists and others who believe in the reality of anthropogenic global warming to the Unabomber and other mass murdering types.  I've also asked them if, in light of these facts, they are willing to continue to be associated with HI, because within the last couple of days corporate sponsors have been abandoning the institute in droves.   The first to respond to my inquiries is Dennis Avery, a senior fellow at both the Heartland and Hudson Institute.  Below is his email to me reproduced in its entirety, and under that the email I've been sending to the folks on the HI experts list (about 50 of them so far), just for reference purposes.  I would just note that in these form emails I use my real name, M.J. Murphy, as well as my Internet moniker BCL (short for BigCityLib).  I would also note that the boldings are mine:

Dear BigCityLib: I am a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, and proud of my association with Heartland. I continue to agree with Heartland that man-made warming is a tiny element of the planet’s warming since the Maunder Minimum ended about 1715. (The warming from 1915-1940 was as rapid and lasted about as long as the 1976-1998 warming, but came too soon to be blamed on CO2.) The real warming factor is the 1,500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle, whose centuries-long “little ice ages” collapsed most human cultures before 1850 AD (after short periods of success during the global warming phases of the cycle). That’s why our cultures have lasted only about 500 years, on average. It’s not due to some lurking flaw in our psyches, but to inadequate farming and terribly unstable “little ice age” weather.

 The earth’s hundreds of previous global warmings have been the good times for humans and other life forms, and this will continue to be true. The appropriate policy today is to produce still more fertilizer and still-higher crop yields, so we can feed a projected peak population of 8.1 billion people in 2050 without displacing more wildlife. (By 2300, the UN’s Low Variant Projection says human numbers will have declined to 2.3 billion, due to the low birth rates that accord with low death rates. Your frantic fear of “overpopulation” will by then have faded into the mists.)

Relying on solar and wind would achieve the Greenpeace goal of fewer people, but through ghastly hardships (Would that qualify as mass murder on a far grander scale than the Unabomber?) Nor would this “save the planet.” Hungry people eat the wildlife before they starve.

Do not destroy our vital energy systems: I think the billboard was an effective way to carry this message beyond the current “skeptic” ranks It certainly attracted attention to the question. I continue to be amazed at the “religious” belief of BigCityLiberals in a theory which has been betrayed by 1) the existence of the D-O cycle which has been known now for 28 years and won for Dansgaard and Oeschger the “environmental Nobel,” the Tyler Prize; 2) the non-warming of the past 15 years, which defies the Greenhouse Theory; 3) the falsification of the global climate models’ predictions; 4) the continuing expansion of snow and ice in the Antarctic; and 5) the historical pattern of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which tells us that the current global cooling is likely to last decades more and will thus destroy the man-made warming campaign.

May I publish your decision to renounce the man-made warming campaign and help to reduce the anguish which this well-meant but misguided effort has inflicted on the general public?

Dennis Avery

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And here's my original email to Mr. Avery:

Dear Mr. Avery,

I am wondering if you are aware

1) that you are listed as a "Heartland Institute Expert"
http://heartland.org/dennis-avery

...and 2) that Heartland recently ran a billboard campaign comparing AGW believers to mass murderers (in particular to the Unabomber)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/may/04/heartland-institute-global-warming-murder?newsfeed=true

A number of scientists have asked that they be removed from the HI list of experts because of this billboard campaign, and a number of sponsors have withdrawn their funding. I wonder if you will continue to be associated with them?

And may I publish any response here:
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.ca/

M.J.Murphy
BCL