Heartland Institute Vs. Chinese Academy Of Science, Round II

Last week the Heartland Institute got into it with Chinese Academy of Science.  The academy had seen fit to translate  HI's  Climate Change Reconsidered reports, and PR guy Jim Lakely from the institute suggested that this counted as an endorsement of the think-tank's position re global warming.  But no; CAS begged to differ, in fairly strong terms, and Lakeley was forced to issue an apology/retraction.

Now, however, we find that HI's words were hollow.  CEO Joe Bast writes:

Regrettably, the lies of some advocates, perhaps aided by confusion caused by the language barrier, led Chinese officials to threaten to cancel a planned workshop in Beijing for some of the authors and translators of Climate Change Reconsidered. With four scientists representing The Heartland Institute already in Beijing, we agreed to remove the news release and the book itself from our Web site.

Now that the workshop has been successfully concluded, we have restored our original news release...

So once they got their boys thehelloutta China, they went back to their original, misleading statement.

I emailed CAS once again to see if they had any further response to this latest bit of trickery, and they responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Murphy,

It's very kind of you to remind us the repost of the Heartland release. We have notice it last week. The CAS attitude towards the translated book had been made clear in the statements on June 15 as follows: http://english.cas.cn/Ne/CASE/201306/t20130615_104625.shtml. We are sure that we have sent you the translator's preface in our last email, in which the translator had addressed his views on climate change and on the translation of the book.

We hope to receive your continuing focus on the Chinese Academy of Sciences, both on its scientific efforts&achievements and on its official website.


Best,
Chinese Academy of Sciences

Which, to me at least, suggests they are really, really tired of the Heartland Institute and the whole clown show HI inflicted on them.  I suspect that this will be the last bit of cooperating we see between HI and CAS for a long while.

Richard Epstein Off The Heartland Expert List

As regular readers may know, I spent a good part of May 2012 trying to convince that subset of the Heartland Institute expert list  who were also legitimate scientists to distances themselves from HI for their disastrous billboard campaign, with some modest success.  Well, one of the people I emailed was Richard Epstein, a  Professor of Law at NYU School of Law.  I can't claim causality, but it is worth noting that he is no longer on the HI list about a month after I made contact with him.  So 1/2 a BOOYAH! for me.  Here's the googlecache of his entry, and a screen-cap below:

I would also point out that, a week after I contacted Jan Veizer, and he claimed he didn't even know he was on the HI list, claimed in fact  that he did not "appreciate" being on the list...he's still on the list.  I have no idea why; I've suggested to Marc Morano and Joe Bast and some of the other HI lads  that they pull Mr. Veizer's entry, but apparently they have not.  I shall try and clarify what is going on today.

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.

A Dear John Letter From The Heartland Institute's Joe Bast

...in which he says goodbye to all those scholars who "are feeling trepidation" at being seen on the HI website.  Joe still loves you.  Its all a big misunderstanding.  Please come home again.