UPDATE (5/10 3:15 pm): Heartland Institute de-listed Roger Pielke Jr. as a “Heartland Expert” today after Pielke asked them to make clear he has no affiliation with them in any way. Yet as recently as last night, in a response to this post, he asserted, “If they chose to highlight me as an expert, that is their business.” #FAIL. The other amazing thing is that Pielke knew about the listing as far back as May 4! Anyway, we’re now seeing an “exodus” of “Heartland experts,” since Benny Peiser also got de-listed after my post. Pielke’s original page is cached here. The delisted page is here.
On day 6 of Heartland-gate, we visit their distinguished list of “Experts.”
As you know, the Heartland Institute is still unapologetic for its ad comparing the Unabomber to those who accept climate science or report on it. And they still insist on their website that “the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.”
Their website also lists as “Heartland Experts” many of the most prominent advocates of climate science denial: John Christy, Joseph D’Aleo, Myron Ebell, Richard Lindzen, Bjorn Lomborg, Phelim McAleer, Ann McElhinney, Patrick Michaels, Steve Milloy, Lord Christopher Monckton, Marc Morano, Benny Peiser, Ian Plimer, Harrison Schmitt, Fred Singer, Fred Smith, Roy Spencer, Anthony Watts, and, last but not least, Roger Pielke.
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking, well, of course, Foreign Policy’s “Guide to Climate Skeptics” included Roger Pielke, Jr., but surely he isn’t an official “Heartland Expert.” And I say to you, stop calling me Shirley!
UPDATE: On his blog, Roger states he has “absolutely no relationship with Heartland — never have, never will. Period.” That’s great. Then he falsely claims that I said he is “official expert for Heartland” when I merely asked the obvious question. He amazingly asserts in the comments that he “looked at the webpage and there is nothing there that says that I am in anyway associated with them.” Anyone can look at the web page above and see that Heartland lists him as a “Heartland expert” — with his bio and photo. How anyone could have guessed this wasn’t official is, well, Pielke-esque. Glad to know it isn’t.
Even more amazingly, however, Pielke then goes on to say:
If they chose to highlight me as an expert, that is their business.
So he is apparently fine with how he appears on their website. I guess that makes him an unofficial Heartland Expert. Hope that clears things up.
UPDATE: Pielke claimed in a tweet to Prof. Scott Mandia that he “Learned of it on my blog ~48 hrs before Romm’s post.” But Mandia points out in a response that Pielke knew on May 4 (!). #FAIL
The point is that Pielke has known that Heartland listed him as a “Heartland expert” for a number of days now and had no problem with it whatsoever. Interestingly, the long-debunked, hard-core denier Benny Peiser appears to have gotten Heartland to remove him from the list within 12 hours of my post. Go figure!
Roger hasn’t explained how this ‘confusion’ happened in the first place. He is, after all, a great explainer of some things — like how he told the journal Nature in 2006, “Clearly, since 1970 climate change … has shaped the disaster loss record” but now attacks any climate scientist who says anything remotely similar, or how it is that he can endorse a 450 to 500 ppm target but refuse to spell out how we would hit that target while at the same time attacking anyone who actually does spell that out, or how these debunkings by Deltoid, James Annan, Stefan Rahmstorf, RealClimate, Brad DeLong, to name a few, are all wrong.
I’m still guessing Pielke will be separating himself from Heartland about as fast as the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, XL Group, Renaissance Re, Allied World Assurance, State Farm Insurance, and some of their own staff!
This just in — Forecast the Facts reports the United Services Automobile Association’s (USAA), a Fortune-500 financial services company serving 8.8 million military members and their families, has decided to pull its support for the Heartland Institute:
A USAA spokesperson announced their decision on Facebook, saying, “In light of recent personnel departures at Heartland, we decided to end our support for the organization.”
Want to start a pool on how fast Roger gets them to take this page down?
NOTE: ThinkProgress is among several publications to have published documents attributed to the Heartland Institute and sent to us from an anonymous and then unknown source. The source later revealed himself. The AP worked to independently verify the documents and concluded, “The federal consultant working on the classroom curriculum, the former TV weatherman, a Chicago elected official who campaigns against hidden local debt and two corporate donors all confirmed to the AP that the sections in the document that pertained to them were accurate. No one the AP contacted said the budget or fundraising documents mentioning them were incorrect.” Heartland Institute has issued several press releases on the documents. See also “CAPAF General Counsel Responds To Heartland Institute.”