DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
Posted on 18 February 2012 by dana1981, jg
Note: the graphic below was updated at at 16:35 PM on 18 February 2012 to correct a couple of minor errors. A portion of the government relations budget had been double-counted, and some of the Heartland proposed budgetary figures extend beyond 2012. See the discussion below for further details.
*update* the graphic was updated again on 23 Feb 2012 to remove the Charles Koch Industries $225k donation. The foundation donated $25k to Heartland in 2011 for health care research, but will not make Heartland's expected $200k 2012 donation.
*update 2* the graphic was updated again on 24 Feb 2012 to remove David Watkins' name. Watkins relayed the following message to Skeptical Science:
"David Watkins has had no relationship with the Heartland Institute. He has not accepted (nor has he been offered) any funds from them. He is not a supporter of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and in fact he routinely uses results from reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in his research on water resources adaptation planning for climate change."
Skeptical Science's resident artist (that's pronounced "ar-teest") jg has put together an infographic illustrating the Heartland Institute's funding sources and planned budget payments (based on lots of input and suggestions from the whole Skeptical Science team; click the image for a hi-rez version):
* Craig Loehle declined the Heartland funding offer.
These numbers come from the Heartland 2012 Budget and Fundraising Plan documents (in US dollars). Note that while some of the figures in this graphic have been confirmed, Heartland has not yet confirmed that all the numbers are correct. There is also no reason to doubt their veracity to this point. If any of the numbers are found to be in error, we will revise this graphic accordingly.
Although there are too many donations and programs to include in a single graphic, we selected some of the larger and more prominent contributors for the upper half of the graphic. Most of the programs and individuals in the lower half are potentially climate-related, with the exception of Operation Angry Badger, which we included because it potentially vlolates Heartland's tax-exempt chartiable organizational status, and James Taylor, because he frequently writes climate "skeptic" blog posts for Forbes.
The proposed budget numbers for Angry Badger and the Center for Transforming Education also appear to be long-term budgetary figures, not just applicable to 2012. The Angry Badger 2012 budget is closer to $200k, but net planned budget is $610k.
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