Have you ever wanted to win an award but lacked the necessary talent, skills or intelligence? Or, have you ever wished that your favorite pseudoscientist spokesmen had some claim to fame beyond "getting paid to promote disinformation"?
This past summer the Heartland Institute—recognizing that their stable of climate contrarians is severely lacking in real accolades—gave out a number of awards. At the time, most people ignored it, but now the reason for this sham is painfully obvious.
Part of Heartland's current strategy is to push out its "Featured Speakers Bureau," which involves encouraging people to request that one of Heartland's contrarians come and speak at their events. Thanks to the awards it gave out this summer, Heartland can now send email pitches offering readers the chance to "Book an Award-Winning Climate Expert" for their next event, while neglecting to mention it was Heartland that created and then gave the awards! While the pitch email (rehosted here) says the recipients won the awards at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, the email doesn't mention that said conference is a Heartland product!
Dr. S. Fred Singer was given the "Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science Award" (which we feel grossly neglects his years of faithful service denying the risks of smoking for the tobacco industry). Dr. Willie Soon received the "Courage in Defense of Science Award" (well warranted, since most scientists wouldn't have the courage to risk their professional reputation by accepting over a million dollars from oil and coal interests to push climate denial). And finally, Dr. Roy Spencer won the "Outstanding Evangelical Climate Scientist Award" (since he is a creationist they were apparently willing to overlook decades of wrong analysis.)
In the spirit of the awards, we are now granting this Denier Roundup post the "First Annual Denier Roundup Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence."
Stay tuned for tomorrow's award-winning Denier Roundup!