Heartland Institute on life support, asks for donations from ‘rich uncle’
24 May 2012 (Watch the Deniers) – Some encouraging news with the Heartland Institute (HI) announcing that are going to discontinue their annual International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC). The ICCC was the big event for denial movement, an important venue to help co-ordinate efforts, generate talking points, and create the impression there is opposition to the science.
This year less than 300 people turned up. After losing major sponsors for this year’s ICCC, HI turned to coal lobby groups and fringe bloggers for “sponsorship”. Their “Unabomber” billboard campaign was so offensive that speakers deserted the conference, and staff from the Washington office resigned in protest. Lets not forget HI lied to the world’s media about the authenticity of the leaked strategy document (Fakegate, Fakegate, Fakegate). DeSmogBlog reports on just how desperate Heartland has become after losing sponsors and suffer crippling blows to its “credibility”. Closing the conference, Heartland’s President Joe Bast is begging for cash from “rich uncles”:
Please consider supporting the Heartland Institute. These conferences are expensive, and I’m not a good fundraiser so as a result I don’t raise enough money to cover them, we really scramble to make payroll as a result to cover these expenses. If you can afford to make a contribution, please do. If you know someone, if you’ve got a rich uncle or somebody in the family or somebody that you work with, please give them a call and ask them if they would consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the Heartland Institute.” […]
By Brendan DeMelle
23 May 2012 During his closing remarks at the Heartland Institute’s Seventh “International Conference on Climate Change,” Heartland President Joseph Bast revealed that the group has no plans to hold another conference and is struggling to pay its staff following the defections of corporate sponsors in the wake of the disastrous Unabomber billboard campaign and Deniergate document dump. “I’m not a good fundraiser,” Bast admitted to the crowd today in Chicago as the gathering wound down. Bast appealed directly to the crowd for donations, saying that “if you’ve got a rich uncle” [ask him to donate to Heartland]. “At this point we have no plans to do another ICCC,” Bast said, referring to the somewhat-annual gatherings which DeSmogBlog dubbed Denial-a-Palooza years ago. […]
Joe Bast Announces the Death of Denial-a-Palooza at Final Heartland ICCC Conference
Goodbye to "table-pounding denialism"