As you may have (hopefully!) heard, recently some Greenpeace investigators posed as Middle Eastern oil interests and tricked an ExxonMobil lobbyist into spilling some of the company’s (open) secrets about its climate lobbying.
In a recent interview at Slate, one of the Greenpeace investigators Lawrence Carter told Mary Harris the Heartland Institute was one of the shadowy groups Exxon’s lobbyist said worked with to attack climate science. He described how “they really helped shift the whole debate in the U.S. on climate change to a very bad place. Exxon played a leading role in that, spending at least $30 million on these networks, according to investigations.”
Well apparently the Heartland Institute didn’t appreciate that being said, and on Friday published a response “to fake news about its funding” that bizarrely, confirms exactly the point Carter was making.
Heartland’s VP and Communications Director Jim Lakely took issue with three things he describes as “libel” before going on to actually prove them correct. The first is Carter mentioning Heartland specifically as one of the “shadow groups” that the Exxon lobbyist admitted they worked with to influence the climate debate in ways that favor Exxon’s profits.
But Lakely asks rhetorically how it can be a shadow group when it is “a 37-year-old organization that communicates more often with more elected officials than any other think tank in the country, has a prominent presence online, produces podcasts that gained 7 million hits in 2020, is published almost daily in outlets across the world, and is endorsed by an impressive list of think tank leaders, elected officials, and other opinion leaders?”
Hmm yes what a great point, how can Heartland possibly be a tool of ExxonMobil’s lobbying when it’s so busy doing all this lobbying for policy positions that help ExxonMobil? Here’s a better question though: if Heartland’s not a “shadowy organization,” then why are you so mad about your connection with Exxon being brought to light?
The second point Lakely disputes is expected, claiming that “Heartland is not ‘misleading’ the public on climate science.” Oh? No, instead Lakely points to the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change,” the group's effort to create a climate denial version of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
So in response to being accused of misleading, Lakely points to one of their efforts so transparently meant to mislead the public that even the name is an obvious knock-off of the real deal. What other possible explanation could there be for the otherwise communications-savvy denial outfit choosing such a clunky mouthful of a name? It’s like you got sold a Sorny instead of a Sony, and then when confronted about it, the salesman just says “What, Sorny’s a great brand! Much better than Sony!”
Lakely’s third and final dispute is over something he actually acknowledges. While admitting that “Exxon was a donor to Heartland, from 1998 to 2006,” he denies that the group’s climate denial is Exxon-oriented.
How? Tune in tomorrow to find out!