The Shoe Drops on the Table

On Thursday, Eli went to an interesting debate at R Street about whether a carbon tax was the best way to organize the response to climate change.  R Street an offshoot of Heartland, formed when Heartland jumped the billboard shark.  Lead by Eli Lehrer R Street basically represents the interests of the insurance industry, in a lobbying sort of way.  Eli took notes, more on the debate later

James Taylor from Heartland represented the forces of darkness, e.g. the lumps of coal.  Eli had a chance to talk with him later after he did the Gish gallop on another guy (more on that later).  The Rabett provoked by asking what Taylors POV was about the BRICs, the C being played by China, the others being Brazil, Russia and India, and Taylor replied in so many words that China was moving to their side as evidenced by the translation of the NIPCC report and the seminar to be held Sat in Beijing.  Eli remarked in passing and no further, that Taylor would be wise to count his cards.

Heartland just pulled the ace of spades. Their friends in the Chinese Academy of Sciences just posted a demand letter

The Chinese translation of the “Climate Change Reconsidered—NIPCC report” was organized by the Information Center for Global Change Studies, published in May 2013 through Science Press, with an accompanying workshop on climate change issues in Beijing on June 15, 2013. However, the Heartland Institute published the news titled “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming” in a strongly misleading way on its website, implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) supports their views, in contrary to what is clearly stated in the Translators’ Note in the Chinese translation.

The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false. To clarify the fact, we formally issue the following statements:

(1) The translation and publication of the Chinese version of the NIPCC report, and the related workshop, are purely non-official academic activities the group of translators. They do not represent, nor they have ever claimed to represent, CAS or any of CAS institutes. They translated the report and organized the workshop just for the purpose of academic discussion of different views.

(2) The above fact was made very clear in the Translators’ Note in the book, and was known to the NIPCC report authors and the Heartland Institute before the translation started. The false claim by the Heartland Institute was made public without any knowledge of the translator group.

(3) Since there is absolutely no ground for the so called CAS endorsement of the report, and the actions by the Heartland Institute went way beyond acceptable academic integrity, we have requested by email to the president of the Heartland Institute that the false news on its website to be removed. We also requested that the Institute issue a public apology to CAS for the misleading statement on the CAS endorsement.

(4) If the Heartland Institute does not withdraw its false news or refuse to apologize, all the consequences and liabilities should be borne by the Heartland Institute. We reserve the right for further actions to protect the rights of CAS and the translators group.
Information Center for Global Change Studies,

Scientific Information Center for Resources and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, June 14, 2013.

Heatland's announcement has again vanished but the grovel has appeared (Tip of the ear to Big City Lib) from Jim Lakeley

The following statement was released today by Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast:

 "Earlier this week, the Information Center for Global Change Studies, an Information group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a Chinese edition of 'Climate Change Reconsidered,' translating and combining the contents of two volumes in a series with the same title previously published by The Heartland Institute.

"Some people interpreted our news release and a blog post describing this event as implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences endorses the views contained in the original books. This is not the case, and we apologize to those who may have been confused by these news reports.

"To be clear, the release of this new publication does not imply CAS and any of its affiliates involved with its production 'endorse' the skeptical views contained in the report. Rather, as stated in the translator's preface of the book, 'The work of these translators, organizations and funders has been in the translation and the promotion of scientific dialogue, does not reflect that they agree with the views of NIPCC.' "

Clearly they hope to have Fred Singer exfiltrated from Beijing with no further collateral damage however, some bunnies, not Eli to be sure, have been web citing like crazy

For those of you interested in how not to dance with the dragon, Stephan Lewandowsky has the instructions

 Anyone familiar with the activities of deniers will recognize that this affair follows a fairly standard three-step template: First, a spectacular announcement is made that is at the very least misleading if not outright mendacious. Then, true skeptics (usually scientists) discover and correct the misrepresentation. Finally, the responsible party retreats into its shadowy lair of irresponsible ideology with an "apology" that blames a "confusion" on parties unknown.

RL Miller has some more