The Heartland Institute has reared its hoary head again, this time fronting three full-page color ads in the Washington Post targeting lawmakers now debating the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) on Capitol Hill.

As I mentioned in my last post, it is not often the denial machine resorts to something as clumsy as buying media exposure. This indicates just how desperate their oily funders are to avoid meaningful regulation of filthy fuels.

That they have managed to dodge this bullet for so long, illustrates just how brilliant Big Oil has been at precluding pesky laws for their dangerous product.

I promised in my last post to pull apart some of the knee-slappers and nose-stretchers in these full-page propaganda pieces and I will try not to disappoint. There is plenty to work with...

You can often judge progress by the reaction of those opposed to it. If that's true, we may finally be getting somewhere.

The notoriously unethical Heartland Institute is blowing a bundle of cash in an all-out effort to derail climate change legislation moving through Congress. The Heartland folks have never been overly encumbered by either ethics or accuracy and their latest effort is no exception.

Heartland is fronting three full-page ads in the Washington Post, transparently targeted at lawmakers now horse-trading over the draft American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).

So what does that kind of action cost? According the Washington Post website, close to $250,000. But that is pocket change for Big Oil and Big Coal, who stand to lose big if US climate policy moves into the 21^st century.

The ads deadpan three hilariously audacious whoppers:

• Climate deniers lack access to the media or politicians,
• Climate scientists the world over are part of some grand conspiracy to deceive the public, and
• You should instead trust a “non-profit” organization with a budget of $5.2 million that refuses to disclose its funders.

I’ll deal with the content of the full-page propaganda effort in a separate post but the first thing to note is the desperation of the tactics.

These are sophisticated players and such ham-handed lobbying techniques are typically a last resort in the public relations toolkit. This latest move illustrates just how isolated vested oil and coal interests have become in the climate change debate.

Among the many conservative think tanks faithfully pushing the skeptic message in Washington, D.C., few are as prominent—or, should I say, infamous—as the Heartland Institute. The “independent” research and non-profit group has the dubious distinction of having organized the first major denier-palooza, the “International Conference on Climate Change,” last year. Despite a less than stellar showing, and an even more lukewarm follow-up in March, it’s hoping that the third time will be the charm.

The likes of Senator James Inhofe, Lord Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts will be descending on the Washington Court Hotel this week to discuss the “widespread dissent to the asserted “consensus” on the causes, consequences, and proper responses to climate change.” Its ostensible purpose will be to “expose Congressional staff and journalists to leading scientists and economists in the nation’s capital” and demonstrate that “global warming is not a crisis and that immediate action to reduce emissions is not necessary”—which it calls the emerging consensus view of (the handful of) scientists outside the IPCC.

There is no proof whatever that the devastating strength of cyclone Nargis is related to climate change. There is no concrete evidence that the deadliest tornado season in a decade can be linked to global warming.

There is a smoking gun, and it has human fingerprints all over it. The case against the fossil-fuel-burning culprits has certainly been proved beyond reasonable doubt, but because the worst offenders are rich and influential, there is still no one up on charges.

The Heartland Institute has withdrawn its claim of having identified "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts about Global Warming Scares," but is refusing the demands by dozens of those scientists to be removed from the Heartland's original offending document.

Heartland President Joseph Bast rationalizes that aside from the misleading headline, "none of the articles and news releases produced by The Heartland Institute or the Hudson Institute (the original source of the lists) claims that all of the scientists who appear in the lists currently doubt that the modern warming is man-made."

We can now count the dead and the imaginary among the shrinking number of scientists in the Heartland Institute list of 500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares.

"Bond, G., Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory;" "Bradbury, J. Pratt, USGS;" and "Keeling, Charles D., Scripps Institute of Oceanography" are all deceased and therefore unable to join the chorus of legitimate scientists who are demanding that their names be removed from the list.