Yesterday, I noticed
this in the UK Gaurdian re.
The Heartland Institute's ongoing travails:
A number of other experts meanwhile began cutting their ties with Heartland, according to a tally kept by a Canadian blogger BigCityLiberal.
But I noted that they just linked to my blog front page. So I thought I would work up a proper tally of those Heartland "experts" who have responded to my email
re the now infamous billboard:
On May 11, Heartland Institute fellow Dennis Avery became the first to bite, penning
this passionate if somewhat cracked defense of the institute. You can see the form letter I've been using underneath his diatribe.
On Sunday, May 13th, well-known climatologist Chris Landsea became the first respondent to inform me
that he no longer wished to be associated with Heartland. Given his centrality to some aspects of the AGW debate, Mr. Landsea's renunciation generated a number of MSM stories,
here and
here.
On Monday, May 14th, both
Miklos Zagoni of Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, and well-known medical entomologist
Paul Reiter asked that Heartland remove them from their list of experts.
On May 15th, I received stirring defenses of the Institute from
Sonja A
Boehmer-Christiansen,
S. Fred Singer, and
Brian Valentine, all of which I noted in
this post. I also had a brief contact I had with
G. Cornelis van
Kooten (discussed in the same post), who insisted that he had no idea what I was on about, but whose name was removed from the list somewhere between the 14th and 15th. This was the first suggestion from any of the Heartland experts that the Institute might have volunteered them for the position without asking consent. I would also note that
Dr.Sonja
A.Boehmer-Christiansen has since disappeared from the list, though this may be the result of an accident on HI's part. I have emailed her regarding the matter but received
no response.
Later on the 15th, I was contacted by economist Henry "Jake" Jacoby, who
told me that he would contact HI and have his entry deleted. This is the first confirmed case where Heartland slapped up someone on their website as an expert without letting that person know in advance.
On May 16th, Joe Bast posted an open letter to all those scholars who had "abandoned" HI, in which he
bitched at length.
On Saturday, May 19th, Economist
Peter Cramton informed me by email that he too
would no longer be associated with HI.
So far, Mr. Cramton is the last person on the Heartland list to have contacted me. In addition, I am informed that
Roger Pielke Jr. has had his entry deleted, though this was not due to efforts on my part. And
Benny Peiser disappeared from the list way back on May 5th or so, presumably because of the billboards but well before my email campaign began.
So far that makes about 80 emails sent but unanswered. I don't expect too many more responses, although I think some U.S. academic institutions may be in the middle of final exams, so perhaps when those are done I might get another note or two.
Update: Sometime between about May 24th and 26th
Bjørn Lomborg's name was removed from the Heartland list. He confirms his removal
here.
