Noise machine: Independence Institute leveraged public media to promote global warming critic Chesser and misinformation

Summary: At various public appearances and through interviews or reports in several media outlets, the "free-market" Independence Institute think tank from late January through mid-February provided a platform for global warming critic Paul Chesser to spread misinformation regarding climate change science. But none of the Independence Institute's media figures revealed that Chesser and his organization have ties to the fossil-fuel industry.

During a period from late January through mid-February, the "free market" Independence Institute epitomized the conservative noise machine by providing a variety of public and media platforms in Colorado for global warming critic Paul Chesser: at a "Cult of Climate Change" event and a briefing for Republican lawmakers in Denver, via a podcast interview with Chesser on its website, and with guest spots for Chesser on several Colorado media outlets closely tied to the think tank or its president, Jon Caldara. While they allowed Chesser to spread misinformation repeatedly about climate change, none of the Independence Institute media figures who interviewed Chesser revealed his organization's ties to the fossil-fuel industry.

Chesser is the director of Climate Strategies Watch, a critic of "global warming alarmists" that is a "joint project" of the conservative John Locke Foundation and the "free-market" Heartland Institute. According to its website, Climate Strategies Watch "[e]xpos[es] stealth environmental advocacy by the Center for Climate Strategies" (CCS), a group it describes as "controlled by global warming alarmists who seek solutions that will dramatically increase energy costs and raise taxes, in addition to infringing upon freedom and property rights." Chesser also writes guest commentaries for conservative publications.

Independence Institute Director of Operations Amy Oliver promoted Chesser's then-upcoming, Independence Institute-sponsored public appearances when Chesser was her guest on her February 6 1310 KFKA broadcast. Neither Oliver nor Chesser mentioned that the Heartland Institute, which is a funder of Chesser's efforts against "global warming alarmists," has received funding from the fossil-fuel industry. As Colorado Media Matters has noted, the Heartland Institute received $115,000 from Exxon Mobil in 2006. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, from 1998 to 2005 Heartland received $561,500, including $119,000 in 2005 alone. Heartland also maintains a separate "Global Warming Facts" web page that promotes books by and offers links to the works of climate change "skeptics."

From the February 6 broadcast of 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show:

OLIVER: Well, I'm pleased to be joined by Paul Chesser from Climate Strategies Watch of the John Locke Foundation. If I listed all of the places to which he contributes intellectually, I would be into the top of the hour news break. So suffice to say that Paul is widely read regarding -- well, environmental carpetbagging. I love that term, because I think it's appropriate considering what we find in the state of Colorado and so many other states throughout the union. And it's really Paul's job to assess what's happening with these state policies and how they're really sort of -- it's one body with a whole bunch of different heads, and what, of course, I'm talking about, are climate change -- these climate change action plans. We have one here in Colorado; Paul is the expert on all of these. Paul, thanks so much for being here.

CHESSER: Well, thanks for having me, Amy.

OLIVER: Why don't you explain what Climate Strategies Watch is and what you do?

CHESSER: Climate Strategies Watch is a project that was born out a joint project between the Heartland Institute, which is a nationally focused, free-market, limited-government think tank; and the John Locke Foundation, who was my former employer till the end of last year, which -- I'm still affiliated with them, but they're more focused on North Carolina. I was an investigative reporter for them, and last year through the Locke Foundation I started studying that state's climate commission and came to find out that they had employed basically an advocacy group that was passing themselves off as objective consultants called the Center for Climate Strategies, hence Climate Strategies Watch. As I started digging into the background of this group, came to find out that they were active in a lot of different states managing their climate commissions. And I was doing a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests, trying to find out more about them in these other states, because the media had not done any reporting on them. And it sort of took on a life of its own, and here I am trying to help a lot of different states understand their climate change commission processes and who the Center for Climate Strategies is -- because they're hired in most of these states.

OLIVER: And I should say, you're actually going to be in Colorado; we look forward to seeing you in Colorado on Monday and Tuesday of next week. We've got a legislative briefing with you on Monday down at the state Capitol. And of course, we have a house event at the Independence Institute.

CHESSER: Yeah, you're keeping me busy.

OLIVER: Well, as a matter of fact, when we have a guest, we do like to exploit them. [laughter] Let me -- and I want people to have sort of have an idea of what John Locke and Heartland are like. They are akin to the Independence Institute, part of the State Policy Network -- these state-based, free-market think tanks searching for free-market solutions to policy issues within their respective states. So that gives somebody, you know, everybody sort of a basis on which to work. Because they hear me talk about the Independence Institute; now they can sort of make that comparison.

CHESSER: That's right. We're brothers, or sisters, or --

OLIVER: Yeah. Whatever it is.

CHESSER: Brethren.

OLIVER: Brethren. Perfect.

The Independence Institute website also features a podcast on its iVoices webpage dated January 23 in which Oliver and Chesser "discuss the 'green' movement and its influence on our politicians." And as Colorado Media Matters noted, on her February 12 broadcast, Oliver repeated Chesser's mischaracterization of a remark from former President Bill Clinton when she stated that "Paul Chesser [] found a quote" in which Clinton said that "we are going to have to accept that we have to slow down the economy in order to combat global warming." In fact, after stating that "rich" countries could take that approach, Clinton then said why he thought it wouldn't work, asserting that the "only way" to fight global warming is to prove that doing so "is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy," as Media Matters for America has noted (here and here).

In another Colorado media stint -- promoted on Caldara's blog, where he wrote that Chesser "has been working overtime trying to debunk the hysteria behind the global warming craze" -- Caldara hosted Chesser on the February 14 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking. During that program, Caldara and Chesser characterized CCS as "being funded by people who have a very harsh agenda." CCS supported and facilitated the work of the Colorado Climate Action Panel, whose report became the basis of the Colorado Climate Action Plan that Gov. Bill Ritter (D) released in November 2007. Neither Chesser nor Caldara indicated what was "harsh" about the purported agenda of the people to whom they referred. Further, neither acknowledged that the Heartland Institute received funding from the fossil-fuel industry.

From the February 14 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking:

CALDARA: So Colorado has an interesting climate plan; it's called the Climate Action Plan. Lots of good people worked on it, and the governor says this is how we're going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado. Question is, though, who's really behind it? To talk to us about it, Paul Chesser. Paul's with a group called Climate Strategies Watch -- did I get that right?

CHESSER: You sure did.

CALDARA: Also from a sister think tank of ours, the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina. I appreciate it.

CHESSER: Thanks for having me.

[...]

CALDARA: Let's piece this together --

CHESSER: Sure.

CALDARA: -- because what I'm seeing here -- and tell me if I'm wrong -- is that we've got a few well-heeled liberal foundations that are paying money to a group looks like they don't have an agenda, but in fact, they're being funded by people who have a very harsh agenda, and they go from state to state to state and put together this climate plan. And it's the same climate plan in state after state.

CHESSER: Right.

Chesser also was featured in a February 15 "Staff Report" published on Face the State, a "news" website operated by former Independence Institute research associate and current collaborator Brad Jones. Face the State reported Chesser's assertion that "there's broad dissent on the issue" of whether "there's going to be a climate catastrophe." Face the State went on to mention "an online petition" that purportedly substantiates Chesser's contention:

Chesser also disputes the assumptions underlying the scientific basis for the Colorado climate panel's prescriptions. "It's all based on their view that there's going to be a climate catastrophe, but there's broad dissent on the issue," he said.

More than 19,000 American scientists have signed an online petition that reads in part: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

Face the State apparently was referring to the so-called "Oregon Petition," coordinated by Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) president Arthur Robinson. As Colorado Media Matters has noted, many of the signatures on the petition apparently belong to people who are not climate scientists. According to the website PR Watch, "When questioned in 1998 ... Robinson admitted that only 2,100 signers of the Oregon Petition had identified themselves as physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, 'and of those the greatest number are physicists.' " According to a May 1, 1998, Associated Press article (accessed through the Nexis database), the petition at one time included the names of "Drs. 'Frank Burns' 'Honeycutt' and 'Pierce' (Remember the trio from M*A*S*H?), not to mention the Spice Girl, a.k.a. Geraldine Halliwell, who was on the petition as 'Dr. Geri Halliwel' and again as simply 'Dr. Halliwell.' "

According to PR Watch, OISM describes itself as "a small research institute" studying "biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine, and aging." Robinson, who founded OISM, was the lead author of a paper accompanying the petition. The paper asserted that the effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide are "an unexpected and wonderful gift from the Industrial Revolution." According to the AP, Robinson is "a physical chemist" who "acknowledges he has done no direct research into global warming." The New York Times reported on April 22, 1998 (accessed through Nexis), that the paper "was printed in a format and type face similar to that of the academy's own journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." According to the Times, the NAS' governing board subsequently issued a statement clarifying that the paper "does not reflect the conclusion of expert reports of the academy."

Additionally, on the eve of his February 11 Independence Institute public event appearances, Chesser appeared as a guest on KNUS 710 AM's Backbone Radio, whose host, John Andrews, is the founder and former president of the Independence Institute.

—E.B.