Heartland Institute Sends "Skeptics Handbook" on Global Warming to Marysville, Washington School

[Annces]

From the Heartland Institute - material was sent questioning global warming and the school board president, Michael Kundu rejects it.



School Board Prez Censors Science
Written By: James M. Taylor
Publisher: The Heartland Institute


Michael Kundu, a whale photographer and school board president in Marysville, Washington, apparently thinks he knows more about global warming than NASA, NOAA, the IPCC, and thousands of scientists. And he’s perfectly comfortable banning from “his” classrooms any scientific information that contradicts his opinions.

This surprising state of affairs came to light when Kundu received a copy of The Skeptic’s Handbook by Australian science communicator Joanne Nova. The 16-page booklet challenges conventional wisdom about the causes and extent of global warming in an easy-to-read but scientifically rigorous fashion.

Copies of Nova’s booklet were sent to all 14,000 public school board presidents by The Heartland Institute, publisher of Environment & Climate News, accompanied by a letter from climate scientist Bob Carter, a professor at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia.


‘Stuff ... into the Recycle Basket’

Kundu responded to the mailing by sending a blistering email to other school board presidents, on which he copied Carter. “I would encourage all of you to stuff that junk mail directly into the recycle basket,” he wrote.

“The publication recently sent out by the Institute is precisely the type of junk, pseudo-science publication that should be filtered out by all thinking school administrators,” Kundu wrote. “We’ve seen the efforts by radical creationists, anti-evolution activists, anti-union, white separatist and other fringe groups to subversively infiltrate public education—this mailing from the Heartland Institute is on a similar level,” Kundu asserted.


‘Offensive, Inaccurate’

Carter responded to Kundu with an email saying “you must ... be aware that the letter is offensive in tone, inaccurate in content, and manages in spectacular fashion to throw the baby out of the bathwater.

“As the president of a school district board,” Carter wrote, “you have a particular responsibility to encourage informed discussion on controversial matters of the day, rather than to denigrate in ignorant fashion one aspect of a complex, multi-sided argument of which you happen to disapprove.

“The Skeptic’s Handbook is a carefully and accurately written account of matters to do with contemporary climate change,” Carter also wrote. “Every statement in it is founded in data contained in numerous research papers in refereed scientific journals.”


http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/25663/School_Board_Prez_Censors_Science.html



And a local reporter in Seattle for the Examiner actually takes the side of the "creationists".

As much as many folks would prefer to imagine otherwise, the reality is that the "scientific consensus" on climate change alarmism isn't so solid. But for people like Kundu, who engage in ad hominem attacks rather than debate the science (see the email exchange mentioned above), the climate issue is more about ideology than a rational debate of the facts. And the truly scary part of all this is that Kundu has a role in indoctrinating educating children.


http://www.examiner.com/x-256-Seattle-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2009m7d17-Local-school-board-president-censors-debate-on-science?#comments

[FormerDittoHead]

1. More info here from Sourcewatch (link). People: remember: the rich LOWER THEIR TAXES this way

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute

Remember, this is a NON-PROFIT, and those (rich people) who are funding it are LOWERING THEIR TAXES AS IF IT'S A GOD DAMNED CHARITY!

To close the loop:

And as a result of them paying lower taxes, in order to fund the government, we (those of us not donating to this 'apolitical non-profit') have to make up the difference.

IN OTHER WORDS - *WE* ARE FINANCING THESE POLITICAL (though they say they're not) THINK TANKS.

[Annces]

2. I looked up info on the Examiner of Seattle and it is run by an anti-evolutionist

The newspaper lets free-lancers write for them, but no doubt they have to follow the Christian conservative line.



Philip Frederick Anschutz (born 28 December 1939 in Russell, Kansas) is an American businessman. With an estimated current net worth of around $7.8 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 31st richest person in the USA.

Anschutz, a Republican donor and supporter of George W. Bush's administration, has been an active patron of a number of religious and conservative causes:

Helped fund Colorado's 1992 Amendment 2, a ballot initiative designed to overturn local and state laws that prohibit discrimination against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation.
Helped fund the Discovery Institute, a think tank based in Seattle, Washington that promotes intelligent design and criticizes evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz#Political_and_Christian_activism