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Nigel Farage and Liz Truss were spotted attending the launch of the UK branch of a Donald Trump-backed think tank that has been leading the charge in denying climate change.
James Taylor, president of The Hartland Institute, describes the organisation as a “free-market think tank known globally as the world’s most prominent think tank supporting scepticism about man-made climate change”.
The US-based lobby group – which is one of the organisations involved in the Project 2025 agenda for a second Donald Trump term – has made extreme statements sceptical of climate change. The think tank launched its UK-EU branch in December, aiming to leverage “science-based work pushing back at climate alarmism and schemes such as Net Zero from London”.
Mr Farage, who was the guest of honour at the launch, was joined by former prime minister Ms Truss and Tory shadow trade minister Andrew Griffith.
Here, The Independent takes a look at the controversial group.
The Heartland Institute and Tobacco Lobbying
The institute was founded in 1984 by Chicago investor David H. Padden.
In the 1990s, the Heartland Institute worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking second-hand smoke to health risks, and lobbied against government public health reforms. Philip Morris commissioned Heartland to write and distribute reports.
A former president of the group, Joe Bast, once claimed that “moderate” smoking doesn’t raise lung cancer risks, and that there were “few, if any, adverse health effects” associated with smoking.
Climate Change Denial
The Heartland Institute rejects the prevailing scientific consensus on climate change. The group promotes false claims that climate change is not potentially catastrophic to the world and it could actually be ‘beneficial’.
It has also incorrectly claimed that heatwaves and temperatures in the US are not increasing as a result of climate change.
Author Naomi Klein wrote in her book This Changes Everything that staff at the Institute “recognize that climate change is a profound threat to our economic and social systems and therefore deny its scientific reality.”
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway wrote in their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt that the institute was known “for its persistent questioning of climate science, for its promotion of ‘experts’ who have done little, if any, peer-reviewed climate research, and for its sponsorship of a conference in New York City in 2008 alleging that the scientific community’s work on global warming is fake.”
Comparing advocates of human-made global warming to terrorists
Heartland began an advertising campaign in 2012 which featured a photo of the Unabomber, a US terrorist who killed three people and injured others. The picture was accompanied by text, which read: “I still believe in global warming, do you?” The group withdrew the billboards a day later.
The institute planned for the campaign to feature murderer Charles Manson, communist leader Fidel Castro and the founder of al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden.
The group justified the billboards at the time, saying: “The most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.”
Links to Nigel Farage and Reform UK
Mr Farage was the “guest of honour” at the launch of the Heartland Institute’s UK/European branch in December.
In a statement at the time of the launch, Heartland president James Taylor said: “During recent years, a growing number of policymakers in the UK and continental Europe have requested Heartland establish a satellite office to provide resources to conservative policymakers throughout Europe.
“With our UK and European launch, we aim to fulfill this requested impact throughout Europe.”
Reform UK has called for the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target to be scrapped.
Heartland’s European branch will be run by Lois Perry, a climate science denier who has said it’s her “personal belief” that climate change “is happening” but “is not man-made”. Ms Perry is the former leader of Ukip – though she stood down after just 34 days.
Ms Perry also formerly ran the anti-net zero pressure group CAR26, which has claimed that carbon dioxide is “essential to all life” and that its “welcome growth has greened our planet saving countless human and other lives”.
In July last year, Mr Farage said in an interview with Jordan Peterson: “I do find it extraordinary that people call carbon dioxide a pollutant, because as I understand it, plants don’t grow without carbon dioxide.”
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