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Return of Climate Denial-a-Palooza: Heartland Institute Hitches Anti-Science Wagon to Vegas FreedomFest

By Brendan DeMelle
on

The Heartland Institute is reviving its global warming skeptics’ gathering this week in scorching hot Las Vegas for the ninth “International Conference on Climate Change” — which DeSmog long ago dubbed “Denial-a-Palooza”.

Sin City is a fitting spot for the world’s most anti-science front group to convene its friends who deny the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming is real and a grave threat to our future.

There will surely be plenty of tobacco smoke and gambling within the halls of the Mandalay Bay casino where the Heartland conference is taking place. For instance, Heartland’s James Taylor is a big fan of the poker tables, as Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously episode ‘Against the Wind’ revealed.

I’m a bit surprised to see Heartland revive this conference given the extremely low attendance last time around, when Heartland president Joe Bast declared “no plans to do another ICCC.” Bast desperately appealed for cash from anyone’s “rich uncle” to help fund the flailing organization’s recovery from its Unabomber billboard debacle and public airing of its internal documents. 

In an effort to boost the attendance figures this time around, Heartland’s climate skeptic gathering hitched its wagon to FreedomFest, a right-wing and libertarian shindig that gets rolling later this week. 

Below are links to DeSmogBlog’s in-depth research on both the Sponsors and Speakers of Heartland’s ICCC9 Denial-a-Palooza climate skeptic conference. Media Matters has also put together a great run-down of the Heartland conference attendees in its post Climate Denial Goes Vegas.

Stay tuned for our coverage of both of these climate denial fests as the right wing echo chamber revs its think tank engines in preparation of the 2014 mid-term Congressional elections and ongoing policy battles in Washington over EPA carbon regulations and executive actions by the Obama administration.

HEARTLAND INSTITUTE ICCC9 SPEAKERS

HEARTLAND INSTITUTE ICCC9 SPONSORS

By Brendan DeMelle
Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
Brendan is Executive Director of DeSmog. He is also a writer focused on disinformation and corporate accountability.

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