Accredited journalists were kicked out of a sparsely attended climate denial conference hosted by the US oil-and tobacco-funded Heartland Institute today inย Paris.
Heartland’s โDay of Examining the Dataโ event was repeatedly advertised as open to the public and media. However the freedom-of-speech espousing think tank had French security guards from the Hotel California outside the COP21 official venue remove DeSmog UK journalists.
Why? Because the 9 am press conference was now apparently a privateย event.
An archived copy of the Heartland Institute Website shows the conference advertised as โopen to theย publicโ
With the two DeSmog journalists gone, this left the likes of Marc Morano from the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and Christopher Monckton preaching to a small choir of under 30 people, the majority of which were elderly men. Ironically, tomorrow is gender day at the official Paris COP21 climateย conference.
The formerly open to the public Heartland climate denial conference just cut number of women present by a third pic.twitter.com/8uUZzRDcyu
โ Kyla Mandel (@kylamandel) December 7, 2015
This isnโt the first time such a climate denial conference has beenย underwhelming.
Last April, Heartland and CFACT travelled to Rome to try and pursuade the Pope not to speak on climate change. Aside from a very minimal media presence at the first day of their press stunt, there was no one except the climate denial faithful on dayย 2.
It also isnโt the first time for this group to refuse journalists entry to their events. In June, accredited journalists were barred from attending Heartlandโs annual climate conferenceย โ and the media that did get in was cordoned off in a separate room unable to actually stand in the conferenceย hall.
Sources tell DeSmog UK that Jim Lakely, Heartlandโs communications director, is now standing guard outside the locked doors of the CFACT-Heartland climate denial conference inย Paris.
This comes after The Australian published a story earlier today headlined โGreens want muzzle on โclimateย deniersโโ.
