The ultra-conservative Heartland Institute admitted it was in financial crisis on Wednesday, with the flight of corporate donors making it difficult to pay staff or cover the costs of its annual conference aimed at debunking climate science.
In a speech at the close of this year's climate conference, Heartland's president, Joseph Bast, acknowledged that a provocative ad campaign comparing believers in human-made climate change to psychopaths had exacted a heavy cost.
However, Bast also attributed Heartland's current problems to his weakness in financial management.
"These conferences are expensive, and I'm not a good fundraiser so as a result I don't raise enough money to cover them. We really scramble to make payroll as a result to cover these expenses," Bast said.
This year's conference was a drastically shrunken version of earlier Heartland gatherings, which attracted up to 800 attendees and ran several concurrent sessions. Those events were also lucrative for Heartland, accounting for half of its non-fundraising events revenue, according to documents obtained through deception by the scientist Peter Gleick.
At this year's gathering in Chicago, fewer than 170 turned up for the gala opening banquet, and the conference only managed to eke out one session at a time, and brought in relatively few outside speakers.
Heartland Institute in financial crisis after billboard controversy | Environment | guardian.co.uk
In a speech at the close of this year's climate conference, Heartland's president, Joseph Bast, acknowledged that a provocative ad campaign comparing believers in human-made climate change to psychopaths had exacted a heavy cost.
However, Bast also attributed Heartland's current problems to his weakness in financial management.
"These conferences are expensive, and I'm not a good fundraiser so as a result I don't raise enough money to cover them. We really scramble to make payroll as a result to cover these expenses," Bast said.
This year's conference was a drastically shrunken version of earlier Heartland gatherings, which attracted up to 800 attendees and ran several concurrent sessions. Those events were also lucrative for Heartland, accounting for half of its non-fundraising events revenue, according to documents obtained through deception by the scientist Peter Gleick.
At this year's gathering in Chicago, fewer than 170 turned up for the gala opening banquet, and the conference only managed to eke out one session at a time, and brought in relatively few outside speakers.
Heartland Institute in financial crisis after billboard controversy | Environment | guardian.co.uk
