GM Cuts Support To The Heartland Institute
Citing its corporate stance that climate change is real, US auto manufacturer General Motors has announced its General Motors Foundation would no longer be funding the Heartland Institute just weeks after the Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers [ABIR] put distance between itself and the controversial free-market think tank’s position on anthropogenic global warming.
The Chicago-based Heartland Intitute has repeatedly attacked human-caused global warming as “junk science.”
ABIR, the public policy branch of the Bermuda re/insurance industry, was named as a benefactor of the Heartland Institute in documents leaked in February. The lobby group, with offices in Hamilton and Washington DC, issued a statement saying: “Substantial scientific evidence documents that human activity is affecting the climate of the earth.
“Although it is impossible to predict how and when this climate change will affect the weather in specific geographic areas, we can assume that the impact of climate change on re/insurance risk will be significant.
“Given changes in the climate, the ability to forecast future loss experience based on past historical experience is jeopardized. Climate change has implications for ABIR members as re/insurers, businesses, investors, citizens and employers.”
The Scientific Mainstream Accepts Human Activities Impact On Climate Change
GM’s announcement was not made in a company statement, but rather in communications with Greg Dalton of Climate One, an ongoing dialogue about the environment at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.
“General Motors has decided to discontinue funding of the Heartland Institute, an organization that downplays the risks of climate disruption, three weeks after GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson was asked about it during a Climate One radio interview,” said the Wednesday [Mar. 28] post on the Climate One website.
“Yep, it’s true,” said Greg Martin, a GM spokesperson. “Dan Akerson was giving remarks at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco a few weeks ago, and the issue of GM’s very modest and previous contribution to Heartland came up, and Mr. Akerson said he’d look into it. And we’ve looked into it, and we’ve decided to discontinue it.
“As Dan said at the Commonwealth Club, GM’s operating its business as if climate change is real.”
The development is fallout from the release of Heartland Institute funding documents in February, which showed that GM contributed $15,000 to Heartland in 2010 and 2011. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, revealed in February that he had assumed a false identity to obtain some of those documents.
The documents also showed that ABIR made donations to the Heartland Institute along with a subsidiary of Bermuda-based Renaissance Re. ABIR noted its support was for a separate and unrelated part of the think tank’s programmes and has played no role in the group’s climate change work.
In a statement released to the press, Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast said: “The General Motors Foundation has been a supporter of The Heartland Institute for some 20 years. We regret the loss of their support, particularly since it was prompted by false claims contained in a fake memo circulated by disgraced climate scientist Peter Gleick.”
On March 23, the Washington DC office of the Heartland Institute hosted a symposium on “onshoring” catastrophe re/insurance reserves now held in off-shore business domiciles including Bermuda.
The Illinois-based Heartland Institute has been part of ongoing efforts to transform the District of Columbia into “Bermuda On The Potomac” — an onshore domicile for leading global re/insurers.
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