Questions about the authenticity of the leaked Heartland Institute documents are fading, as projects described therein are confirmed. Heartland’s senior fellow James Taylor confirmed the existence of the climate-denier classroom curriculum project to ThinkProgress Green yesterday. Now, anti-science blogger Anthony Watts has confirmed that Heartland is funding his project to display weather station data, detailed in the leaked fundraising plan. In a comment at Andrew Montford’s Bishop Hill blog, Watts claims there are no “nefarious motives” in his project:

Heartland simply helped me find a donor for funding a special project having to do with presenting some new NOAA surface data in a public friendly graphical form, something NOAA themselves is not doing, but should be. . . . DeSmog, as part of their public relations for hire methodology to demonize skeptics, will of course try to find nefarious motives for this project. But there simply are none here. It’s something that needs doing because NOAA hasn’t made this new data available in a user friendly visual format.

The secret Heartland document explains that Watts isn’t just trying to present “new NOAA surface data in a public friendly graphical form.” Watts, the document explains, has been “exposing flaws in the current network of temperature stations (work that the Heartland Institute supported and promoted),” based on his hypothesis that “many of the temperature stations relied on by weathermen are compromised by heat radiating from nearby buildings, machines, or paved surfaces.” These stations generate “spurious records” which are “used by environmental extremists as evidence that human emissions are causing either global warming or the more ambiguous ‘climate change.’”

Like the rest of Heartland’s climate denial work, this project is anonymously funded.

Although it is important to calibrate weather stations, Watts’ idea that the record of rising temperatures is a result of bad data has been repeatedly debunked. In fact, Richard Mueller, a physicist funded by the Koch brothers to study “flawed” weather stations, confirmed that temperature data is “excellent” and “global warming is real.” Watts is now just another conspiracy theorist for hire.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does not have the resources to present their data in a more public-friendly form because of the endless assault on government by groups like the Heartland Institute and their right-wing funders. Last November, Republicans even killed a no-cost plan to streamline the agency to provide better services to the public.

A combination of drought, a build-up of combustible fuels and increased tree mortality is the recipe for a “perfect storm” of wildfire conditions, the researchers warned in a Feb. 14 paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Summit County Voice]

Zurich Financial Services AG, Switzerland’s biggest insurer, may say fourth-quarter profit fell 31 percent after increased climate and earthquake catastrophe losses. [Businessweek]

The electric battery company A123 recently cut its revenue forecast for 2011 by about 20 percent and laid off a few hundred employees at its Michigan factory after one of its biggest customers, electric-car maker Fisker Automotive, unexpectedly reduced the number of batteries it had ordered from the company. [Boston Globe]

American attempts to get major Asian importers of Iranian oil to rein in their purchases are faltering as allies South Korea and Japan give U.S. officials a polite brushoff. [Courier Journal]

Mississippi is rushing toward drilling in state waters without having “done its homework” or addressed concerns about tourism, the environment or economics, opponents say. [Sun Herald]

The shakeout in the solar power industry claimed another victim Tuesday as Auburn Hills-based Energy Conversion Devices filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced plans to sell its assets, including its main subsidiary, United Solar Ovonic. [Detroit Free Press]

Installation of solar panels in the U.S. surged as much as 67 percent in the fourth quarter as developers raced to qualify for an expiring federal incentive program and panel prices fell 16 percent, a trade group said. [Bloomberg]

The licensing of the nation’s first new nuclear-power reactors in decades, Insiders said, will serve as a signal for the industry that the seemingly convoluted regulatory process actually works. [National Journal]

Kloza believes much of the increase in gas prices is due to speculative money that’s flowed into gasoline futures contracts since the beginning of the year, mostly from hedge funds and large money managers. [Businessweek]

A variety of forces is pushing coal back to the brink. [Politico]

President Obama’s new budget lays down a clear and much-needed challenge to the Republican House’s large number of climate-change deniers and all of the Republican Party’s many panderers to Big Oil. [NYT]

The Obama administration blasted the House’s five-year transportation proposal Tuesday and issued the White House’s first veto threat of the year. [Politico]

Heart attacks more common at high levels of every main air pollutant except ozone, researchers find. [Guardian]

Heartland Institute's secret plans for a K-12 climate-denier curriculum.

“Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective,” Heartland’s confidential 2012 fundraising document bemoans. The group believes that Wojick’s project has “potential for great success,” because he has “contacts at virtually all the national organizations involved in producing, certifying, and promoting scientific curricula.” The document explains that Wojick will produce “modules” that promote the conspiratorial claim that climate change is “controversial”:

Dr. Wojick proposes to begin work on “modules” for grades 10-12 on climate change (“whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy“), climate models (“models are used to explore various hypotheses about how climate works. Their reliability is controversial”), and air pollution (“whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global food supply and natural emissions are 20 times higher than human emissions”).

Wojick would produce modules for Grades 7-9 on environmental impact (“environmental impact is often difficult to determine. For example there is a major controversy over whether or not humans are changing the weather“), for Grade 6 on water resources and weather systems, and so on.

Wojick will receive $5,000 per module, with twenty modules produced a year. Wojick, who manages the Climate Change Debate listserv, is not a climate scientist. His doctorate is in epistomology.

The Heartland Institute also runs the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, a conspiracy-theorist parody of the Nobel-prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Heartland’s NIPCC project “pays a team of scientists approximately $300,000 a year to work on a series of editions of Climate Change Reconsidered.” Their climate-denial work is funded anonymously.

James M. Taylor, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, told ThinkProgress Green in an e-mail why the group is developing its denier curriculum:

We are concerned that schools are teaching climate change issues in a manner that is not consistent with sound science and that is designed to lead students to the erroneous belief that humans are causing a global warming crisis. We hope that our efforts will restore sound science to climate change education and discourage the political propaganda that too often passes as “education”.

Right-wing ideologues, fueled by the fossil fuel industry, have been increasing their efforts to pollute science education in elementary schools. These attempts to hijack children’s education piggyback on the religious right’s war on biology education and the science of evolution. The National Center for Science Education, which has long led the defense of evolution education in elementary schools, has begun a new program to fight global warming denial in textbooks and classrooms.

Subscribe to ThinkProgress Green.

Hundreds of people rallied to save the MBTA public transit system from draconian cuts in Boston. [Occupy Boston]

Tropical Cyclone Giovanna has hit the island of Madagascar, with winds of up to 120mph ripping up trees and electricity pylons. [BBC]

The Latin America drought has spread to Brazil, with no rain for the entire month of December and only one rainy day in January, playing havoc with corn prices. [NASDAQ]

The U.S. requires the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for the Asia-Pacific to help countries address the climate challenge, and to complement its current military and economic engagement in the region. [e-International Relations]

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) will be speaking before the Senate Finance Committee in support of a bill aimed at developing offshore wind energy in Maryland. [Washington Post]

Climate change is warming the oceans and preventing water layers from mixing, which could upset the carbon storage capacity of microbes and plankton. [Economic Times]

Natural gas prices have strengthened in the two weeks since Chesapeake Energy Corporation announced it was immediately slashing spending on U.S. dry-gas exploration and production. [MarketWatch]

Employment in the EU’s renewable energy sector has broken through the one million mark for the first time, after the number of people working in the industry increased 25 per cent in 2010. [BusinessGreen]

President Barack Obama’s proposed budget would renew and extend a subsidy for renewable-energy projects that helps pay for as much as 30 percent of development costs, according to a solar lobbying group. [Bloomberg]

Forging ahead with its green power agenda, IKEA is expanding its solar power commitments in the US yet again and installing more charging stations for electric cars. [EV Wind]

President Barack Obama proposed cutting the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for the third straight year by trimming funding for water grants to U.S. states and Superfund clean-up programs. [Bloomberg]

American scientists say they’re concerned that Canadian budget cuts will hamper important international research efforts on climate change, pollution and other regional issues that cut across political boundaries. [Summit County Voice]

Analysts say they’ll be looking for more clarity on what’s next for TransCanada‘s efforts to ship Alberta crude to Texas refineries when the pipeline giant reports its fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday. [Canadian Business]

California’s powerful Air Resources Board has issued new rules that, when finally approved, will lead to many fewer smog-causing pollutants, fewer greenhouse gases and, in time, encourage the auto industry to build millions more emissions-free cars and trucks, including a new generation of all-electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles. [NYT]

The recent disclosure of the Sierra Club’s secret acceptance of $26 million in donations from people associated with a natural gas company has revived an uncomfortable debate among environmental groups about corporate donations and transparency. [NYT]

We’re going to war at noon eastern today–non-violent war, but a powerful, unified fight against the heart of right-wing power, the fossil fuel industry. We’re out to collect half a million emails in 24 hours telling the Senate: back up the president and keep this pipeline dead. It’s going to be the most concentrated burst of environmental activism this millennium–and it needs you.

This effort includes a diverse coalition of the national environmental movement — including the Environmental Defense Fund, Rainforest Action Network, the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Wildlife Federation and Green For All. As McKibben said, it’s “everyone else who’s ever tried to save a whale, clean a lake, build a park, find a solar job.”

The 24-hour push isn’t just a “green” cause, but one of the American progressive movement. Other organizations participating in the petition drive include MoveOn, Credo, Democracy for America, Public Citizen, Change.org, the Labor Network for Sustainability, and businesses like Patagonia.

Bill McKibben will be on the Colbert Report tonight to discuss the effort to prevent the destruction of our climate for the profit of foreign oil companies.

The potentially devastating winds, rain and storm tide of Tropical Cyclone Giovanna will be brought to bear on eastern Madagascar Monday. [AccuWeather.com]

Officials in the Philippines are preparing residents for dangerous flooding. [Manila Bulletin]

House Republicans may have set a record for how many counterproductive ideas can be stuffed into one package with their version of a $260 billion transportation bill. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Renewable energy companies are losing their allure with top executives after profits and stock prices collapsed across the industry, making it more difficult for boards to replace underperforming managers. [Bloomberg]

Southern Californians are among those at highest risk of death due to air pollution, according to recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research published in the journal Risk Analysis. [California Watch]

As natural gas prices continue to drop, the recent nationwide boom in drilling is slowing. [Wall Street Journal]

The environmental debate over exporting massive amounts of coal through Washington ports to China is coming to Olympia Monday. [News Tribune]

BP Plc won a court order keeping several potentially damaging emails out of a scheduled trial to determine responsibility for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. [Reuters]

India is poised to exceed its 2009 goal to produce 20,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2020. [Time]

Oil prices rose to near $100 a barrel Monday in Asia after the Greek parliament approved new austerity measures that should secure a bailout and avoid bankruptcy. [Washington Post]

Searching for growth in a tepid economy, private-equity firms are zeroing in on the U.S. oil patch. [WSJ]

Rules aimed at curbing emissions from cars and light trucks are on hold because the White House has yet to give the Office of Management and Budget the go-ahead to review them. [Washington Post]

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) with President Obama.

They shouldn’t be forced to issue a permit until they are satisfied on the environmental effects involved. So I think that point is valid. Whether that requires another six or eight months, that’s open to question. It is a good issue to try to get resolved some way or another. The American public would like to see us go ahead with the project to the extent they know what the project entails. It sounds meritorious. We’ve got pipelines all over the country. That is true with most members of Congress, too. I think most members of Congress probably would like to go ahead to get the issue resolved.

Watch it:

Bingaman’s claim about the American public’s support for the foreign tar sands project is incorrect. A recent poll from Hart Research Associates found that Americans who are informed about the pros and cons of the pipeline don’t want it built by a 14-point margin. Americans without this information — influenced by the extreme pro-pipeline bias in corporate media — support the pipeline by an 11-point margin.

Bingaman also rejected Republican claims that there is an “urgency about getting this permit approved,” because oil production is so high that the United States is a net exporter of petroleum products.

If built, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would put six states at risk of toxic oil spills along its 1700-mile route, and would add about five billion tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere over its intended 50-year lifespan of bringing dirty crude from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries for foreign export.

Other Democratic senators who have expressed support for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline include finance chair Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), budget chair Kent Conrad (D-ND), Jon Tester (D-MT), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Mark Begich (D-AK), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Nelson and Baucus have criticized Republican attempts to speed approval, while Manchin has signed on with the GOP.

Transcript:

Q: Moving on to the Keystone XL pipeline, Mr. Chairman, this is a major issue that’s coming up in both chambers of Congress. the White House continues to push it off to 2013 saying we have not rejected this project on the merits. We want to give it a full review over this longer period. Republicans obviously object, say it’s been reviewed for three years. How do you feel the White House has handled this? Is it time for them to come to a compromise with the company given with the issue has become?

BINGAMAN: The basic point they are making is a valid one. They shouldn’t be forced to issue a permit until they are satisfied on the environmental effects involved. So I think that point is valid. Whether that requires another six or eight months, that’s open to question. It is a good issue to try to get resolved some way or another. The American public would like to see us go ahead with the project to the extent they know what the project entails. It sounds meritorious. We’ve got pipelines all over the country. That is true with most members of Congress, too. I think most members of Congress probably would like to go ahead to get the issue resolved. Maybe there’s way to get it resolved contingent on certain things being determined. I don’t know.

Q: Would you consider using the Tuesday forums you have with Senate leadership as a way to come together with Democrats in the Senate and find a way forward on Keystone?

BINGAMAN: I think that frankly the Congress is reacting to actions by the administration here. We need to see what the administration is going to do. If the course of action that’s described by the administration is reasonable, then I would hope to support that. The idea that there is an urgency about getting this permit approved, I don’t buy into that. The truth is we have a lot of oil. We are refining more petroleum products than we can use in this country. We are exporting petroleum products. Oil production’s up. Gas production is up. The idea that we have an economic challenge that needs a streamlined process, I don’t buy that. There are jobs that are going to be created, and that’s good. There are lots of things that we’ve got on our plate that will create jobs that I’m sure will be reflected in the president’s budget.

In addressing climate resilience, Robinson stressed the importance of focusing on health and burden impacts of climate change. One of the keys is access to reproductive health for women.

”The sexual and reproductive health and rights community should challenge the global architecture of climate change, and its technology focus, and shift the discussion to a more human-based, rights-based adaptation approach,” said a Lancet editorial in 2009. ”Such a strategy would better serve the range of issues pivotal to improving the health of women worldwide.”

“Increasing women’s reproductive rights should be at the heart of the climate discussion, in the same basket as strategies like increasing energy efficiency and researching new technologies,” Robert Engelman of Worldwatch said in 2010.

As Nick Kristoff said in 2011, family planning is a solution to “climate change to poverty to civil wars,” but it has become a “victim of America’s religious wars.”

The more world leaders focus on giving women and girls the tools of empowerment — access to family planning, education, and the political and economic system — the better future all of us will have.

A world where women and girls have more power is a healthier world.

One of the favorite things of the left is to use your sentimentality, and your proper understanding and belief that we are stewards of this earth and we have a responsibility to hand off a beautiful earth to the next generation. They use that and they have used it in the past to try to scare you into supporting radical ideas on the environment. They tried it with this idea, this politicization of science called man-made global warming. President Obama, you may remember, tried to pass cap-and-trade and tried to get control not only of the health care system but of the energy industry, the manufacturing industry, another two big sectors of this economy, and using this facade of man-made global warming. I stood up and fought against those things. Why? because they will destroy the very foundation of prosperity in our country.

Watch it:

Santorum argued that his public embrace of the radical conspiracy theory that the world’s scientific community has concocted the greenhouse effect to enable socialists to take over the fossil fuel industry will help him win the White House.

“They try to scare you and intimidate you to trust them and give them more power,” Santorum concluded. “We need somebody who is willing to go out on these big issues of the day and draw contrasts.”

Nationally, the USGS currently lists 112 stream gauges as “threatened,” due to potential insufficient funding, 74 gauges as “endangered,” meaning that the USGS has been notified of a definite lack of funding, and 449 gauges as recently discontinued — hundreds in Florida alone. [Climate Central]

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he is committed to diversifying oil exports to countries such as China, while pledging to press Beijing on human rights as he forges ahead with deeper economic ties. [Businessweek]

Oceanside Fire Department officials confirmed they were helping battle a wildfire on Camp Pendleton Thursday night. [North County Times]

Cuba’s fledgling oil industry has for the first time dropped an offshore rig into the waters off the Florida Keys, a move that has U.S. officials and environmentalists warning that the island nation’s energy ambitions could come at the expense of the ecologically sensitive region at the tip of the Florida Peninsula. [IB Times]

Widespread disruption is expected on transport routes across England and Wales after significant overnight snowfall and sub-zero temperatures that show little sign of relenting. [Guardian]

California-based solar developer SolarReserve announced Thursday that it has completed the 540-foot molten-salt solar tower at the center of its Crescent Dunes solar-power plant on federal land near Tonopah. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

French oil giant Total SA on Friday said that 2012 started favorably . reporting a 12.8% increase in net income in the fourth quarter on the strength of high oil prices and in spite of weak downstream markets and stable output. [WSJ]

Donald Trump accused First Minister Alex Salmond of “destroying” Scotland with wind farms. [Telegraph]

Members of the Colorado congressional delegation are calling to extend the wind-energy production tax credit as part of the payroll tax extension. [Durango Herald]

Coast casinos still have concerns about oil and gas drilling in Mississippi waters they want addressed to protect the tourism industry as the state moves forward. [Biloxi Sun Herald]

A long-awaited mining project for Minnesota’s Iron Range has been delayed repeatedly in the past year because federal regulators are insisting the company conduct more rigorous research to predict its environmental ramifications on the wildest and most scenic corner of the state. [Minneapolis Star Tribune]

A federal rule banning ships from flushing their sewage into the sea within 3 miles of the California coast was approved Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. [San Francisco Chronicle]

BP persuaded a judge to bar the introduction of evidence of previous accidents involving the oil company from this month’s trial over fault for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico blast and oil spill. [Businessweek]

Canada’s prime minister on Friday made his strongest comments yet in support of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific coast, saying his government was committed to ensuring the controversial project went ahead. [Reuters]