These internal documents from the climate denier machine will might facilitate much spilling-of-the-ink on enviro and lefty blogs, aggregators, and news outlets in the days to come. Climate advocates will be, of course, quite jubilant in their “I told you so” commentary. I suspect there will be lots of celebration that deniers are exposed for what they are - corporate funded shills. 

But, seriously, how will this document dump matter? What will be the effect? For example, will the Koch brothers stop funding deniers?? Will the Heartland Institute suddenly see the light and stop finding ways to impact public opinion on climate?

As a result of a leak, it seems to me these denier groups would just tighten up their internal messaging to prevent future mistakes. I don’t have faith in the enviros to capitalize on this (very interesting) leak. I’ve argued many times on this tumblr that environmentalists are (unfortunately) not very adept at messaging or staying focused on one topic. They’re fantastic reactionaries, but terrible at visioning and affecting change.

Brad Johnson of Think Progress sets the tone: 

Internal documents acquired by ThinkProgress Green reveal that the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by the Koch brothers, Microsoft, and other top corporations, is planning to develop a “global warming curriculum” for elementary schoolchildren that presents climate science as “a major scientific controversy.” This effort, at a cost of $100,000 a year, will be developed by Dr. David E. Wojick, a coal-industry consultant.

“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”:

Read the rest of the document at Think Progress