China is not happy. Heartland Institute in its missionary zeal seriously overstepped the mark.

Oops!  Heartland Institute is in the poo again!  This time with China. Not good.

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From the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences website:

The Statements on the Chinese Translation of the“Climate Change Reconsidered—NIPCC Report”

时间: | 2013-06-14 | | 【大 中 小】【打印】【关闭】

The Chinese translation of the “Climate Change Reconsidered—NIPCC report” was organized by the Information Center for Global Change Studies, published in May 2013 through Science Press, with an accompanying workshop on climate change issues in Beijing on June 15, 2013. However, the Heartland Institute published the news titled “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming” in a strongly misleading way on its website, implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) supports their views, in contrary to what is clearly stated in the Translators’ Note in the Chinese translation.

The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false. To clarify the fact, we formally issue the following statements:

(1) The translation and publication of the Chinese version of the NIPCC report, and the related workshop, are purely non-official academic activities the group of translators. They do not represent, nor they have ever claimed to represent, CAS or any of CAS institutes. They translated the report and organized the workshop just for the purpose of academic discussion of different views.

(2) The above fact was made very clear in the Translators’ Note in the book, and was known to the NIPCC report authors and the Heartland Institute before the translation started. The false claim by the Heartland Institute was made public without any knowledge of the translator group.

(3) Since there is absolutely no ground for the so called CAS endorsement of the report, and the actions by the Heartland Institute went way beyond acceptable academic integrity, we have requested by email to the president of the Heartland Institute that the false news on its website to be removed. We also requested that the Institute issue a public apology to CAS for the misleading statement on the CAS endorsement.

(4) If the Heartland Institute does not withdraw its false news or refuse to apologize, all the consequences and liabilities should be borne by the Heartland Institute. We reserve the right for further actions to protect the rights of CAS and the translators group.

Information Center for Global Change Studies,

Scientific Information Center for Resources and Environment, 

Chinese Academy of Sciences,

June 14, 2013.

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See here for my initial take on the topic.

See here for the formal notice from the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Click here for the above notice from the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences

H/T Lillian and Dan on Ben's wottsupwiththat.com

The missionary zeal of the Heartland Institute to convert China to climate science denial

UPDATE 2: See updated article with the slap down of the Heartland Institute by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.


UPDATE: See below


Anthony Watts is very proud that a couple of denier publications from the Heartland Institute, science denying/obfuscation reports, have been translated into a Chinese version.   The Heartland Institute is apparently on a mission to convert the People's Republic of China to climate science denial.  I don't think they will succeed.

About that "event"

Anthony claims the authors are to speak about the translated documents at a "conference" in Beijing, which he describes as a  "Chinese Academy of Sciences event".  I can't find the event listed on the CAS English website (and don't know how to navigate to upcoming CAS events).  However there is a cached page about it, which has since been removed. (Click to enlarge.)

That now-deleted blurb mentions the International Symposium on Global Change Research 2013 and implies that the NIPCC event is part of this.  However the symposium is in Nanjing not Beijing, and that's a four hour trip by train. And the symposium runs from 18th to the 20th June, not 15th June.  And the symposium notice starts with this introduction:

The Earth is entering into a new era of Anthropocene, which faces climate change, ecosystem degradation, loss of biodiversity, and many other environmental issues. To confront this grand challenge, we bring international leading scientists from relevant field and ...

So I wonder if this 'event' is to the International Symposium as the Copenhagen Climate Challenge was to COP15 at Copenhagen.

Who knows?

According to Google Analytics, HotWhopper gets quite a few hits from the People's Republic of China.  They may be bots although I read that Google doesn't do a bad job of filtering out bots.  Anyway, perhaps a scientist from the PRC or other person who is familiar with the state of affairs there would care to comment on this.

I am aware of the stated position of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that humans are causing global warming.  The People's Republic of China is also well aware of the reality of global warming.  And I must confess that I strongly doubt that Singer or Idso or Carter will be honoured in the way that Dr Cicerone was.

Speculating...

I'm thinking that just as in the USA, there are science deniers in the PRC among the thousands of people who may claim an association with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  Or maybe Chinese scholars are bemused by the anti-science propaganda that is prevalent in the USA and to some extent in Australia and the UK.  Maybe they think they will get some insight into the conservative brain by studying the diligent efforts by the Heartland Institute to spread disinformation.  Or maybe they are interested in comparing the effectiveness, in regard to disinformation, of censorship in China with the market-based approach of the USA.

But that is merely speculating for fun.  Whatever.  One thing is for sure.  There may be two chances that Heartland Institute will succeed in its mission - Buckley's and none, and of these I favour the latter.  An NICPP report by a couple of climate science deniers in whatever language won't be enough to stop the world from heating up.

Update

I've located the documented as translated into Chinese here but it's on the Heartland Institute website (as with all my links to anti-science websites, I've made the link with a 'no follow' tag).  I wasn't able to find the document elsewhere, possibly because I can't read Chinese or maybe it hasn't been loaded to the web in China.

Here is the website of the organisation that did the translation, the China Information Center for Global Change Studies.  I think some WUWT-ers in particular will be tickled pink by this image on the home page:

From the Translators' Preface (my bold):

The work of these translators, organizations and funders has been in the translation and the promotion of scientific dialogue, does not reflect that they agree with the views of NIPCC.

It's not often you read a disclaimer quite as blatantly obvious as that one.  Chinese people are known for being both polite and inscrutable.  To my mind that's an inaccurate stereotype.  In my experience (lecturing to visiting delegations of officials from the People's Republic of China), these days Chinese people are refreshingly no more shy about saying exactly what they think than an undiplomatic HotWhopper blogger.

More here from bigcitylib.  CAS has distanced itself from the work as I'd have expected. 

(h/t to anonymous in the comments for prompting me to look further.)