THE SCEPTIC MEETS HIS MATCH

摘要

Joe Bast considers himself an environmentalist. He and his wife Diane used to volunteer for the Sierra Club, one of the United States' largest environmental groups. The two built a geodesic dome in the Wisconsin countryside and once entertained the idea of abandoning the city to live off the land. But today Bast is on the other side of a cultural divide, fighting former colleagues, politicians and scientists on the battlefield of global warming. As head of the Heartland Institute, a policy think tank with a free-market focus based in Chicago, Illinois, Bast has raised millions of dollars to mount a systematic attack on mainstream climate science. The organization provides fodder for politicians and conservative commentators bent on preventing government regulation of carbon emissions, and Heartlands climate conferences have become rallies for sceptics.