LOST IN TRANSLATION

Heaven is high, and the emperor far away. The ever credulous Anthony Watts reports roving Heartland Institute Ambassador S. Fred Singer, former science advisor to noted oriental potentate & Washington Times publisher Reverend Moon                                 

went to Beijing to stage the presentation  of a translation of Heartland's downmarket parody of an IPCC report to  an empty hotel room.

Heartland’s NIPCC report to be accepted by Chinese Academy of Sciences in special ceremony 

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Anthony Watts
Note: I’ve been aware of this effort being underway for sometime, and I’m happy to be able to report it today. The fact that the Chinese undertook the effort speaks volumes. – AnthonyHere is the Heartland press release from their website:The Chinese Academy of Sciences in June 2013 translated and published a Chinese edition of Climate Change Reconsidered and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, two hefty volumes containing more than 1,200 pages of peer-reviewed data on climate change originally published by The Heartland Institute in 2009 and 2011.The two books present a sweeping rebuttal of the findings of the United Nations’ controversial Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose reports were widely cited as the basis for taking action to stop or slow the advance of climate change. More recently, the IPCC has been surrounded by controversy over lapses in its quality control and editorial bias.The Chinese Academy of Sciences is the world’s largest academy of sciences, employing some 50,000 people and hosting more than 350 international conferences a year. Membership in the Academy represents the highest level of national honor for Chinese scientists.

A little Rectification of Names seems in order, because Heartland is trying to pass off this staged event as an endorsement of the bogus report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

The wheeze works like this. As a very emeritus Professor,  Singer has long preyed upon academic courtesy by asking universities to invite him to speak. Many oblige him on the strength of his 1984 thesis that the Earth captured the Moon ,  a theory that so fascinated Reverend Moon that he made Singer The Washington Times' Science Guy. This academic schmoozing led to a deal with a Chinese university press of sorts , the Lanzhou branch of the National Science Library, to translate parts of the 800 page  anthology Heartland paid Singer $100,000 to concoct.

The reality is that the Chinese Academy of Science has nothing whatever to do with this book or  Singer's staged launch party
The CAS views on climate forcing are antithetic to the report 

The Chinese Academy of Sciences is not amused. 

It has issued a formal démarche, and demanded a retraction from The Heartland Institute and its minions:

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.

[ Thanx to Eli Rabbett for transmitting the mandate of Heaven ]

To which rescript, Heartland President Joe Bast has kowtowed thus : 

"Some people interpreted our news release

 

and a blog post describing this event as

 

implying that the Chinese Academy of

 

Sciences endorses the views contained in the

 

original books. This is not the case, and we

 

apologize to those who may have been

 

confused by these news reports.

 

"   To be clear, the release of this new

 

publication does not imply CAS and any of

 

its affiliates involved with its production

 

'endorse' the skeptical views contained in the

 

report. Rather, as stated in the translator's

 

preface of the book,

 

'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.' "