Nationality American Occupation Nonprofit executive | Name Joseph Bast | |
Born January 22, 1958 Kimberly, Wisconsin Books Eco‑sanity: A Common, Why we spend too much on, Education and Capitalis, Education and Capitalis, Scientific Consensus on Global Similar People Roy Spencer, Herbert J Walberg, Hans von Storch | ||
The Hard Line | Joseph Bast discusses the new book, "Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming"
Joseph Lee Bast is an American nonprofit executive. He is the co-founder, president and CEO of the Heartland Institute, a conservative and libertarian public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois.
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Biography
Bast was born on January 22, 1958 in Kimberly, Wisconsin where he attended a Catholic elementary school. He studied economics at the University of Chicago but left before receiving a degree in order to devote more time to the Heartland Institute, which had become "a 60-hour-a-week obsession." Bast married Diane Bast, who grew up with him in Kimberly.
In 1984, Bast co-founded the libertarian think tank the Heartland Institute. He began the role of president and CEO in 1994. "Personally, I'm a fallen-away libertarian. I place a high value on individual freedom and I tend to look at most issues from that perspective. But I'm not sure it is the only way anymore," Bast told the Chicago Tribune in 1995.
Bast was one of the editors of the NIPCC 2011 interim report "Climate Change Reconsidered." He was also involved in the creation of the State Policy Network, and has written several books, some of which challenge mainstream claims about cigarette smoking. In 2014, he co-authored an article entitled "The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'" in the Wall Street Journal along with Roy Spencer which argued that the oft-cited claim that "97% of the world's scientists believe climate change is an urgent problem" is misleading because the figure is derived from surveys with small sample sizes, and the questionnaire conflates belief in negligible global warming with belief in dangerous global warming. A 2011 article in Nature criticized his position on global warming and second-hand smoke.
Bast was a member of the board of directors of Shimer College, a Great Books and liberal arts college in Chicago.
The Heartland Institute
As president of the Heartland Institute, Bast manages the Institute's finances, helps organize and introduce its annual conference on climate change, and sets its research and communications agenda. Bast is a regular speaker at the Heartland Institute's annual conference on climate change.
Bast and his wife Diane publish six monthly public policy newspapers that are distributed to elected officials on issues such as school reform, climate, and healthcare.
Bast told Bloomberg News that the Heartland Institute does not deny climate change, but they are skeptical of the scientific consensus that man-made global warming is a significant danger to the planet. The Heartland Institute also believes that many of the policies to fight global warming would be damaging to the economy. According to Nature, Bast does not necessarily deny that humans are having an influence on the climate, but he does question the forecasts of catastrophic impacts and the rationale for curbing carbon emissions. Bast argues that the costs of trying to prevent global warming exceed the benefits.
In a Wall Street Journal interview, Bast said that he believes the climate has warmed in the second half of the 20th Century and there is likely a measurable human impact on climate. He believes the human impact on global warming is likely very small and that minimal warming is not a crisis.
According to Bloomberg News, Bast's skepticism of the dangers posed by global warming have made him "a favorite bogeyman of environmentalists." In 2012, Bast signed off on a widely-criticized ad campaign that compared global warming believers to the Unabomber. The billboard angered environmentalists and some of the group's supporters.