Was the Chinese Academy of Sciences mislead by the Heartland Institute's faux "science"? A bunny might think so

Porkie Pies at Midnight

by Eli Rabett, Rabett Run, June 13,2013

And so begins a very tangled tale, which is yet developing.

The short of it is explained in a letter that a number of bloggers have received from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but starting there would be little fun.  It actually begins with a web page put up by Eli's friends at the Heartland Institute

CHICAGO (June 12, 2013) – The Chinese Academy of Sciences has 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 [hardly!] data on climate change originally published by The Heartland Institute in 2009 and 2011. . .

and

The Chinese Academy of Sciences will present the new publication at a “Ceremony of Climate Change Reconsidered and the Workshop on International Climate Change Science Viewpoints” on Saturday, June 15, in Beijing with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) . Click here to read the Academy’s press release announcing the publication of Climate Change Reconsidered.

What! ##% the Bunnies ask, the Commies and the Libertarian Corporatist Right playing together?

The news tell us that  libertarians have developed a fondness for the 中 middle kingdom.  Eli rather suspects it is a misreading of the ethos of the place where bunnies can get away with anything except being noticed or envied by the powers that be, in which case they turn into stew.

Well, the Heartland page has gone up and down and up a couple of times since then.  It now appears to be up, but just to be sure Eli has taken a copy, but the Click Here link to the CAS page is now down; however, it remains in the Google Cache where the Rabett reads:

NIPCC is what its name suggests: an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who have come together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. In 2009 and 2011, NIPCC publicized two reports named Climate Change Reconsidered, providing evidences the IPCC ignores and questioning the proposal of IPCC that climate change is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.

China information center for global change studies of CAS edited and published the Chinese version of “Climate Change Reconsidered: Report of the NPICC” to facilitate Chinese scholars’ understanding the opinions of NIPCC. The International Symposium of Global Changes is held on this occasion to enhance exchanges on the new advancements internationally and researches. A press conference will be held, with lead authors of NIPCC reports Craig D. Idso (USA), Robert M. Carter (Australia), S. Fred Singer (USA) and many other prominent scholars of the field presenting.

The Press Conference is maybe to be at a hotel in Beijing on Saturday.  Developing as they say but the first clue as to what is going on in the website is not the CAS website but the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  While somebunnies may think that the CAS is  the Royal Academy or the NAS of China, it also runs STEM graduate education in China.  Before 1978, there were no doctoral degree granting institutions in China (something to do with western imperialism) partially explaining why so many Chinese came out to the west for degrees.  UCAS is the overarching institution which runs doctoral training through Chinese universities.  Looking at the downed page, one sees a contact email which points to the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library of the CAS:

Lanzhou Branch Library mainly collects print and digital resources about earth sciences, resources and environmental sciences, chemistry & chemical industry, nuclear science and electronic technology, as well as documents and information resources on applied mathematics, biology, computer science and other general documents and information. Lanzhou Branch Library has a special collection of literatures about cold regions, arid regions, polar regions, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Loess Plateau resources and environment, natural calamities and engineering.

The CAS, of course, has a position on climate change.  It is a signatory on the Joint Academies Statement on the Global Response to Climate Change

We urge all nations, in the line with the UNFCCC principles, to take prompt action to reduce the causes of climate change, adapt to its impacts and ensure that the issue is included in all relevant national and international strategies. As national science academies, we commit to working with governments to help develop and implement the national and international response to the challenge of climate change.

and has issued a recent report on the threat of climate change to China

Global warming threatens China's march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government's latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself.

The warnings are carried in the government's "Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change," which sums up advancing scientific knowledge about the consequences and costs of global warming for China -- the world's second biggest economy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution.

So Eli imagines that the CAS was none too pleased by the NIPCC report translation and press conference.  Upon inquiry, they responded

Thank you for your attention to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The news that you saw on the website of UCAS is actually a careless mistake caused by translation and compilation.

There is indeed a book named "Climate Change Reconsidered" to be published in China by the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library,  CAS, with a book release on June 15th. However, this is only a book cooperation between the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library and Heartland Institute, and is limited only to copy right trading, with no academic research work involved.

A few CAS experts participated in the translation of the book, aiming to demonstrate different voices in the global scientific field to the Chinese science community, however, that does not mean that we CAS joined the research or agree with their view point; neither does it mean that CAS will decide "promote" the climate "skeptic" view or group.

Attached are the cover of the book and the preface by the president of Heartland and translator's preface by the curator of the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library, expressing their own viewpoint, respectively.

UCAS is formerly the Graduate University of Chinese Academy Sciences ( GUCAS) and is renamed as UCAS (http://english.ucas.ac.cn/Pages/default.aspx) in 2012 with the official approval of the Ministry Education of China. It is one of the two universities owned by the CAS, with the other one called the University of Science and Technology of China (http://en.ustc.edu.cn/),

Thank you again for your attention to the CAS and here is our website (http://english.cas.cn/) and the website of the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library (http://english.llas.cas.cn/), please stay focused on our research progress, any of your suggestions will be warmly welcomed.

If you have any questions on CAS, please do not hesitate to ask.

Mistranslation is always useful.  But, as Eli said, developing, certainly the folks in Mordor think that they have a win, but maybe not so much as they think as the heavyweights in the CAS take note.  Nails that stick out getting hammered is not only a Japanese principle.