Heartland Institute Launches Interactive News Site

CHICAGO-PHOENIX (Jan. 29, 2010)—The Heartland Institute today launched an interactive Web site providing news, information and analysis of developments in environmental affairs and climate change.

The site—http://environmentandclimate-news.org—makes its debut on the eve of the annual Energy & Environment Conference in Phoenix, Feb. 1-3, featuring 650 technical presentations, 2,000 delegates and 200 exhibitors, billed as the nation’s largest energy conference.

The Heartland suite will be the source for onsite reporting through video, audio and text by James Taylor, senior fellow for environment issues and managing editor of Environment & Climate News, Heartland’s monthly online and print public-policy newspaper. Also on site will be Jim Lakely, co-director of the Center on the Digital Economy at The Heartland Institute.

After the conference, Environmentandclimate-news.org will provide sophisticated coverage of science and economic developments related to the environment and climate. Backed by a reporting team that includes scientists, economists and experienced environmental journalists, environmentandclimate-news.org will report on the flow of information that has turned the debate over climate change and environmental degradation into one of the most contentious policy issues of the day.

Said Taylor: “During and after the conference, the Environment & Climate News Web site will be a must-visit-daily source for breaking energy, environment, and climate news that tells it like it is. We will cover the full breadth of environment-related issues—in real time—without the big-government, environmental-alarmist bias common among the dinosaur media.”

Taylor has presented environmental analysis on the major television and radio networks throughout the world, and his articles have appeared in virtually every major newspaper in the country. He has been in the vanguard of skeptics challenging the doomsday predictions of destruction from global warming.

While at the Energy & Environment Conference, Taylor and Lakely will talk to presenters, visit exhibitors, and report on the evidence regarding the program’s main themes: energy independence for America, the Copenhagen climate conference, and corporate climate-change strategies.

Readers will find coverage of the conference and:

*    Continual updates via Twitter and site postings on the panel discussions, keynote speeches, and products.

*     Podcast interviews with newsmakers and policymaking officials.

*    Breaking news stories presented in text and video.

*    A daily environment and climate poll.

“When the conference ends on Wednesday,” said Taylor, “environmentandclimate-news.org will swing to 24/7 coverage of related issues through daily reporting by environmentandclimate-news writers and RSS feeds from leading online news sources and informed readers.”

Regular coverage will include:

*     Opinion and analysis from leading scientists, economists and thinkers in the environment and climate debate who are dedicated to sound science and free-market principles.
*    Access to Heartland’s PolicyBot online research archive of thousands of articles and publications focused on sound science and free market analysis of issues such as global warming, air pollution, cap-and-trade, carbon sequestration and government agencies.

Environmentandclimate-news.org is a project of The Heartland Institute, a 26-year-old free-market think tank based in Chicago and focused on ideas that empower people to solve social and economic problems by expanding consumer choices in areas such as the environment, health care, budget and tax issues, school reform, and information technology and telecommunications.

For more information, visit www.heartland.org or contact Dan Miller, dmiller@heartland.org, or Tammy Nash, tnash@heartland.org. James Taylor can be contacted at jtaylor@heartland.org, and Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org.