Pressure of Truth
Exposing the spin on all sides of the news.
Outlet profile

ClimateRealism

U.S. right / climate-skeptic

Owned byThe Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit think tank; no outside corporate parent
FundingPrimarily individual donations (~75% of 2024 revenue), with foundation grants (~14%) and corporate contributions (~1%); historically received money from ExxonMobil, Koch-affiliated foundations, the Mercer Family Foundation, and anonymous donors routed through DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund; does not publicly disclose specific donor names
On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

The Heartland Institute was founded in 1984 by Chicago investor David H. Padden as a free-market policy organization. Through the 1990s it worked with Philip Morris to dispute secondhand-smoke research, a strategy it later applied to climate science. By the 2000s Heartland had become a leading promoter of climate skepticism, launching a series of International Conferences on Climate Change beginning in 2008. A 2012 internal-document leak exposed plans for a climate disinformation campaign aimed at teachers, which caused several corporate donors—including the General Motors Foundation—to withdraw. The Heartland Institute launched ClimateRealism.com in March 2020 as a daily platform for rebutting what it calls climate-alarmist media coverage; the site is managed by H. Sterling Burnett, director of Heartland's Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy. Historically funded by ExxonMobil, Koch-linked foundations, and large anonymous donations through donor-advised funds, Heartland stopped disclosing individual funders to prevent critics from claiming it was 'paid' to take positions. By the mid-2020s Heartland's own president said the group had shifted focus from casting doubt on climate science to advancing skeptic-friendly policy during the second Trump administration, a posture ClimateRealism.com's coverage clearly reflects.

Sources

  1. Heartland Institute - Wikipedia
  2. PRESS RELEASE: Heartland Institute Launches ClimateRealism.com
  3. Heartland Institute Funding Page
  4. Climate Realism - Bias and Credibility - Media Bias/Fact Check
  5. Heartland Launches Website of Contrarian Climate Science - Inside Climate News
  6. Heartland Institute - DeSmog
  7. The Heartland Institute – Climate Investigations Center
  8. Trump's Withdrawal from Collapsing Climate Narrative - ClimateRealism
  9. In Shift, Key Climate Denialist Group Heartland Institute Pivots to Policy - PBS Frontline
  10. Heartland Institute - InfluenceWatch

Profile compiled 2026-07-16; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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