JonJ,
there is no new information in your update, only your opinions. Other readers may wish to compare your allegations to the NYT story listed above, as well as Peter Gleick's statement about the affair, which he published in the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/-the-origin-of-the-heartl_b_1289669.html

He says, in part,

"At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute's climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute's apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it.

"I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document [about climate program strategy]. In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else's name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget. I forwarded, anonymously, the documents I had received to a set of journalists and experts working on climate issues. I can explicitly confirm, as can the Heartland Institute, that the documents they emailed to me are identical to the documents that have been made public. I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication."

JonJ, I find no evidence that the documents were stolen, as you claim,but readers are free to form their own opinions, and/or allege what they may.

Curmudgeon,
have you listed your infinite fossil fuel resources, yet? How many of them are non-polluting?

Local fallout from the Heartlands doco leak:

"Peter Gleick, a widely published US scientist and water researcher, said he emailed a staff member at the institute pretending to be someone else and was sent a set of eight documents that included the names of hundreds of companies that had donated to the institute, details of the group's strategies and a list of payments to bloggers and scientists, including an Australian, James Cook University adjunct professor Bob Carter."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/scientist-admits-ruse-that-exposed-institutes-climatechange-agenda-20120221-1tlv1.html#ixzz1n4GmvPUA

I am wondering just what Bob Carter was paid for doing. Anybody know?

Curmudgeon you just don’t get it do you? If we have 250 years left of coal reserves and we turn to coal to replace oil, increasing our use by just 2% a year, a very modest rate of growth considering the huge amount needed to replace oil, then reserves would only last 85 years. If we liquefy it, it would only last 50 years, because it takes a lot of energy to do that.

Today, as conventional fossil fuels rapidly deplete, world energy flows appear set to decline. While there are enormous amounts of unconventional fossil fuels yet to be exploited, these will be so costly to extract, in monetary, energy, and environmental terms, that continued growth in available fossil energy supplies is unlikely, meanwhile alternative energy sources remain largely undeveloped and will require extraordinary levels of investment if they are to make up for declines in fossil energy.

Declining rates of energy flow and declining energy quality will have predictable direct effects, higher energy prices, the need for increased energy efficiency in all sectors of society, and the need for the direction of an ever-greater proportion of increasingly scarce investment capital toward the energy sector.

Meanwhile, despite much talk about the potential for low-grade alternative fossil fuels such as tar sands and shale oil, world energy supplies are in essentially the same straits as they were at the start of the 2008 financial crisis (which, it is important to recall, was partly triggered by a historic oil price spike). Without increasing and affordable energy flows a genuine economic recovery (meaning a return to growth in manufacturing and trade) is not possible. Thus financial pump priming will yield diminishing returns.

Pretty simple really, this scenario applies to all other energy resources, once you understand this simple fact you can then comment with some authority rather than spruik your own misguided mantra.

So, what does the future hold for those great-grandchildren and future generations?

That is, given that the world does survive reasonably intact after peak oil - and the current period of concerns of a potential nuclear winter arising from the present convoluted middle-east tug-of-war. My what a tangled web - as narrow self-interest reigns supreme - you would think we were different species in an interminable survival struggle. (God sure looks like losing His bet with the Devil.)

I'm thankful to be living in Aus, and far from the madding crowd - but we are far from immune. (And, to those who think oil is inexaustible - phooey.) Can't you see a time when air travel will be restricted to the elite? When sea travel will have to be by burning coal again, and hellishly expensive, (or wind power?), until all ships are nuclear-powered? Good luck to the small fisherman and the recreational sea-farer who can't handle a sail-boat! (Or can't row like the dickens?) And, how are they going to keep all that seafood fresh? Solar-electric, or ice?

I don't see anyone investing in enriched charcoal, or the new, improved Stanley Steamer 'with charcoal burner on the side'. So, we'd either better hope that global warming is indeed a myth, or start getting with solar energy in one hell of a hurry. (Has to be better than the ol' horse and cart.)

I'm sorry for those who believe in Armageddon or in hosts of virgins, but our finite small world really only has space for enlightened, neighbourly common interest, cooperation and goodwill. If ever there was an ideal time for a great humanist philosopher, it is now.

Saltpetre, great precis, here here

Absolutely