How Climate Change Denialists Attempted To Block Pope's Encyclical On Climate Change

Conservatives within, and outside of the church, were defeated in their efforts to influence the Pope's encyclical on climate change.  This article describes some of the efforts made by conservatives.  None were more active than the Heartland Institute which is a free market "think tank" based in Chicago.  Heartland has a long history of supporting ultra conservative causes.  It supports efforts to privatize almost everything, including public education,  and it defended the tobacco industry's efforts to deny that smoking was a cause of cancer despite evidence which showed the lung cancer was almost non-existent prior to the dramatic rise in cigarette consumption following  the first world war.  Cigarettes were distributed without charge to soldiers because they had a "calming effect" in the battlefield.