“Climate scientist Peter Gleick has acknowledged that he was the person who convinced the Heartland Institute to hand over the contents of its January Board package, authenticating the documents beyond a doubt and further exposing the disinformation campaign Heartland has pursued in the last week, trying to discredit the information,” writes DeSmog Blog in a post titled “Whistleblower Authenticates Heartland Documents” (Feb. 20, 2012).
Gleick is indeed the culprit, but he is not a “whistleblower” because to be a candidate for that honorable title, he’d have to be a current or former employee. Gleick acknowledges that he, an outside critic of the organization, solicited and received Heartland documents under false pretenses, an action he describes as a “serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics.”
More importantly, contrary to DeSmog’s spin, Gleick does not claim to authenticate the document titled “Confidential Memo: Heartland 2012 Climate Strategy,” the only document among those stolen and published that even vaguely resembles the stuff of scandal.
Even more pathetic is the sanctimonious open letter by Michael Mann and six colleagues who suggest that Heartland merely got its comeuppance for cheering and publicizing the release of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) emails that sparked the Climategate scandal.
As noted here last week, there is good reason to believe the climate strategy memo, which purports to be a confidential communication to a “subset of Institute Board and senior staff,” is a fake.
The memo says, “We will also pursue additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. They returned as a Heartland donor in 2011 with a contribution of $200,000.” But one of the bona fide stolen board meeting documents, Heartland’s 2012 Fund Raising Plan (p. 22), shows that Koch donated $25,000 in 2011, not $200,000, and for Heartland’s health care program, not its climate science program. Heartland seeks a $200,000 donation from Koch in 2012 - for its health care program, not its climate program. In short, the alleged strategy memo gets basic information - how much Koch contributed and for which program activities - stunningly wrong. It is almost inconceivable that Heartland would have mailed to key board members and staff a document so egregiously inconsistent with the Institute’s 2012 Fund Raising Plan.
Megan McCardle of The Atlantic reported another reason to be suspicious of the strategy memo. Electronic analysis of the document indicates it was created by someone living in the Pacific time zone, unlike the other documents (aside from the IRS 1099 form), which were created in the Central time zone, where Heartland is headquartered. Just by the bye, Peter Gleick’s organization, the Pacific Institute, is located in the Pacific time zone.
Gleick says he received the strategy memo from an anonymous third party. Maybe, maybe not. In any case, contrary to DeSmog Blog’s editorializing in the guise of reporting, Gleick does not claim to have authenticated the strategy memo:
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.
Given the potential impact however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. 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 [emphasis added].
The materials Heartland sent Gleick ‘confirm many of the facts’ in the strategy memo because the memo is mostly a pastiche of phrases taken from other documents. But note, Gleick does not say that Heartland mailed him the strategy memo. He also implicitly acknowledges that not all the facts in the strategy memo are confirmed by the other documents. Indeed, as we have seen, the 2012 Fund Raising Plan conflicts with the strategy memo’s assertions regarding the amount and kind of Koch’s 2011 donation.
The only part of the strategy memo that comes even close to scandalous (unless you make the question-begging assumption - Gleick apparently does - that climate skeptics are a scandalous bunch) is the statement that “it is important to keep scientists like Gleick “out” of Forbes magazine. Spotlighting this statement, DeSmog Blog accused Heartland of hypocrisy, because the Institute had blasted CRU scientists for trying to keep skeptics out of the peer reviewed literature. But the statement in question is so silly it casts additional doubt on the strategy memo’s authenticity.
How on earth could Heartland keep opposing views out of Forbes? Is Heartland the think-tank tail that wags the financial-empire dog? The “confidential” memo implies that when Heartland President Joe Bast says “jump,” Steve Forbes says “How high?” Anyone credulous enough to believe that probably also believes global warming is a planetary emergency even though annual deaths and death rates related to extreme weather have declined by 93% and 98%, respectively, since the 1920s.
In an open letter published in the UK Guardian, seven scientists prominently identified with Climategate take a ‘people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ tone about the bogus Heartland scandal. They write:
So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.
The Climategate Seven compare apples to oranges - an old rhetorical trick that has no place in scientific discourse. Michael Mann and the CRU gang are funded by taxpayers. Consequently, their data, methodologies, and work-related email are subject to freedom of information laws. The Heartland Institute is a privately-funded organization. Consequently, its internal decision and planning documents are not subject to FOIA.
As we know from the Climategate emails, Phil Jones and CRU scientists stonewalled FOIA requests for years to prevent independent researchers from checking their data and methodologies. That was a bona fide scandal, not only because such conduct is prima facie illegal, but also because scientists who deny independent researchers the opportunity to reproduce (invalidate) their results attack the very heart of the scientific enterprise.
Leaking the CRU emails - for all we know the work of a genuine whistle blower - was the only way to (a) produce documents responsive to valid FOIA requests, (b) expose CRU’s willful evasion of FOIA, and (c) subject CRU research products to the indispensable test of reproducibility.
There is no analogy between Climategate and the theft of the Heartland documents because (1) Heartland has no legal obligation to share its internal deliberations with the public, and (2) unlike collusion to evade FOIA, strategizing about how to raise money is not a violation of either law or professional ethics.
Update: Steven Mosher speculates, based on textual analysis, that Gleick wrote the fake strategy memo he claims was sent to him by an anonymous source. See Mosher’s comment #89946 on The Blackboard and related threads at ClimateAudit.Org: comment #342939, comment #324959, and comment #325062.
Theft, deceit and outright lies: How ugly can climate science get?
Prominent climate scientist Peter H. Gleick relied on deceit and subterfuge to solicit a cache of sensitive internal documents from the conservative think tank The Heartland Institute before leaking them to the press—a fresh scandal that further darkens the highly charged debate on planetary climate change.
Gleick—an internationally recognized hydroclimatologist and author of the respected annual report “The World’s Water”—said he received an anonymous document in the mail that tipped him off to what he described as Heartland’s efforts to muddy public understanding of climate science and policy. He released the documents to expose their efforts “to cast doubt on climate science.”
In his blog on the Huffington Post, Gleick publicly confessed to deceitful tactics that he described as a serious ethical slip.
My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts ... to attack climate science and scientists.
- Peter H. Gleick
“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,” Gleick wrote. “My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate … nevertheless I deeply regret my own actions in this case.”
Following his admission, Gleick’s resignation was accepted by the National Center for Science Education. Gleick declined to provide any additional information when contacted by FoxNews.com.
Heartland Institute president Joseph L. Bast blasted Gleick’s confession and actions, which he said put lives at risk and violated individual privacies.
“Gleick’s crime was a serious one. The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety,” Bast wrote in a statement posted Monday night to the group’s website.
The documents consist of climate policy statements, fundraising documents, board meeting notifications and even tax filings—as well as a memo titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy.” That memo, apparently the anonymous document that inspired Gleick to take action, describes plans to create an anti-global warming science campaign for grade schools that will “dissuad[e] teachers from teaching science.”
The Heartland Institute calls it a forgery—and Bast says he believes Gleick may have written it.
“Gleick also claims he did not write the forged memo, but only stole the documents to confirm the content of the memo he received from an anonymous source,” Bast said. “This too is unbelievable. Many independent commentators already have concluded the memo was most likely written by Gleick.”
“We hope Gleick will make a more complete confession in the next few days,” Bast wrote.
Heartland said it is seeking legal counsel before pursuing any action and plans to declare its intentions on Tuesday.
The subterfuge echoes the November 2009 “climate-gate” theft of thousands of emails from the climate science department of the University of East Anglia, a scandal that revealed scientists colluding to hide information and blacklisting each other from various journals.
That theft gave climate science a bad name—and Steve McIntyre, well-known author of the blog Climate Audit, said that this latest incident will continue to damage this field of science.
“No one should feel any satisfaction in these events, which have been highly damaging to everyone touched by them, including both Heartland and Gleick,” he wrote.
Marc Morano, publisher of the popular Climate Depot blog, told FoxNews.com that Gleick’s revelation of his activities could ruin his career.
“Climate activists have been frustrated for years at their inability to convince the public and Washington to ‘solve’ global warming. So Gleick took it upon himself to reverse this trend,” Morano said.
“He instead did massive harm to the cause he holds so dear.”
Forget about the science of man-caused global warming for just a bit (it’s settled anyway). Skeptic scientists are corrupt. Don’t listen to them. Oh, for you reporters out there, no need to listen to them since they are corrupt, and the science is settled. Plus, dumber reporters already gave them too much equal time in the name of “journalistic balance”, a concept only applicable to situations where reasonable questions exist.
One more critical detail: Do not, under any circumstances, question anything in the prior paragraph. Nothing to see, move along, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
And there you have it, all of the books, movies, articles, and blogs pushing the idea of man-caused global warming are just extreme overkill on those three basic talking points: settled science / corrupt skeptics / media telling us only one side of the issue because there is no other legitimate side.
There is not one thing new about DeSmogBlog’s attack on the Heartland Institute; in fact, elements of it go all the way back to at least 1992, and one person has been involved in this throughout that entire stretch of time: anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan.
Gelbspan has been the star blogger at DeSmogBlog for all but the first three months of its existence. Joe Romm over at ThinkProgress had this to say about him in his 2008, Kudos to DeSmogBlog, “Ross Gelbspan, whose defining books Boiling Point and The Heat is On were a big part of the inspiration for starting the DeSmogBlog….”
As I pointed out right here at JunkScience in December, Gelbspan’s accusation about skeptic climate scientists being no different from ‘shill experts’ working for big tobacco is based entirely on a leaked coal industry memo that is not only out-of-context, it was a rejected proposal for a PR campaign, was never actually implemented, and it most certainly was not any kind of top-down industry directive that he, Al Gore and so many others claim it is. I also pointed out there and earlier at ClimateDepot how Gore says Gelbspan discovered the memo, yet Gore had the memo collection in his Senate office years before Gelbspan first mentioned them.
This particular problem becomes all the more worthy of deeper investigation when anyone takes a look at one of Gelbspan’s last articles at the Boston Globe, May 31, 1992. His “To some, global warming may be only hot air” sidebar (h/t to Brenton Groves for his complete article PDF scan, complete original available for online purchase here) hints at questionable motives of skeptics, and he concludes with quotes from Stephen Schneider and Al Gore, respectively:
It is journalistically irresponsible to present both sides as if it were a question of balance. Given the distribution of views, with groups like the National Academy of Science expressing strong scientific concern, it is irresponsible to give equal time to a few people standing out in left field.
T]he overall weight of evidence” of global warming “is so clear that one begins to feel angry toward those who exaggerate the uncertainty.
Fascinating. There’s the first and third talking points. All they needed was some reason to say ‘skeptics are corrupt’. Also interesting to see how Gelbspan prominently features Fred Singer in that sidebar, who just happened to be embroiled in a libel suit at the same time concerning a situation that Gore was not the least bit pleased about. You see, Gore didn’t like the appearance of his mentor Roger Revelle changing his mind and co-authoring an article with Fred Singer, so that action had to be stopped at all costs. Dr Singer won the lawsuit.
And so it goes to this day, anybody who has the audacity to question the idea of man-caused global warming must be marginalized in the eyes of the public by any means possible. Perhaps it’s time for the victims of this endless smear to put aside the science for a while, and take a (legal action) ax to their accusers.
Suppose it turns out that CO2 has essentially nothing to do with the earth’s climate. How will the history of this colossal mistake be written?
Mike Stopa has a provocative pair of posts on his blog.
Mike Stopa is a physicist specializing in computation and nanoscience in the Physics Department at Harvard University. His homepage at Harvard can be found here. Mike is a life-long, fiscally conservative Republican. In 2010, he was a first-time candidate for Congress in Massachusetts.
From his post What if they are wrong?
Because the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) depends on a feedback mechanism between increase in CO2 and an increase in atmospheric water - a mechanism about which there is considerable, scientifically justified doubt - it is possible that CO2 has effectively no influence on global climate.
In an interesting admission the (British) Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit have now admitted that the climate has ceased rising for the last 15 years.
Here I ask this. Suppose it turns out that CO2 has essentially nothing to do with the earth’s climate. How will the history of this colossal mistake be written?
They will say that a mechanism called the “greenhouse effect,” was postulated long ago (~1824 by Joseph Fourier) and gained adherents in the late 20th century. They will say that the theory was seemingly invalidated by the decrease in global temperatures from 1940-1975, but that the adherents patched this up by explaining the cooling with pollution, specifically sulfur, from industry
They will say that the theory was challenged by the noted vast gap between the amount of CO2 produced by civilization and the substantially smaller increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, but that the theory was patched up by examining the increased CO2 uptake by the hydrosphere and the biosphere.
They will say the theory was seemingly invalidated by the evidence that the atmosphere was already nearly opaque in the wavelengths that are absorbed by CO2 and so the additional CO2 could have, on its own, little effect, but that the theory was patched up by positing a feedback mechanism between the small temperature increases directly due to CO2 and the production of water vapor which is the main greenhouse gas.
They will note that the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) proceeded much like any scientific theory (cf. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) in that it was modified and patched up and adjusted to fit empirical challenges until it finally collapsed altogether under the weight of incontrovertible evidence. But, the scientific historians will have a new phenomenon to consider, and that is the social and political context of this particular scientific theory.
Kuhn describes very well the build-up of evidence that ultimately leads to the over-turning of accepted orthodoxy within the scientific community, of some particular theory. But AGW is intrinsically wrapped up with political ideology and, increasingly, with economics and government (cf. “Solyndra").
Scientific revolutions are difficult and traumatic enough without the added inertia of government sponsorship. To put it more bluntly, scientists have difficulty enough admitting that they have egg on their faces. Throw in the Solyndras of the world and the United Nations and the entire anti-capitalist Global Left and the backing out of this theory will be nothing short of a fiasco.
Well, the truth of this issue should be apparent within about 15 years…
From his follow on post Global warming hysteria:
The main issue I am raising is not that the scientists who are at the front line of this research are blind or bellicose – not that they are unscrupulous or fraudulent. Most of the scientists working in the field are not trying to push an ideological position but are genuinely trying to get at the truth. If they can be accused of any moral failing, it is simply the tendencey to go with the flow when it comes to writing grant proposals and alluding to the possibility of global warming as a justification for supporting their research. Nothing horrible about that.
That does not say that there are not a few at the top and at the edges who are true believers - who think that behaving as deceivers is ethically the right thing to do given the gravity of the threat (that they perceive) and the ignorance of the masses to that threat (as they perceive).
Sound science will, unimpeded by the hysterics, lead to sensible public policy. It is my belief that the final conclusion will be that CO2 produced by humanity will be found to be of only minor importance for global climate and that it will be heavily outweighed by exchange of heat with oceans of evolving temperature and other factors such as solar-determined cloud formation. But I am open to evidence and, alas, a lot of global warming hysterics in the scientific community (and especially in the non-scientific, political community) have their ears stopped with gobs of wax.
In conclusion, global warming is an unchallengeable “consensus” only among those who deeply yearn to save the planet. The conviction of those politicians and activists and (few) scientists that debate is destructive is itself destructive. It arises from the dungeons and dragons psychodrama going on in the minds of those deluded saints - where they embody themselves as the White Wizards and the skeptics as the Morlocks.
The appropriate role for conservatives is to oppose the bias of hysteria and the “cautionary principle;” to demand every essential cost-benefit analysis and, understanding the daydreams of the holy, to insist that progress comes by first placing our feet upon the ground.
JC comments: I tagged this under ‘scientific method’, since what intrigued me particularly was the impact of the social and political context on the scientific process. Scientific revolutions are difficult enough without the added inertia of government funding and social and political factors that are reinforcing the consensus.
So, is a scientific revolution underway and/or needed for climate change? I don’t know, it is certainly possible that the existing paradigm can be embellished as our understanding of the complex climate system increases. However, as scientists, we need to acknowledge that the consensus needs to be continually challenged, and not dismiss anyone who challenges the consensus as ‘deniers.’ I think Stopa is about right when he says: Well, the truth of this issue should be apparent within about 15 years
Dr Richard Feynman of Cornell - segment of his class on the scientific method
The entire Heartland document episode has become far more interesting than a typical tale of an advocacy group paying off shills now that it seems clear that one of the documents that was leaked was in fact a fake. Megan McArdle at The Atlantic does a heroic job examining the documents (something that apparently most reporters failed to do) and concludes that it is fake (I agree):
The memo doesn’t add new facts, just new spin. Naturally, because the spin is more lurid, it’s what a lot of the climate blogs seized on.
If the faked document happened to be produced by a climate activist or scientist (as some are already suggesting), then the leaked Heartland documents will go down in history as one of the more spectacular own goals in the history of the climate debate (with the consequences proportional to the stature of the faker). The faking is likely to overshadow whatever legitimate questions may have been raised by the release of the documents. Imagine what would have happened if the UEA hacker/leaker had made up a few emails to spice up the dossier.
More generally, the episode already illustrates much of what has become of the activist wing of the climate science community—Apparently, reality is not good enough, so it must be sexed up. This sort of thing feeds into the worst imaginings of skeptics and blinds them to the fact that there are real issues here despite the frequent over-egging of the pudding.
It will be interesting to see how this develops as it appears that the faker left plenty enough fingerprints to be revealed in due course. The collateral damage is likely to be significant among the media and the overeager blogosphere. Stay tuned.
Posted by Roger Pielke, Jr. at 2/16/2012 09:22:00 PM
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Meanwhile, over at The American Spectator, Ross Kaminsky has this:
Theft and Apparent Forgery of Heartland Institute Documents
The Heartland Institute is in contact with law enforcement officials, which may have the perpetrator feeling a little nervous.
One obvious suspect in the Heartland document theft -and this is just my speculation - is Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security and a true enemy of the Heartland Institute. Gleick is a committed alarmist rent-seeker who seems quite bitter that he shares Forbes magazine’s pages with Heartland’s James Taylor.
The document which the alarmists have been trying to make the most of is called ‘Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy.’ It appears to be of a similar nature to the forged “Rathergate” documents which ended Dan Rather’s long career promoting leftist views disguised as news.
First, the Heartland document is written in a way which makes it appear unlikely to be genuine. As a commenter on a Forbes.com article about this mini-scandal notes, “It uses the term ‘anti-climate’ to refer to Heartland’s own position - a derogatory term which climate skeptic outfits never use to describe their positions (and...) it is written in the first person, yet there’s no indication of who wrote it. (Have you ever seen a memo like that?)”
Interestingly, Gleick, who would normally be preening and prancing in glee at this sort of attention to the Heartland Institute has so far been utterly silent at his Forbes blog and on his Twitter feed.
