When internal fundraising and strategy documents from the Heartland Institute, a conservative group skeptical of man-made climate change, were leaked online last week, global warming activists were ecstatic. That excitement ended today when a prominent climate scientist, Peter Gleick, admitted to using a fake identity to obtain donor and budget records from Heartland, supposedly in order to “confirm” an explosive internal memo on the group’s 2012 Climate Strategy, which he claims was sent to him anonymously.
Heartland has disputed the veracity of the memo, which was leaked to the press along with the other documents.
Here’s an excerpt of Gleick’s confession, which he posted in full at the Huffington Post:
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.
Gleick says he sent the documents to reporters before the story blew up last week. In a statement today, the Heartland Institute confirmed the legitimacy of the budget and fundraising documents, but maintained – as it has since the beginning – that the climate strategy memo that Gleick says was sent to him anonymously was falsified. Heartland also seemed to imply it would be taking legal action on the matter:
An additional document Gleick represented as coming from The Heartland Institute, a forged memo purporting to set out our strategies on global warming, has been extensively cited by newspapers and in news releases and articles posted on Web sites and blogs around the world. It has caused major and permanent damage to the reputations of The Heartland Institute and many of the scientists, policy experts, and organizations we work with.
A mere apology is not enough to undo the damage. …We hope Gleick will make a more complete confession in the next few days.
We are consulting with legal counsel to determine our next steps and plan to release a more complete statement about the situation tomorrow. In the meantime, we ask again that publishers, bloggers, and Web site hosts take the stolen and fraudulent documents off their sites, remove defamatory commentary based on them, and issue retractions.
Needless to say, Gleick’s confession will only fuel suspicions that the initial memo was a fake – and that the scientist may personally have been the one who fabricated it.
But even the staunchest climate change skeptics should have a hard time feeling good about the latest development. Gleick not only disgraced himself, he disgraced his profession, too – and during a time when Americans are increasingly distrustful of climate science. The good news is that Heartland caught onto Gleick’s identity fraud quickly, and may be able to repair the damage done to its image. Unfortunately, the damage that Gleick and the scientists involved in ClimateGate have done to the image of climate science may be permanent.
One other thing — as the son and brother of scientists, I must disagree with Ms. Goodman's premise that this is a sad day for science. I think it is a GREAT day for TRUE science and honest scientists because these schmucks are being exposed for what they truly are. n nI met Heartland's leadership at CPAC 2 years ago, they struck me as quiet but serious people — and if they truly pursue their legal options, you are going to see a lot of fake scientists jumping overboard like rats from a sinking ship. That will be a good thing. n nAnd as to global warming, didn't the Virginia State Police have to shut down I-95 the other day because of SNOW and related vehicular mishaps? Isn't the US Navy having to "borrow" a Russian Icebreaker to get somewhere? And Time has a lovely two-page spread of Swiss families playing on the ice of a lake that otherwise never freezes (it is really cold in Europe this year). n nNo, Virginia, that is not snow that is falling. It is "global warming" and a figment of your imagination. And no, your vehicle is not spinning out of control because that white stuff on the road is also a figment of your imagination. (Although if it were snow, when you quickly take your foot off the gas in a front wheel drive car, you need to either take the engine out of gear or *stand* on the brakes unless you want to spin.) n nThis is a wonderful day for science.
0ne other other thing — if Heartland sues, they can subponea all kinds of things. Including ALL of the email. n nRemember we only saw part of it. They can subponea ALL of it. And as much of it is public anyway (even though various folks refused to release it) the motions to quash will be tossed on the grounds that these are public documents anyway, and thus neither deserve nor are entitled to privilege. n nAnd then Heartland puts the whole mess on their website. Public documents in public domain. n nHappy Days!!!!.
Considering the degree to which the relevant issues have been politicized, the American public would be well advised to treat climate science with skepticism. All too obviously, "climate change" is being exploited by people with a progressive, anti-capitalist political agenda. The whole thing reminds me of the manufactured panic over "nuclear winter" that flared up at the very time when the Left was pushing for a US/Soviet nuclear freeze. That particular attempt to draft science into the service of progressive politics happily failed.Let's hope this one does too.
Getting documents under an assumed name pales into insignificance compared to the outright falsification of data, use of untested and unreliable algorithms, written in obscure and undocumented code – that was disclosed by the U of East Anglia eMail leaks. It pales into insignificance compared to the lies and distortions in Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" pseudo-documantary
The "global warming" craze has no scientific basis at all. The so-called experts who promoted this fraud were consciously feathering their nests with public and foundation money. This is another great day for science, as the largest and most expensive pseudo-scientific hoax ever perpetrated (setting aside the totalitarian examples, like Lysenkoism or "race science") is in its later stages of collapse. If even the current solar maximum can't warm things up in a major way, the globe is probably cooling. That seems to have been the trend since 2002 in any case.
Andy Revkin's dot earth blog at the NY Times has a number of Gleick supporters clamoring to elevate him to sainthood as a martyr to the AGW cause in the church of global warming. In the self-appointed role of devil's advocate the following comment was submitted but not posted by Mr. nRevkin. n"Mr.Gleick is an admitted thief pure and simple and yet he is an example of the so called AGW scientists mindset, the end justifies the means, destroy all who refuse to accept the gospel of AGW and reject real science as described by Nobel Prize recipient Professor Feynman in his presentation "Cargo Cult Science". Mr.Revkin's call for “rational public debate” is laughable as Al Gore and the AGW alarmists go into hiding when anyone mentions a public debate on the science of climate change, nee global warming, morphing again into sustainable development. Perhaps the resounding defeat of the global warming supporter at the Oxford Union debate a few years ago raised the alarm that in any real public debate global warming will lose and climate change will be found to be a natural occurrence that the earth has experienced in its hundreds of millions of years of existence. nThere goes all the millions of government funding of government scientists, government grants to academics, government grants to environmental groups et al."