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Heartland Institute Document Leaker Comes Forward, Maintains Documents Are Real
The Bad Astronomer writes "Last week, an anonymous source leaked several internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a non-profit think tank known for anti-global-warming rhetoric. The leaker has come forward: Peter Gleick, scientist and journalist. In his admission, he cites his own breach of ethics, but also maintains that all the documents are real. This includes the potentially embarrassing '2012 Climate Strategy' document stating that Heartland wants to 'dissuade teachers from teaching science.' Heartland still claims this document is a forgery, but there is no solid evidence either way."
Who has MORE reason to lie about this?
Oh yeah, these are the guys that told you cigarettes were healthy, and that there was no reliable evidence that they harmed people. The world is full of shills and whores who will lie to your face if the price is right. Why should this be a surprise. These guys have a track record. The only thing controversial here is that these reprobates are telling a significant amount of the population exactly what they want to hear. I know its hard, double rough for some, when the lies they tell sound so sweet (consistent with your belief systems...), get over it. These people are not your friends and if China should hire them tomorrow, they'll give you 20 good reasons why eating lead is great for you.
Wake up, that smell is your ass on fire, and these clowns are holding the matches.
Have to applaud the whistleblower for having the courage to do this. Heartland is clearly a tool, not just for deniers, but for industry which would profit from a (further) dumbed-down populace. Where is the outrage, probably due to the present level of dumbing-down, there isn't very much. Bread and circuses.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Here is one article written about it (by someone who believes in AGW)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/
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It is very likely faked. It was not gotten through the same channel as the other documents and there are many inconsistencies which make it of doubtful authenticity including metadata: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/notes-on-the-fake-heartland-document/ That said, it serves Heartland right after the fuss they made over Climategate.
He should be fired, and possibly prosecuted if any crimes were committed.
Yeah. Put him in jail with this Assange guy! What do I say. Burn'em!!!
This was a really stupid thing for Dr. Gleick to do because it diminishes his cause substantially. For example, he was the lead author of the recent Science paper that everyone was making a big stink about having so many National Academy members on. I'm no (anthropogenic or not)-climate change denier, but this is bad. On a similar note, he also wrote this Forbes piece that mysteriously did not mention he was the lead author of the Science paper.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Some pretty interesting and pretty detailed analysis of the memo here.
I'm inclined to say the memo is probably fake given all the weirdness surrounding it, and given who the "leaker" is.
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.
It appears the rest are documents that he knows are official that he acquired deceptively in order to verify the anonymous document. My own personal hunch, as I first noted when this broke, is that '2012 Climate Strategy' is a cheap fake thrown in with real documents. There is probably no way to verify this one way or the other but I don't think this summary or Phil Plait's blog posting adequately explain what Gleick did exactly. Here is one thing that is going for the validity of '2012 Climate Strategy' and that is if Gleick did not alter it then some of the sums and investments roughly match up with the budget document -- which caused Gleick to believe it is completely authentic. However, fiscal knowledge of the Heartland Institute might be more public than people think ...
My work here is dung.
Next news story will involve a suspicious deadly accident involving the leaker.
More likely - the Right will claim Peter Gleick is a party to Obama's Socialist Plot (whatever that is.)
Isn't that enough? You know that's it's OBAAAAMAAAAAAAAA (insert waving "spooky hands" gestures here)! Oooooooooo! And it's SOCIALIIIIIIIIST! And a PLOOOOOOOOOT! Scaaaaaaary!
So in conclusion, that's why we need more military funding. What are you, some kinda KENYAN COMMIE?!? HUH? HUH?
Why should he be fired if as you say possibly no crimes were committed, and what did he do that was unethical?
The primary problem seems to be:
"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."
If he was a tech journalist reporting some babble about apple or samsung or the mighty GOOG or whoever, he'd have run the story without even bothering to verify and that would be considered "just show business as usual".
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I hope Heartland go completely apeshit and try and sue him. Then they'll get destroyed in discovery.
Oh for.... TGS itself said "he cites his own breach of ethics". Sounds to me like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
I think he did the right thing. It would be even more unethical to let the bastards keep lying.
Free Martian Whores!
Oh yeah, these are the guys that told you cigarettes were healthy, and that there was no reliable evidence that they harmed people.
Not really, they worked with Phillip Morris to spread material on the effects of secondhand smoke, which was questionable at the time they did so (they had long since stopped doing this before actual studies confirmed the effects). Every think tank ofcourse helps it's sponsors ...
You need to keep history of something in mind. There's a history to every idea, as hard as that is to see. Until 1954, the official medical opinion on smoking itself was that it was healthy as well (there were suspicions from 1912 onwards). Even today I heard someone claim that smoking pot does not have worse health effects than tobacco smoke (think about it : no filters on the sigarettes -> you're actually inhaling burning leaves directly into your lungs which will never again come out. Healthy ? Of course not)
This is still happening to other products too. E.g. soda is supposedly healthy (esp. soda with "added vitamin C" or some such. It's not healthy at all). And sugar-free soda is worse, again something often denied. Or another popular one, that TL lights are healthy and generally good, especially CFL bulbs. We all know you get headaches from them, they can induce epileptic seizures, and research confirms long-term health effects. But they're "better for the environment". I guess environment doesn't include people.
You appear to have answered your own question. Misrepresenting yourself as a specific person that you are not is generally not considered good journalistic ethics. It's okay not to tell them who you are, or not to tell them you're a reporter.
Depending on state law, it might even be a crime. I doubt that, though, since I can't imagine Gleick is dumb enough to make a confession without at least checking with a lawyer first.
Exactly, the truth needs to be made public. If these assholes are lying, then using false pretenses to get information out of them is perfectly fine. You think investigative reporters go around telling the targets of their investigation honestly who they are and what their profession is? Of course not, they'd never get any damning information if they did.
The fossil fuel industry and many of the issues that the Right in this country are harping on have an interesting pattern.
They take an issue that could be potentially dangerous to their profits and turn it into an emotional issue - in this case Global Warming - and when it becomes an emotional issue, all reason is thrown out the door and rational discourse becomes impossible.
Global Warming was discovered decades ago. The fossil fuel companies started to become threatened by it. So we go from scientists have data about global warming and what we could possibly do about it to scientists have a Liberal Agenda to destroy capitalism and our Way of Life.
I have a neighbor and in-laws who live on a steady diet of Fox News and Talk Radio; such as Hannity, and if Global Warming comes up, they say words like "hoax", "socialist", "cause higher taxes", "destroying America", "predictions based upon inaccurate computer models", etc .... in very angry tones.
They're thinking emotionally. The anti-global warming crowd did a very good in turning this into a personal emotional issue.
They do this with other issues. Turn an issue from a purely academic one into dumbed down emotional rhetoric, and you got the other guys by the balls.
That's where the climate scientists got screwed. The fossil fuel industry got their PR people on it and then the right wing talking heads grabbed onto it, and now we have this mess of an issue that I for one have given up complete hope that anything can be done now.
tl;dr: industry is great at turning a scientific issue into an emotional one - an "us" vs. "them" issue and neutering the opposition.
No experience?
Went to Harvard law school, edited the Harvard Law Review, Lecturer at Columbia, gave up a potentially lucrative career to help poor people as a community organizer. Bestselling author. Elected to the US senate.
Granted he had limited executive experience, but only one of the 8 candidates in that primary had executive experience (Bill Richardson, former governor). All the others were from the senate or house.
Been there, done this.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Harvard graduated 8 American presidents. It's a great school, and you'll have to do a lot better than "So what?" to dismiss its pedigree. Same goes for his U of Chicago position; lecturer is the same thing as professor except without a tenure track. He taught law at one of top five programs in the country while at the same time working as a full-time community activist and pursuing public office. "So what?" That's a prestigious, demanding, and exemplary career in academia and public service that is exactly what we should expect from our politicians.
He came out of Chicago as a local celebrity, was funded by record levels of individual personal donations after he gave a major DNC speech in 2004, and he talks eloquently and movingly in everyone's opinion but those who've decided not to listen.
What's hypocritical in advocating for education but not showing his own records? Is he also a hypocrite for favoring auto bailouts but not owning a vehicle? Absurd.
1. The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
Hansen, Jones, et. al.
2. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
Read the latest textbooks? AGW is taught as a FACT, pages and pages. Have to indoctrinate early ya know.
3. The group is preoccupied with making money.
Government Grants. Although I have to say that these guys are more narcissists that money grubbers.
4. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
Editors losing jobs, those expressing legitimate doubts ostracized, etc.
5. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
Nothing here.
6. The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
Related to #4. JOnes and friends want to be the only peer reviewers. So no dissent every really sees the light of day in the journals.
7. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
YOOOU aren't a Climate Scientist so nothing you say matters...Nobel Prize Winner in Physics? No matter because Yooou aren't a Climate Scientist
8. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
Juden, Denier, etc. What will I have to sew onto my shirt?
9. The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
Hiding data, ignoring legal requests for data, etc. No Problem as long as you are on the "Right" side of the debate.
10. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities)
And here was have Peter Gleick. "I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. 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, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved."
11. The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Starving Polar Bears anyone? What natural disaster hasn't been blamed on Global Warming?
12. Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
OK, pretty much applies to Slashdot guys.
13. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
MDSolar? Is that you?
14. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
I'm sure Jones and Hansen hang out with non-believers all the time.
See, here's another moron sticking up for this shitty president.
There are people who just hate one side or another. And they predictably come up with the most shockingly shallow bullshit. And when someone points out /anything/ that might question deeply held prejudices, the ideologues call them stupid.
/greatly/ if people like you suddenly moved to pluto, where you could scream at each other all day, and the rest of society could actually get on with addressing the ISSUES.
The truth is not always on one side or the other, and it is not always neatly in between -- and society as a whole would benefit
I say this, already expecting a big woooossshhh before I even hit the Submit button. Part of me thinks you are a charity case.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"Look, guys, I have to tell you the truth. To you I may be a big noise in the cocaine business, but I feel bad about not telling you I'm really an investigative journalist. Hey, I bet you're all feeling glad I got that off my chest".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
He graduated Summa Cum Laude. He doesn't have to show you shit.
California Penal Code Section 528.5
a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense punishable pursuant to subdivision (d).
(b) For purposes of this section, an impersonation is credible if another person would reasonably believe, or did reasonably believe, that the defendant was or is the person who was impersonated.
(c) For purposes of this section, “electronic means” shall include opening an e-mail account or an account or profile on a social networking Internet Web site in another person’s name.
(d) A violation of subdivision (a) is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.
(e) In addition to any other civil remedy available, a person who suffers damage or loss by reason of a violation of subdivision (a) may bring a civil action against the violator for compensatory damages and injunctive relief or other equitable relief pursuant to paragraphs (1), (2), (4), and (5) of subdivision (e) and subdivision
(g) of Section 502.
(f) This section shall not preclude prosecution under any other law.
And Dan Rather didn't try to throw an entire US presidential election by lying out of his face. It was "fake but accurate" until he got caught with his shit running down his legs either.
Funny how ethics suddenly becomes this slippery slope.
Om, nomnomnom...
Facts don't matter in American politics.
The cowardly pundit will say Democrats do it and Republicans do it. This is true but banal. We could also say the Hitler and Lincoln were imperfect human beings.
There is a whole new level of crazy that has gripped Republican politics, and it is really too bad. I would love to have seen John Huntsman do well in the primaries, or even see the Republicans field some accomplished credentials. (e.g.: Colin Powell would be more accomplished then the entire republican field put together.)
Now we have the party of anti-science. We have Karl Rove eschewing the "reality-based community" which looks for solutions through judicious analysis. We have reactionary politics and faith-based righteous indignation. Somewhat ironically, Jesus preached love, not fear. And the christian right are driven by fear of all sorts of things -- mainly irrational.
The republicans really need to remake themselves, but the Tea Party has been a step in the wrong direction. More fear and reactionary politics. It really is too bad.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Heartland claims Earlier this evening, Peter Gleick, a prominent figure in the global warming movement, confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views.
In fact, he made no such confession. What he said is: 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.
Then, he went to the effort of attempting to verify the authenticity and accuracy of the documents by pretending to be someone else and asking for information directly from Heartland: 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.
So, he did pretend to be someone else, but he stole nothing. If the original documents were stolen (which is pure speculation), it was by someone other than Gleick. Impersonating someone else is certainly nothing to be taken lightly, but it's a well established technique used by reporter and investigators when using your real name may impede or alter your access to the information. Whether a crime was committed requires more details than given. But there is no evidence that he stole anything, and as such, he may have a slander or libel claim against Heartland for their statement. IANAL.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Deniers always talk about popper, and science, and how they are the rigorous ones. They want falsifiable hypotheses, and when they get one -- they will argue black is white over whether or not it is falsifiable. They think they know more then the 1000s of /actual/ scientists who study the issue.
It is denial, because it is a black and white issue, they are right, and there is an inability to cognitively represent any disconfirming evidence. They always see themselves as sane, and therefore people who disagree with them are: stupid, evil, or uneducated.
Lord Monckton is at the zenith of climate change denialism. I honestly believe that he doesn't know he is just making stuff up. Vetren anti-science debunker potholer54 puts out a challenge to denialists: come up with ONE thing that Monckton gets right, that calls into question the IPCC's conclusions. To complete the challenge, you actually have to find Monckton's references, and assess that they really support what Monckton say.
And this is the key sticking point. Denialists just believe anything they hear, so long as it confirms their biases. It is obvious that denialists doen't follow references, because of the absurdly high number of mistakes that are made.
There is actually a slew of falsifiable hypotheses in AGW. All of them are very precisely defined and tested. An argument is built from 1000s of studies of more then 100 years of scientific research.
Don't believe me? Crack open an IPCC report and actually read it.
PS: Popper is not without critics in the philosophy of science, but that is another story.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
You should source some of the claims that Anthony Watts makes. Then compare them to what Watts says about them. It is pretty easy to work out that he doesn't know what he is talking about. But this doesn't matter since he is talking to people like you -- presumably Republican ideologues terrified of any government intervention is the free market.
All ya gotta do is follow the references. It is shockingly easy to do.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
It takes in excess of $100 million to drill a deepwater offshore well these days, and it takes ~10 years after the exploration phase before the production starts (assuming success). Given those costs and a 10:1 success ratio in less-explored areas, an obscene profit margin can disappear pretty quick,
Yeah! Why, with a profit margin of only 38 billion dollars a year, at a hundred million to drill a deepwater offshore well, they'll be losing money if they drill a mere three hundred and eighty deepwater offshore wells every year, and not one actually produces oil.
Oh, wait-- the cost of drilling the well doesn't come out of their profit, it's already incorporated in their expenses. So, that forty billion dollars of profit already accounts for the costs of drilling wells. Never mind.
After Mosher received a posting from the hacker complaining that nothing was happening, he replied: "A lot is happening behind the scenes. It is not being ignored. Much is being coordinated among major players and the media. Thank you very much. You will notice the beginnings of activity on other sites now. Here soon to follow."
He doesn't sound too concerned that the data was obtained illegally. Bit different when the shoe is on the other foot eh?
Hmmm, given the excerpt of the California code above, it seems rather more likely to be a criminal matter than a civil one. No discovery to be had there.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
Yes, right, the only possible ethical action is to forge a document to show just how evil these bastards are, because none of their actual documents look very evil.
Hmmm. Maybe, just maybe, their actual documents don't look very evil because they're not such evil bastards?
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
I think the problem is that they want legitimately falsifiable hypotheses, not just silly statements like the CO2 absorption spectrum means that AGW is true. Yes, if any of the physical constants of the universe weren't what they are, then all of our science would be falsified. But it takes more to come up with a more than trivial hypothesis of AGW (trivial, meaning that human CO2 emissions have some nonzero and positive effect on global average temperature, in the same way that the butterfly in my backyard has some nonzero and positive effect on global average temperature). Especially when you're looking at asserting "catastrophic" consequences (or heck, even just some arbitrary definition of "bad"), everything falls apart, and Popper becomes particularly relevant.
The problem is that you need a falsifiable hypothesis to string all of those mini-hypotheses together - their mere *existence* doesn't let you conclude anything, there must be a rationale (and a falsifiable one at that) to get them to mean something. Yes, if you could show humans exhaled and emitted NO2 instead of CO2, AGW would be falsified. And if you could show that humans didn't exist, AGW would be falsified. But the individual facts that humans exist, and humans emit CO2, does *not* necessarily lead one to the conclusion that "human emissions of CO2 are increasing global average temperatures in measurable ways that will be "bad"".
Solving the problem of climate change is really an economic growth opportunity. Really. Re-read. Don't dismiss. Think. We have a huge R&D investment opportunity, and new high-tech industries and products... and guess what... Europe and Asia may take it all.
Economic growth is utter bullshit. Economists and politicians keep feeding us this rubbish about how much better off we are now than in the past, and how much better it can get. Sure, we have it better than people before the 60s. People in the 60s and 70s had it better than we do now, barring some minor quality of life improvements from better technology. But we have longer working hours, in families where 2 instead of 1 parent works full time. We have a degrading environment. We have inflation and massive public debt that, when you trace it back, is owed to people who rape the economy and pay our politicians to allow them to continue doing so. We have a world full of people who think CYA instead of thinking about getting shit done. Screw economic growth. I'd be much happier in a world without rip-off merchants, where people work for a decent living, and government spending was about the kind of cool shit they did before I was born, like going to the moon. Not wars designed to further line the pockets of already obscenely wealthy people, boosting population wide "economic growth" while having no effect on 99% of us barring a few extra coffins being shipped home.
Well, the results of Lenaerts et al. (2012) really aren't that surprising. Plenty of ice melting in other places of the world. Antarctica is huge and benefits from increased precipitation (from warmer oceans) enlarging the entire ice sheet.
/breaks/ the science, not some minor detail that really makes not difference to the overall picture.
You gotta find something on Watts' site that actually
As for the stuff on Gleick. Whatever. Got nothing to do with the evdience on AGW.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
That would mean that the leaker definitely didn't work for RealClimate and could still have been a UEA insider.
That hypothesis would still require the "leaker" to have hacked RealClimate which indicates some hacking skills (and incidentally would also be an illegal act). There is also the matter of the data uploads to a server at a university in Russia which the "leaker" also had access to. And, this is not the first time that a fictional "mole" has been blamed to obscure the true source, McIntyre has admitted previously lying about a "mole insider" at CRU:
On 24 July, McIntyre says he received a freedom of information (FOI) refusal from CRU. He announced it on his website. The next day McIntyre announced that he had got hold of a mass of data.
He was initially coy about it. He said: "Folks, guess what. I'm now in possession of a CRU version giving data for every station in their station list."
The next day he said: "I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security My guess is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole."
This was a tease. There was no human "mole", just a security breach. Rotter in San Francisco later blogged that "In late July I discovered they had left station data versions from 2003 and 1996 on their server without web page links but accessible all the same. They were stale versions of the requested data ... just sitting in cyberspace waiting for someone to download."
McIntyre later admitted that "I downloaded from the public CRU ftp site ... No hacking was involved". Climate emails: were they really hacked or just sitting in cyberspace?
So in conclusion, yes, it is possible that there was a rogue sysadmin at CRU who suddenly decided to release a huge dump of emails from a backup server, and who was also a hacker who could break in to RealClimate, and who had some link to Russia. But the alternative hypothesis - that they just got hacked from outside - seems more likely, particularly as they have had external facing security issues in the past.