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E-mails and the Earth
it won’t be long now it won’t be long
man is making deserts of the earth
it won’t be long now
before man will have it used up
so that nothing but ants
and centipedes and scorpions
can find a living on it.
— Donald Robert Perry Marquis, archie and mehitabel (1927)
It’s a sad time for the climate. It’s enough to make an iceberg melt. That’s because everyone is stealing e-mails from everyone else.
In 2009, just before the December Copenhagen climate-change summit was to take place, hundreds of private e-mail messages that had been stolen from a University of East Anglia computer were released by those who question global warming (climate change deniers.) In those candid e-mails many statements were made among friends and colleagues that, climate change deniers said, proved that those supporting the theory of global warming were skeptical about the results of their own research. Patrick Michaels, a climatologist climate change denier was quoted in the New York Times as saying of the purloined e-mails that that “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud.” Some of the scientists whose e-mails were released said that the e-mails did not undercut the extensive body of scientific research that demonstrated the existence of global warming. Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA whose e-mails were released was said that all the releases prove is that “Science doesn’t work because we’re all nice. Newton may have been an ass, but the theory of gravity still works.” The 2009 release was not the end of the story.
In 2011, just before the climate talks in Durban, South Africa were to
begin, purloined e-mails from East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit were once again released by climate change deniers. One of those who was pleased at the release of the e-mails and what he thought they proved, was quoted in The Economist as saying: “All your favorite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of e-mails exaggerating the extent of Anthopogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as strong as they’d like it to be.” Andrew Watson, a scientist at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, said the quotes relied upon by opponents were taken out of context and showed nothing more than that scientists are “a diverse, sometimes contradictory” group with assorted motives. One of those is Peter Gleick.
Peter Gleick who co-founded and works at the Pacific Institute as a climate researcher has admitted that he lied to get some documents from the Heartland Institute, an organization described in the journal Nature as “a major force among climate skeptics.” Peter Gleick admitted in a posting on the Huffington Post that he pretended to be someone else in order to get copies of fundraising and strategy documents not intended for release to the general public. He said he decided to try to get the documents when an anonymous source sent him a document “that contained information. . . about the Institute’s apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy.” In an attempt to verify the validity of that document he assumed a false identity on the Internet in order to get someone at the Heartland Institute to e-mail a trove of confidential information to him. Included in the information he received was information about salaries, personnel actions, funds raised and names of donors. The material also disclosed that the Institute was working on developing a climate-skeptic science curriculum for high schools that would cast doubt on the idea that emissions have an adverse affect on the climate. This probably comes as no surprise to the cognoscenti in the arena since the Institute has an annual climate-skeptic conference that is called “Denialpalooza” by critics of the Institute.
The Institute is not only upset because of the purloined e-mails. It is upset because of the memorandum, “2012 Climate Strategy,” which prompted Dr. Gleick to assume a false identity. It says that memorandum is a forgery. The Institute says it has retained a forensic investigation firm to identify the source of the memorandum and the results of that investigation are not yet available. The Institute says independent experts have concluded the “climate strategy” memo is “almost certainly fake. ” Those at the Institute have used Dr. Gleick’s actions as proof that scientists in the global warming movement are “desperate, delusional and collapsing as global warming fails to live up to alarmist predictions.”
What Dr. Gleick did is patently unethical. He has done his colleagues and the climate no good. The Heartland Institute released a statement saying that Peter Gleick “confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views” and says Gleick’s crime was a serious one.” The Institute is right. The Institute could have said the same thing of the 2009 and 2011 thefts. It didn’t. There is no winner in this e-mail war. Mother earth and her inhabitants are the losers.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllI'm not as ready as Brauchli is to concede to the Heartland Institute the moral high ground. Yes, Gleick assumed a fictitious identity to get documents released that were meant to be kept secret. But what about those documents? Weren't they fundamentally about indoctrinating public school children and misleading the public? Might it be in the public's interest to have those documents released?
And who was injured by their release? The reputation of the Heartland Institute and its donors? It seems to me they got what they deserved: they make it their business to deceive and they were caught up by another deception. What a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive...
So, if spraying the skies is not geo engineering the weather, what is the motive?
Media coverage about a controversial subject tends to concentrate on the controversy, not on the subject itself. The media know that the public is not really interested in what is being discussed.
The more successful the Heartland Institute is in castigating the guy who released the documents, the less is the likelihood that the public will actually read them and see what is going on, and who is paying for it. That is something the Institute doesn't want to happen.
But in the end, they are using the old playground rhetorical technique, by yelling: "Your'e another."
As far as I know, a misrepresenting yourself in order to obtain information of interest to the public is never a crime, or even unethical. There was a time when investigative reporters did this all the time.
The Police do the same thing every single day, all as part of the 'Drug War', leading to trumped-up charges and entrapment.
It's only illegal when the commons commit the same crime as the Elite...
Yeah! What the hell is this with all these liberals wringing their hands about how terrible it was for this guy to get these documents under falst pretenses--would it have been ethically okay if he were a reporter rather than a scientist? If he didn't distort the evidence, as Breitbart did, for example, or blow it out of proportion as with the East Anglia emails, I can't see the reason it's so evil as all that. Why SHOULD the Heartland Institute be entitled to secretly pay "scientists" to write reports denying climate change, with the money often undisclosed--along with the incoming money from oil companies and such?
I commend Peter Gleick (sp?) for his bold actions. The Heartland Institute is guilty of many things, including misleading the public and ultimately treason against the American People.
When you're fighting for your life, your future, and the life of the Earth, you are on very high moral grounds. To save such things, little white lies certainly sound like fair play to me.
Start with Ida Tarbell and go forward. Land at Wikileaks and Manning. Add Gleick.
True, openness and complete honesty are essential to most journalism and stories but there is no honesty from Heartland and they are covering up enormous harm they are otherwise allowed to spew from the hidden blind of secrecy. Usually I agree with Brauchli and applaud his understanding of uprightness, the law and the rules of journalism.
However, this isn't exactly Marquess of Queensberry rules. We could wait for the leakers, after all more than one person at Heartland is in on it. But don't count on it. Gleick did get a leak, but it was anonymous. What Gleick did was to ask and get lied to. So, the subterfuge in order to authenticate the leaked document. He was not "under cover" to fish around.
Heartland is not upset because they were lied about. They are upset because they were "truthed" so they are complaining about not following "the rules." They are complaining just to game the honest system for dishonest ends.
If the truth of Heartland's plans exposed to the intended victims of their plans upsets Heartland, then Heartland should certainly be stopped or at the very, very least, shown for what they are.
This plan by Heartland is a major violation of public trust as well as health and a violation of the real "rules" of knowledgeable public consent to a massive experiment which would leave all of us here in "peasant territory" gagging to death trying to catch a breath because of Heartland's global atmospheric modifications.
They have no idea what the H... this will really do but they are bound and determined to push this on us. This is a real, physical, threat to our lives well beyond the scopes of either Agent Orange or even depleted uranium dust.
In this case, good for Dr. Gleick.
"The Heartland Institute released a statement saying that Peter Gleick “confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views” and says Gleick’s crime was a serious one.” The Institute is right. The Institute could have said the same thing of the 2009 and 2011 thefts. It didn’t. There is no winner in this e-mail war. Mother earth and her inhabitants are the losers."
So we have reached the point in this country that we get to have "views" on reality? Seriously? So if big business figures out a way to make money off of spreading lies that the earth is really flat, we will then have a "debate" over the Earth's roundiness?
Not only will we have a debate, but businesses will argue that the flat earth "model" should be taught in the schools, so the kids can make up their own minds. And the Heartland Institute will commission the development of a flat earth curriculum for the classes.
Regarding "views on reality," mentioned by NC-Tom, remember that one of "Dubya's" handlers once said that reality is what they make it. It is a small step from that belief to what Orwell wrote about in 1984, where Winston What's-his-name spent his days rewriting the news so that the public's perception of reality varied from day to day. In a world that is "on-line" all the time, it would be much easier to change reality in "real time." (Pun intended).
So Peter Glieck is to be demonized? Why? He was looking for truth.
So the author advocates for the corporations and media that deliberately lie and spread falsehood. And we all live with the harm they do.
What Peter did is what the NYT and other media would do when we had investigative reporters to inform us. Now we have untold wealth manipulating the public with PR and spin.
The only thing wrong that Peter did was apologize. He has no reason to apologize. I am thankful for what he did to expose the Heartland Institute.
.
KitBurns wrote:
So Peter Glieck is to be demonized? Why? He was looking for truth.
So the author advocates for the corporations and media that deliberately lie and spread falsehood. And we all live with the harm they do.
What Peter did is what the NYT and other media would do when we had investigative reporters to inform us. Now we have untold wealth manipulating the public with PR and spin.
The only thing wrong that Peter did was apologize. He has no reason to apologize. I am thankful for what he did to expose the Heartland Institute.
* * * * *
My Comment:
I agree with your comment KitBurns and other comments posted here defending Peter Gleick.
Peter Gleick received an alleged leak and rather than simply pass the leak along without any effort to verify its authenticity, Peter Gleick did a little investigative journalism, Seems to me Peter Gleick went out of his way to be fair to the Heartland Institute, which he had reason to believe would not be forthright with him about their activities. Peter Gleick owed them no apology.
>>>> What Dr. Gleick did is patently unethical.
Brauchli is just another Washington General.
"There is no winner in this e-mail war. Mother earth and her inhabitants are the losers"
It's no secret that there are elites who claim the ideological left as their own. They call themselves liberals. They do unethical things, like engage in zero-sum competition, in the scientific realm, and many others, to achieve personal power/influence, while still claiming the ideological left as their own. Fat chance the people are going to allow it forever. Because the people are now learning, in droves, that the lie doesn't work for them. Only the TRUTH works for the people.
You know what the controversy is? That 30 years after the West started following a 'free market' path perscribed by the Heartland Institute, and 3 years after the worst economic meltdown in 80 years, they are still in business.
Reaganomics, Thatcherism, Supply-side, NAFTA, Globalization, Shrinking government, 'end of welfare as we know it', finance sector deregulation, Bush tax cuts, Greenspan 0% interest rates, 'irrational exhuberance', mortgage derivatives, credit default swaps, 'financial innovation', house flipping: these ALL are a Heartland wet dream. They are a 'free market' think-tank who couldn't be happier than the policies instituted over the last 30 years, thanks to their advocacy. But, did those policies work? If they did, why are we in the greatest Depression since the Great Depression: and why is the smart money betting its all going to get much, much worse in the near future?
Aided by a compliant media, Heartland gets to define todays issue as the moral bankruptcy of the climate 'alarmists'. But, here's the score:
1) The climate 'alarmists', which includes every scientific and professional organization and academy on the planet EXCEPT for the 'American Association of Petroleum Geologists', and which includes 97% of all climatologists, have been right from the start in their predictions. They said 'climate is going to change' 40 years ago, and it is now the personal experience of almost everybody that it IS changing.
2) The free market think tanks, like Heartland, have been wrong for 30 years and running, and we have the ruined economy to show for it.
Climate Scientists: 1 Free-market think-tanks: 0
So, why is Gleick the issue here? You can't steal documents you already have: his impersonation was merely in the service of CONFIRMING the documents he had already been sent. Those documents show that Heartland, a think-tank that has been wrong about everything for the last 30 years IN ITS SUPPOSED AREA OF EXPERTISE, as evidenced by our ruined economy, was planning to propagandize our own children in a subject it is hardly an authority on.
Gleick is guilty of peeing in a canal that, thanks to Heartland, was turned into an open sewer a looong time ago.
If I understand this article correctly, if you want to fight the powers that be, you must play nice. Sure, that'll work.
Christopher Brauchli is the one here most endangering Mother Earth. He equates actual stealing of confidential emails with investigative confirmation under a false persona that resulted in the voluntary release of information from Heartland, whose stated mission is to deceive the public and undermine a broad scientific consensus.
How did Brauchli make it through Harvard and law school if he can't understand the difference between outright theft to support a devious endeavor and misleading a devious organization into voluntarily sharing information which the public has a right to know?
Perhaps he missed the class on whistleblower protections as well as the one on basic logic.