Heartland: more on Gleick

21 February, 2012 by

Career ending lapse of judgment

After today’s revelation that Peter Gleick had admitted to soliciting the confidential Heartland documents and distributing them to the bloggers, it occurred to me that suspicion had already fallen on Gleick in several blog posts and comments, including at Roger Pielke Jr’s blog here, and Lucia’s Blackboard here.

But, crucially, such suspicion fell on him not as the recipient and distributor of the confidential documents, but as the alleged forger of the “Climate Strategy” document that MeDog’sGob and the other headbangers got so steamed up about.

Particularly on Lucia’s blog, there was detailed textual analysis in the comments of the strategy document and comparisons made with Gleick’s style, including use of parentheses, and the unlikely use of the term “anti-climate” – strikingly similar to “anti-science”:

Steven Mosher (Comment #89946) 
February 16th, 2012 at 1:52 pm

I have some speculation on the writer of the document.

1. West coast time zone.
2. trashes Curry and revkin, known adversaries
3. Uses a very strange word (anti-climate) in the document and in his tweets
4. uses parenthesis in a very odd way when he doesn’t know how to punctuate sentences. in the document and in his letter to Pielke.
5. glorifies himself in the document.
6. prior history of making phony statements

Its not proof of course, just a speculation, kinda like Mann speculating that Steve mcIntyre had something to do with the leak. which nobody objected to.

So the blogs suspect Gleick of being the forger, and he outs himself as the receiver. I think this story has a lot further to run…

UPDATE: And if this doesn’t make you sick to the stomach, check out MeDog’sGob for a stout defence of Gleick’s actions as a brave “whistleblower”:

So, while admitting that he impersonated a third party in order to induce Heartland to confirm its own ongoing questionable conduct, Gleick has effectively caught Heartland squarely in the headlights, proving that the Institute has dissembled and lied.

Whistleblowers – and that’s the role Gleick has played in this instance – deserve respect for having the courage to make important truths known to the public at large. Without condoning or promoting an act of dishonesty, it’s fair to say that Gleick took a significant personal risk – and by standing and taking responsibility for his actions, he has shown himself willing to pay the price. For his courage, his honor, and for performing a selfless act of public service, he deserves our gratitude and applause. (source)

Disgusting, but only to be expected from a smear site like that.

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BREAKING: Warmist Peter Gleick "solicited Heartland documents under someone else's name"

21 February, 2012 by

Career ending lapse of judgment

UPDATE: Statement from Heartland here (WUWT). Climate Depot’s roundup here.

Warmist Peter Gleick has admitted to soliciting Heartland documents under another’s name and then forwarding them to journalists:

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.

There must also therefore be suspicion that he created the forged document as well…

Read the full statement here..

 

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Disgraceful climate indoctrination in Australian schools

21 February, 2012 by

Thinly disguised propaganda

Note: Due to a WordPress glitch, this post has had to be redrafted and comments have unfortunately been lost – Ed.

Andrew Bolt reveals yet another shocking example of deeply offensive and highly inappropriate political propaganda masquerading as “science” in a New South Wales geography text for Year 8. The full text is reproduced here as I think it is important that is is made as widely available as possible.

How do you feel knowing that your children are being indoctrinated in this manner when they go to school?

CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the planet is warming, there are still people who deny that is a result of human activity. The most vocal of these deniers are conservative political think tanks and the right-wing radio ‘shock jocks’.

There is, of course, a range of views or perspectives, even among the sceptics. These range from an outright denial that there is a problem to those who concede that climate change is real but argue that the  rate of warming and the predicted impacts of climate change have been greatly exaggerated.

Shaping the nature of the public debate about the issue is an important focus for those groups opposed to any program designed to reduce CO2 emissions. In February 2007, The Guardian (UK) reported that a conservative American think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, was offering scientists and economists US$10,000 each ‘to undermine a major climate change report’ from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Many large fossil fuel-based industries have also tried to discredit the work of scientists. Exxon Mobil, the giant American oil company, has, for example, spent millions supporting conservative (right-wing) organisations that cast doubt on the science on which the warnings about about a warming climate have been based.

Companies such as Exxon and think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute have used patronage to win the support of conservatives in the American Congress. The following are typical of the views expressed by global warming sceptics:

‘Man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.’ James Inhofe

‘You remember the ice age? It’s been warming ever since, and there ain’t nothing we can do to stop it.’ Conrad Burns

In Australia, journalists such as the Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Miranda Devine, the Telegraph’s Piers Akerman and the radio ‘shock jocks’ Alan Jones and Ray Hadley dismiss the science underpinning warnings about global warming. [Read more…]

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Heartland: Letters of demand sent to Greg Laden and DeSmogBlog

20 February, 2012 by

Legal action possible?

Gotta love Greg Laden’s comment on this:

“I just got this email. I have no way of telling if it is authentic.“

Greg hasn’t spotted the irony there clearly! I guess he’ll realise it’s authentic when the FedEx copy arrives…

Notice also that Greg’s post URL uses the term “anti-science” – one of the regular smears used by warmists against “deniers”. So again, what realist, in their right mind, would use the term “anti-climate” about themselves?

Anyway, here’s the text of the email to Greg Laden (a similar one sent to DeSmogBlog according to Jo Nova):

February 18, 2012

By e-mail to:[email redacted]
By Federal Express to:

Mr. Greg T. Laden
Greg Laden’s Blog
[address redacted]

Re: Stolen and Faked Heartland Documents
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/02/heartlandgate_anti-science_ins.php

Dear Mr. Laden:

On or about February 14, 2012, your web site posted a document entitled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” (the “Fake Memo”), which is fabricated and false.

On or about the same date, your web site posted certain other documents purporting to be those of The Heartland Institute (“Heartland”). Heartland has not authenticated these documents (the “Alleged Heartland Documents”).

Your site thereafter has reported repeatedly on all of these documents.

Heartland almost immediately issued a statement disclosing the foregoing information, to which your web site has posted links.

It has come to our attention that all of these documents nevertheless remain on your site and you continue to report on their contents. Please be advised as follows:

1. The Fake Memo document is just that: fake. It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact. Publication of this falsified document is improper and unlawful.

2. As to the Alleged Heartland Documents your web site posted, we are investigating how they came to be in your possession and whether they are authentic or have been altered or fabricated. Though third parties purport to have authenticated them, no one – other than Heartland – has the ability to do so. Several of the documents say on their face that they are confidential documents and all of them were taken from Heartland by improper and fraudulent means. Publication of any and all confidential or altered documents is improper and unlawful.

3. Furthermore, Heartland views the malicious and fraudulent manner in which the documents were obtained and/or thereafter disseminated, as well as the repeated blogs about them, as providing the basis for civil actions against those who obtained and/or disseminated them and blogged about them. Heartland fully intends to pursue all possible actionable civil remedies to the fullest extent of the law.

Therefore, we respectfully demand: (1) that you remove both the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents from your web site; (2) that you remove from your web site all posts that refer or relate in any manner to the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents; (3) that you remove from your web site any and all quotations from the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents; (4) that you publish retractions on your web site of prior postings; and (5) that you remove all such documents from your server.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information.

Very truly yours,

Maureen Martin
General Counsel (source)

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Gillard finished as Australian Prime Minister?

19 February, 2012 by

Finished?

The governing Labor party is in turmoil. Polling shows an election now would sweep Tony Abbott’s conservative Coalition into power in a landslide. Julia Gillard has lost the trust of the public, and her own MPs, after a string of high profile embarrassments.

Labor really has nowhere to go. Some are talking of a return of Kevin Rudd, who was unceremoniously stabbed in the back in the mid-2010. But there is no obvious alternative candidate. If they dump Gillard, there will need to be an election. Australia may still dodge the bullet of the carbon tax, due to come into force in the middle of the year.

JULIA Gillard faced a revolt last night by marginal seat MPs who publicly called for her to resign as Prime Minister.

For the first time, marginal seat MPs including Victoria’s Darren Cheeseman went public with a demand she quit to save the party.

“There’s no doubt about it: Julia Gillard can’t take the party forward. The community has made its mind up on her,” he told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“Certainly, it would be in the interests of the party for Julia to stand down and allow (the) Government to select a strong candidate.”

One of Ms Gillard’s senior ministers also urged her to “resign now”, as Cabinet erupted into open warfare over a leadership showdown.

“For the good of the party, for the good of the Government, she should stand down,” the senior minister, who declined to be named, said.

Some supporters predicted yesterday the Prime Minister might yet be forced to spill the leadership and fight, but this was ruled a high-risk strategy because it would expose Kevin Rudd’s support levels.

But the Gillard camp has not ruled out sacking Mr Rudd as the Foreign Affairs Minister.

The Gillard camp maintains she has more than 65 votes in the 103-person ALP caucus, but even her supporters concede a ballot is high-risk because it is likely to show that more than a third of MPs want her gone.

Her supporters say Mr Rudd has between 30 and 34 votes, while six are unknown.

A Labor powerbroker warned Mr Rudd was destroying the party, driving down the primary vote with relentless destabilisation.

“He’s taken ALP caucus hostage,” they said. 

“His message is, ‘I’ll shoot the Prime Minister if you don’t give me the job’.“

But both sides believe Ms Gillard will not resign. (source)

And while Labor fiddles with its own internal wrangling, Australia burns – no direction, no focus, no plan for the future. Time for a grown-up government again.

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Josh parodies warmists' open letter to Heartland

19 February, 2012 by

Josh is on fire:

Click to enlarge

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UK: £1.5bn foreign aid wasted on tackling climate change

19 February, 2012 by

Pissing aid money up the wall

This is the brutal reality at the pointy end of dangerous climate policies concocted in ivory towers, insulated from reality. Precious resources, which should rightly be directed towards alleviating poverty and disease, are being frittered away on pointless attempts to tackle climate change. We have suspected for some time that such policies will benefit wealthy countries and damage developing nations, and now it appears we have evidence to back up that suspicion:

Nearly £1.5 billion has been spent tackling man-made climate change by Government department responsible for fighting poverty abroad, it can be revealed.

The Department for International Development (Dfid) has spent the total on projects which they say will either reduce carbon emissions abroad or attempt to deal with the effects of predicted changes in the earth’s climate.

In the past four years Dfid has spent £900 million on climate change projects with nearly two thirds of that being spent in the past financial year under the Coalition. A further £533 million has already been committed up to 2013.

The biggest recipients of the climate change aid are India and Indonesia, two countries considered to be rapidly emerging economies.

The disclosures – made under the Freedom of Information Act – will raise fresh questions over how foreign aid is spent, and comes after an Indian minister described British aid to the country as “peanuts”, which ministers in London had begged Delhi to continue accepting.

Dfid is one of only two departments not affected by the Government’s austerity drive, with a budget last year of £8.4 billion.

The figures released by the government reveal that total spending on tackling climate change overseas has increased from £61 million in 2007-08 to more than £883 million in 2010-11.

During that time, Dfid saw the biggest increase in spending on climate change with funding available for projects now 45 times higher than four years ago. The department now also employs 66 specialist climate and environmental advisers.

Among the aid provided by Dfid was a £4.7 million project in Indonesia aimed at helping the government there provide “more effective leadership and management of climate change programming”.

Another project aimed at encouraging Indian farmers to use manual foot pumps to draw water from underground for their fields rather than using diesel powered pumps – a technology that could be considered a step backwards in terms of the labour required.

In Africa, six businessmen were given financial support to help them produce and sell solar powered lights.

…

Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is sceptical about man-made global warming, also questioned the effectiveness of the money going abroad to tackle climate change.

He said: “A lot of money is wasted on schemes that don’t actually help country’s develop more resilience that would be good regardless of climate change.

“These handouts often come with conditions that appear to be pressure foreign governments into sighing up to global emissions policies.” (source)

A scandalous waste of money when the global economy is in such a dire state, and a heartless betrayal of the most disadvantaged people on the planet.

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Heartland: headbangers flogging a dead horse

18 February, 2012 by

The headbangers and Heartland

It’s little short of hilarious to watch the headbangers desperately trying to keep the Heartland leak alive, when it’s falling about their ears (and, in all probability one of their own will be exposed as the faker of the key document, given sufficient time).

MeDog’sGob is hanging on for all it’s worth (not much) spruiking an open letter in The [Lefty] Guardian from some of the big names in “The Cause” (including Australia’s very own über-headbanger, David Karoly) and chastising Heartland for alleged double standards (a la Revkin):

As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate science in the classroom.

“Well-established propaganda”, you mean, surely? Hang on, that was in the fake document wasn’t it? The reality is that Heartland wanted to remove the politics and provide a balanced educational perspective for children, but that’s not good enough. Nothing short of total indoctrination is acceptable, right?

Unfortunately, the Climategate emails were all genuine, and showed that consensus scientists (let’s repeat it again, because no amount of repetition of these examples of disgraceful scientific malfeasance will ever be enough):

  • fudged and massaged inconvenient data;
  • threatened journals that dared publish sceptical papers;
  • suppressed dissent at every turn;
  • minimised uncertainty in order to keep a consistent political message;
  • deleted emails and avoided FOI requests in breach of national legislation;
  • smeared anyone who dared disagree.

In the present case, on the other hand, the main Heartland document was FAKED by one of their own, and the rest showed how much Heartland really managed to achieve on a relatively meagre budget compared to the massive warmist swill trough. So you can take your patronising faux sympathy, guys, and shove it. Er, sorry about that.

Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science is, pitifully, still banging on about it, trying in vain to make a few million at Heartland over several years look somehow substantial when stood next to the hundreds of millions swallowed up by Greenpeace and WWF each year, and, bless their little henna socks, they’ve helpfully illustrated the whole thing with a laughably crap “infographic” (no really, that’s what they call it), lumping together several years of donations to make them look bigger – yep, they are that desperate – whilst at the same time remaining silent on the billions spent on the consensus. Hypocrisy much?

Whereas those with a brain capable of rational thought, on the other hand, are starting to dig into where that fake document came from (thanks to WUWT for the link):

The climate blogs presumably relied so heavily on the memo because the quotes were punchier, and suggested far darker motivations than the blandly professional language of the authenticated documents–and because it edited the facts into a neat, almost narrative story.  

In the first 24 hours, I saw a lot of comments along the line of “See!  They’re really just as amoral and dangerous as we thought they were!” based on a memo which I now believe to have been written by someone who, well, thinks that AGW skeptics are amoral and dangerous.  (And judging from his update to the original document dump, Littlemore’s fellow blogger, Brandon Demelle, is also unsure of the memo’s “facts”.)

For me, this leaves the most fascinating question of all: who wrote it?  We have a few clues:

1)  They are on the west coast

2)  They own or have access to an Epson scanner–though God knows, this could be at a Kinkos.

3)  They probably themselves have a somewhat run-on writing style

4)  I’m guessing they use the word “high-profile” a fair amount.  

5)  They are bizarrely obsessed with global warming coverage at Forbes, which suggests to me that there is a good chance that they write or comment on the website, or that they have tangled with writers at Forbes (probably Taylor) either in public or private.

6)  The last paragraph is the biggest departure from the source documents, and is therefore likely to be closest to the author’s own style.

7)  I have a strong suspicion that they refrained from commenting on the document dump.  That’s what I’d do, anyway.  A commenter or email correspondent who suddenly disappeared when they normally would have been reveling in this sort of story is a good candidate.

8)  They seem to have it in for Andy Revkin at the New York Times.  There’s nothing in the other documents to indicate that Heartland thinks Revkin is amenable to being . . . turned?  I’m not sure what the right word is, but the implication in the strategy memo that Heartland believes it could somehow develop a relationship with Revkin seems aimed at discrediting Revkin’s work.

Unfortunately, I’d imagine that this is still a sizeable set of people, and it will be hard to identify the author.  I suspect that it will be easier to do if the climate-bloggers–who may well know this person as a commenter or correspondent–get involved in trying to find out who muddied the story by perpetrating a fraud on their sites. (source)

Who in the realist camp would refer to themselves as “anti-climate”? It’s as meaningless as saying someone is “anti-weather” or “anti-seasons”, and just as ridiculous. And who would say they would “discourage teachers from teaching science”? Only a dimwitted headbanger would include something so blatantly false in a faked document.

Interesting times!

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Heartland: Fairfax hypocrisy

18 February, 2012 by

The cartoonist gets the irony

Fairfax, part owner of the Earth Hour farce and propaganda machine for climate alarmism, publishes yet another article on Heartland today in the Sydney Morning Herald, and instead of hyperventilating about the perpetrators of the leak being brought to justice a la Climategate, breathlessly questions the motives of anyone who doesn’t submit to the AGW religion:

THE paper trail connecting the climate change sceptic movement in Australia and the conservative US expert panel the Heartland Institute goes back at least to 2009, documents released on the internet this week show.

The Heartland Institute, a leading group that funds activities designed to sow doubt about climate change science, was embarrassed this week when its strategy and budget documents found their way to a US blog.

The institute described the leak as a theft and said a police investigation was under way, while apologising to the 1800 companies and individuals whose identities were revealed as donors

Documents from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show that a group funded by the Heartland Institute, via a thicket of other foundations and think tanks, provided the vast majority of the cash for an anti-carbon price lobby group in Australia in 2009 and 2010.

The Australian Climate Science Coalition, an offshoot of a conservative lobby group called the Australian Environment Foundation, received virtually all its funding from the International Climate Science Coalition, which has been financially supported by Heartland. (source)

The sums are trivial, around $50 or $60,000, and the fact that Ben Cubby gets so steamed up about them when Greenpeace and WWF have budgets in the hundreds of millions reveals the desperate desire of the alarmists to smear the sceptics. Why aren’t the motives of Big Green ever discussed at Fairfax? Because they have the politically correct moral high ground, perhaps?

Cubby also hints that the opinions of the scientists advising the ACSC were influenced by the funding, an allegation that Bob Carter regarded as “offensive”. Presumably, since Cubby cannot comprehend why anyone could possibly hold views contrary to his own, it must be down to financial incentives.

More importantly, Heartland stated on their press release that a key document in the bundle was faked, a fact which Cubby also fails to mention.

Typical Fairfax spin, as usual. But I’m very glad the cartoonist hit the nail squarely on the head.

(h/t Marc H for cartoon)

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Un-Scientific American's global warming lesson

17 February, 2012 by

Scott McNally

After the fizzer that was “Deniergate” (a crap name for a non-event) [UPDATE: “Fakegate” – much more appropriate], back to the usual run of the mill nonsense, this time from Scientific American that bravely sets up a string of straw men and blows them over in a patronising piece entitled “How to explain climate change to a moron skeptic”. This is for presidential hopeful Rick Santorum’s benefit, since he has had the temerity to question the alarmist BS being churned out daily.

It gets off to a less than auspicious start:

The majority of evidence presented by skeptics is anecdotal – evidence that is based on non-scientific observations or studies that may sound compelling in isolation. One example is “It is colder today than the average for this time of year; therefore global warming is not true.” Those who cite this clearly don’t understand the difference between weather and climate. You may have also heard someone say, “The climate is cyclical, and we are just on a warming trend.” Or “The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo has changed the climate more than we have.”

Count the misrepresentations in that paragraph. We continue:

I am not saying that volcanic eruptions, or solar flares, or natural changes in the biosphere don’t change the climate. They do. Sometimes significantly. But that is not the argument. The argument made by skeptics is whether humans are changing the climate.

In order for the anthropomorphic [cringe, it’s actually “anthropogenic”, anthropomorphism is attributing human characteristics to something non-human – Ed] (human caused) climate change ‘theory’ to be true, there are two corollary truths that must also be proven. Find failings with one and you have broken the climate change theory. Prove them both, and human caused climate change must be true.

Corollary #1 – Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

The ‘theory’ that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas has been tested and confirmed thousands of times. But if for some reason you don’t believe it, here is an experiment that you can do at home, courtesy of NASA. 

[ridiculous “fill a soda bottle with CO2” experiment omitted for my readers’ sanity – Ed]

This is just one way to show that CO2 acts as a blanket that traps heat. There are dozens of other ways to show that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and if you put this blanket around the earth, the earth will get warmer.

Corollary #2 – Humans are putting more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Yes, there is a finite amount of carbon in the biosphere. Humans can’t add to that, but what we can do is convert carbon from a solid or a liquid to a gas. As a gas, it goes into the atmosphere, rather than staying underground. We know that we are doing this because we dig up lots of coal and oil, materials that are mostly made up of carbon, and convert that carbon to a gas. On a large scale, this gas can be measured as it is released from power plants. We can also simply measure the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. We have measured that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing by about 2 parts per million every year for the past several decades.

[The rest of the post repeats the above in “blind-em-with-science” mode]

And there the prosecution rests, m’lud. That’s it. Sceptics are dumb and can’t understand the difference between weather and climate, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and humans are putting more of it into the atmosphere, ergo humans cause climate change. Case closed. See, the science really is settled!

I don’t really know where to begin with this, since the arguments so utterly simplistic as to beggar belief, even from Scientific American. You all know the points, but let’s go through them anyway:

  • CO2 is a greenhouse gas – agreed
  • Humans are putting more CO2 in the atmosphere – agreed
  • Humans are changing the climate – also agreed
  • But the question which the author fails to raise is “by how much?”
  • How much do natural drivers compare with the human fingerprint?
  • Where’s the acknowledgement that catastrophic warming is a result of computer-modelled positive feedbacks which have not been adequately tested or proven?
  • Where’s the acknowledgement that if catastrophic warming isn’t happening, then we are wasting billions of dollars that could be used for other, tangible, benefits to humanity?
  • Where’s the acknowledgements that mitigation is highly unlikely to be effective, and adaptation to whatever climate change (human or natural) befalls the planet is a far better option in terms of cost/benefit?

Just embarrassing.

Read it here.

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