Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Speaking of lies and the liars that spread them: In light
of yesterday's column on the cottage industry of global warming hysteria and
the slant they give the day's news, I got a nice email from the people at the
Heartland Institute reminding me of the theft and alteration of documents from
Heartland by hysterical warming apologist Professor Peter Gleick, a supposed
ethics expert with the Pacific Institute.
I first covered the story as it was occuring in February,
when Heartland reported the theft. Sinced then Heartland has published a list
of websites and periodicals that abetted Gleick. I have have appended that list
at the end of this column.
Gleick, who was chairman of the ethics committee at the
American Geophysical Union, admitted that he recently stole some documents- and
he may have forged others- from the conservative think-tank. But that’s all in
a day’s work for a work-a-day climate warrior. The important thing isn’t the
quest for the truth in global climate research, but, as Charlie Sheen would
say, winning. With winning comes cash.
Because for some time it’s been clear, that in the
climate debate, instead of actually accomplishing something worthwhile, all the
attention will be on the winners and losers. And some losers in the debate are
much bigger than others.
For example:
“In the field of climate science, when someone —
especially skeptics — did something ethically questionable or misrepresented
facts,” writes MSNBC, “scientist Peter Gleick was usually among the first and
loudest to cry foul. He chaired a prominent scientific society's ethics
committee. He created an award for what he considered lies about global
warming.”
No word yet whether Gleick will create an award for
forgery. I hear the pool of candidates isn’t deep this year since all of the
forged data from Climategate has already gone pro.
The authentic documents stolen from Heartland were
released by Gleick, along with some documents the Heartland folks say are
forgeries.
The real documents were prepared by the think-tank to
counter the global warming bunk that is being taught in US schools.
I know about the global warming hysteria that is taught
at the elementary and secondary level, because my kids come home everyday and
instead of telling me about how they’ve learned to read and write and how great
George Washington was, they instead tell me that “transfer calculations
indicate that strong gradients in both ozone and water vapor near the
tropopause contribute to the inversion.” Ah, huh. I think neither they, nor
their teachers, nor the authors, nor myself, knows what that means.
Still I hope the question is on the ACT. But I doubt it.
This is a very serious issue.
How serious?
“Heartland has not said whether any of the documents it
unwittingly released were altered,” reports the LA Times, “and Gleick said he
did not change any of the material he got. But several of the key points the
purported strategy document makes are backed up in the material Gleick obtained
from Heartland. Most notably, in a fundraising document, Heartland identifies
one of its priorities as reshaping the discussion of climate change in K-12
classrooms.” Ohmygosh!
Well let’s just say that the Heartland Institute is in
BIG trouble now.
How dare these right-wing troglodytes have a scientific
position contrary to the United Nations Interplanetary Council on Wealth
Transfer and Class Envy.
No, no. no. You can’t do that. Not under an Obama
administration.
Yeah sure: The UN misspends our money on their sex
scandals, mismanagement of programs designed to secure peace and prosperity and
engage in habitual human rights abuses by a majority of the members states who
make up the one-world-government to-be. But clearly, those problems aside, they
have the skill to put together a group of scientists who can report objectively
on the science behind global warming; especially the part where the remedies
include:
1) You footing the bill; and
2) They get your money.
Don’t we mere mortals know that our puny powers of reason
and deduction are impervious to the powers granted to the Society of Ethical
Geophysicists by the government of the United Nations?
That’s why the scientist, Geophysicist Ethicist Mr.
Gleick, is now being hailed by the director of research for Greenpeace, Kert
Davies, as a “hero,” says the LA Times.
Most other commentary declaims Gleick's methods, while
not-so subtly applauding his aims.
The Atlantic's Megan McArdle has had about the only
rational response, concluding that Gleick is crazy:
And ethics aside, what Gleick did is insane for someone in his position--so crazy that I confess to wondering whether he doesn't have some sort of underlying medical condition that requires urgent treatment. The reason he did it was even crazier. I would probably have thrown that memo away. I might have spent a few hours idly checking it out. I would definitely not have risked jail or personal ruin over something so questionable, and which provided evidence of . . . what? That Heartland exists? That it has a budget? That it spends that budget promoting views which Gleick finds reprehensible?
When conservatives question global warming, we are lying,
apparently. When liberals steal in the name of global warming, it can't be a
sign of desperation, poor science or character. No; they must be crazy, with
due respect to Ms. McArdle, who I believe is sincere .
I guess since liberals haven't yet embraced retroactive
abortions, the next, best thing they can do is label someone crazy when they
want to cut them from the herd, as they did recently with Media Matter's David
Brock.
Skeptics- or rather, deniers, as we’d much rather be
called- will point out that increasingly the public is distrustful of global
warming science.
Despite a little bounce in the polls, 60 percent of US
respondents to a Rasmussen survey don’t think that global warming is man made.
“In a January survey of the top 22 policy priorities for the US,” writes Our
World 2.0 “the public ranked climate change dead last, according to the Pew
Research Center.”
“When government muzzles scientists for political
reasons, it cuts at the fundamental principals of good science,” Stephen Hwang,
professor of general internal medicine at the University of Toronto told Our
World.
But when the doctors and scientists seek to muzzle the
rest of us it’s all A.O.K.
And for some weird reason the public just doesn’t trust
those scientists who are fully sponsored and funded by the UN, US, UK and other
government grants, which in turn were funded by you.
By talking about it, you troglodytes just emit more
carbon. Good going.
Your proper role is to just shut your big, fat mouth and
fork over a carbon credit or cash equivalent so the truth-seeking can continue
unimpeded.
For more information you can see the Heartland's website
on the scandal at Fakegate.org.
In the meantime, here's a list of publications that
Heartland says is a rogue’s gallery of organizations that are willing to invade
people’s privacy in pursuit of an ideological campaign called “global warming.”
Please contact them – by commenting on the posts,
emailing the bloggers or webmasters, even picking up the phone or writing a
letter – to insist that they (1) remove those documents from their sites; (2)
remove from their sites all posts that refer or relate in any manner to those
documents; (3) remove from their Web sites any and all quotations from those
documents; (4) publish retractions on their Web sites of prior postings; and
(5) remove all such documents from their servers.
The following Web sites and blogs posted stolen and fake
Heartland documents on their own servers:
February 14 – Heartland Insider Exposes Institute’s
Budget and Strategy
DeSmogBlogMr. Brendan G DeMelle, editor
3000 Royal Centre
1055 West Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC V6E 3R3
email: editor@desmogblog.com
February 14 – Internal Documents: The Secret,
Corporate-Funded Plan To Teach Children That Climate Change Is A Hoax
ThinkProgress.comMr. Brad Johnson
Center for American Progress Action Fund
1333 H Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
contact page
202/682-1611
February 15 – Climate Denial Bombshell (Update)
Huffington PostMs. Arianna Huffington, president & editor in chief
560 Broadway
New York, NY 10012
contact page
212/245-7844
February 15 – Climate Denial Bombshell (Update)
Huffington PostMr. Shawn Lawrence Otto, blogger
177th Street N
Marine On Saint Croix, MN 55047-9760
contact page
651-433-2982 or 651-433-3103
February 15 – Heartland burned by ‘DenialGate’ memos
PoliticoMr. John H. Harris, editor-in-chief
1100 Wilson Boulevard #610
Arlington, VA, 22209
contact page
703/647-7999
February 14 – HeartlandGate: Anti-Science Institute’s
Insider Reveals Secrets
Greg Laden’s BlogMr. Greg T. Laden
44788 265th Lane
Aitkin, MN 56431-4807
contact: greg@gregladen.com
218/678-2743
The following organizations have condoned the theft,
quoted the forged memo, or are attacking the scientists and others whose
identities were revealed by Peter Gleick. Urge them to stop, retract their
comments, and apologize for the damage they have caused:
Pacific Institute
654 13th Street,Preservation Park
Oakland, CA 94612
510/251-1600
510/251-2203 (fax)
info@pacinst.org
Greenpeace
702 H Street, NWSuite 300
Washington, D.C. 20001
202/462-1177
202/462-4507 (fax)
info@wdc.greenpeace.org
National Center for Science Education
420 40th Street, Suite 2Oakland, CA 94609-2688
510/601-7203
800/290-6006 (toll freee)
510/601-7204 (fax)
info@ncse.com
350.0rg
155 Water St 6FLBrooklyn, NY 11201
510/250-7860
jamie@350.org
Forecast the Facts
Blair Fitzgibbon202/503-6141
media@forecastthefacts.org
Citizen Engagement Laboratory
2150 Allston WayBerkeley, CA 94704
510/875-2135
info@engagementlab.org
League of Conservation Voters
1920 L Street, NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
phone: 202/785-8683
FAX: 202/835-0491
kate_geller@lcv.org
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