Josh from CartoonsbyJosh.com writes:
Another ‘Gate’ – but this one turned round and bit the owner.
Leo Hickman and co at the Guardian thought they had a bona fide leak of incriminating
information on the funding of climate skeptics by the Heartland Institute.
Two problems, the funding turns out to be rather small beer, especially in comparison to the vast sums of money paid to promote Climate Change Alarmism. Secondly it looked like the funds were going to fund scientists and with another trenche for a website to explain climate science research.
Hardly a surprise, and not exactly incriminating. It is what the Heartland does after all.
Third problem. The most incriminating document was a fake.
So now it has become know as Fakegate. Ouch.
Great comment by Lucia here, summary and comment by Judith here and lots at
BishopHill, here, here and here, and WUWT, here and here, and even one at Roy Spencers.
And here is the cartoon:
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It would be “quite funny”, if the “leak’ came from a Penn State server.
[REPLY: It would, but evidence seems to point to the west coast and anything else is unfounded speculatiuon. -REP]
A physicist says:
February 16, 2012 at 1:53 pm
> Sites like SkS already have abandoned the HeartlandGate story to cover
> a science-first story. And that (IMHO) is what WUWT should do too.
Many people have pointed out that Anthony was targeted by this action. Conversely, SkS was not, there’s nothing for them to rebut or analyze. My guess is we’ll be back to dealing with the regular trolls in no time at all.
(p.s. sorry about a near duplicate post earlier – too many windows open!)
One other thing about the 990 that shows it was available to warmists some time ago:
Go to sourcewatch.org, find Heartland Institute page – there’s a section about the 2010 990. No click History, and you will see reference to the 2010 990 – the one in question – was added on 18th January 2012.
Lessee, timing-wise, the Heartland insider likely looked up the form 990 between January and a couple days ago.
Interesting, footnote 42 of http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute says “Heartland Institute 2010 IRS Form 990, IRS Filing, accessed January 18, 2012”. I grant it to the conspiracy theorists.
Hmm, “Conference funding
2009: Sponsors’ main funder is Scaife
An analysis of the 2009 conference sponsors’ corporate-and-foundation funding revealed 78% was from the Scaife foundations[27] of Richard Mellon Scaife.”
Being a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University (where I spent a lot of time in Scaife Hall), I’m sorry I missed that conference. I was at the 4th and 6th, very good events.
Who the heck is “A scientists?” And where did he learn grammar? or is this a reference the “A ark” scientists instead of the “B ark” Doug Cotton seems to think we’re all on?
Don’t worry, physicist, this one’s not going away. Heartland and its employees and donors whose privacy was carelessly violated by the morons in the BBC and at DeSmog will be keeping this one alive in the courts and the news for years to come. Do you by any chance know what happenned to that visiting quack William Connolley, and why “one of Canada’s most respected public-relations professionals,” DeSmog’s James Hoggan, has been so quiet all day?
A physicist says:
February 16, 2012 at 3:45 pm
” So it’s hard to understand why WUWT is doing more than most web sites to keep the “HeartlandGate” story alive.”
“Nothin’ to see here!”, eh Fizz? Shameless shill…….
So is there a reason the desmogblog has not posted anything since yesterday? I think there is something going on…………trouble in paradise perhaps.
A scientists says:
February 16, 2012 at 5:57 pm
“To the best of my knowledge, not even one science-minded weblog . . .”
science-minded weblog
Your words, not mine!
Which raises the question: What is the relationship, then, of Desmogblog and SkS to science? Clearly, in your mind, they are not science-minded.
Richard Black lists himself as “Environment correspondent” and to the best of my knowledge “environment” is still somewhat related to science. Black’s comment [15 February 2012 Last updated at 16:45 ET] about Anthony’s project is flat-out wrong.
Warmista shills like A Fizz only object to “gotchas” when they’re the ones getting got. “I have principles, ….”
@Ric Werme
There is also this comment made at Forbes on 12th of January by another warmist:
“I wonder, however, if Taylor would publish the list of who really DOES fund the Heartland Institute. It seems to be a secret — no information is listed on their website about actual contributors of that $7 million budget that they use to deny the reality of climate change (and previously, the health effects of tobacco — their other focus). And their 990 tax form doesn’t say either. [By the way, while my Forbes posts reflect my personal opinion and not the opinion of the Pacific Institute, all of the Pacific Institute’s financial records are public.]“
Of course all this proves (along with Source Watch) is the 2010 Heartland Inst. form 990 was in the hands of warmists more than a month before it’s supposed leak.
There are plenty of folks who foresee that the climate-change debate will be settled on a basis of sober-minded mathematics, science, engineering, and economics — not content-free kerfuffles arising from hacked emails and purloined business documents.
On the other hand, there’s no shortage of folks who like kerfuffles, eh?
Here is the source of that comment – comment 1 under the article – made on 12th January
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/01/12/please-global-warming-alarmists-stop-denying-climate-change-and-science/
A physicist seems to think that since DeSmogBlog, SS and RealClimate now want to drop this hot potato, we all should forget about it and get on with our lives…
I assume that this means that the aforementioned blogs have then all posted retraction to let their regular readers know that this was all a fictitious smear campaign?
Even Joe Romm thought the doc was fake – said he thought it was an Onion piece.
And all of the DeSmog people have seemed to have gone eerily silent. Not to mention one Peter Gleick not being heard from – and him being an long time critic of Heartland and all …
a physicist – “and the lead SkS story focuses on concrete energy balance issues in the deep-versus-shallow ocean.”
So, pause for a second, as SkS hasn’t, and consider their finding. They have found that the surface temperatures on the ocean have “flatlined” while the deep oceans are warming. So how does the heat bypasses the cooling upper ocean and go straight to the deep ocean? Hell, it is bypassing the atmosphere as well since it isn’t warming either… yet somehow the CO2 fails to warm the atmosphere, and the upper ocean…. and warms the deep oceans?
Ummm… start figuring out how that happens. We’ll be over here laughing at SkS when you are ready with your answer.
Yep some lawyers are being paged at Desmogblog and Deepclimate….you can just tell.
I went over the “fake” document yesterday and was just floored at how obvious it was. It was not just a fake but a really bad attempt at one.
We should make the fake document the official mascot of all the warmers. It is the perfect analogy. It references semi-truisms and distorts them in a way that fits their narrative. I wonder if someone could make a plot chart out of the fake memo…………….see where I am going with this?
A physicist says:
February 16, 2012 at 7:23 pm
“There are plenty of folks who foresee that the climate-change debate will be settled on a basis of sober-minded mathematics, science, engineering, and economics — not content-free kerfuffles arising from hacked emails and purloined business documents….”
Presumably these are the folks you mentioned earlier at SkS and RealClimate. So how exactly making up shit about people qualify as “sober-minded mathematics, science, engineering, and economics”?
Josh’s cartoons are a very powerful communications medium. Not only is a picture worth a thousand words, it makes boobs out of arrogant advocates of junk science.
“Not to mention one Peter Gleick not being heard from”
Be kind to Gleick, he probably never read the document before he commented anyway.
A Phys:
It’s easy to check that the “HeartlandGate” stories on SkS and RealClimate never did contain any personal criticism of Anthony….
Son of a gun, you’re right! It’s easy to check. From SkS (borrowed from the smogger):
Confirmation that skeptic blogger Anthony Watts is part of Heartland’s funded network of misinformation communicators.
Hmm. Calling someone a paid liar who works in a network with other liars might be taken by some as personal criticism….
Also, funny enough, Skeptical Science contradicts itself because in 2010 the lack of ocean heat lead to them claiming “Ocean Heat Can’t drive Climate Change, only chase it”… see hear:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-and-global-warming.htm
So what they are seeing in the ocean now in the deep ocean, by their own argument, is the warming that has already happened. The COOLING we are seeing in the atmosphere today is the cooling we will see in the oceans down the road.
Whoops.
Sounds like DeSmogBlog proprietor James Hoggan’s “award winning social media team”, which works “with major corporations, government agencies and the non-profit sector” http://www.hoggan.com/services/social-media to
“…help clients identify the optimum frame and establish it in the public mind. In a crisis, we can help lift a story out of a frame that might have been set up by critics.” http://www.hoggan.com/services/framing-messaging may have had a Hamas-like “workplace accident.”
“At Hoggan we think of media in the same way we think about fireworks: we love them both, but we are conscious of the need to handle them with care and make sure nobody drops the match at the wrong time.” http://www.hoggan.com/services/media-relations/media-relations
With the Hoggan’s own company’s profits coming from Shell Oil, Alcoa, road construction, real estate development, fast food chains, video game producers amongst others and with the foundation money for DeSmog provided by the convicted money launderer http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/01/16/us-crime-neteller-idUSN1622302920070116 and fellow David Suzuki Foundation Director, John Lefevbre (whose fortune derived from illegal offshore gambling services) it looks like they may be requiring their own services.
Then DeSmogBlog Editor, Richard Littlemore, the journalist who splits his career ” between magazine journalism, activism and politics and corporate communications” , can get back to his workaday manifesto of “slamming the climate sceptic scam”. http://desmogblog.com/slamming-the-climate-skeptic-scam
I wrote yesterday that the fraud was breathtakingly stupid but am having second thoughts. The person or groups who did the impersonation to obtain the Heartland documents and then wrote the fake document knew that the Anthony and the folks at WUWT and numerous other skeptic blogs would quickly deconstruct the fraud, because that’s what the quick minds here do. But they also knew that the media would jump on this story and start spreading the slime immediately. That of course creates a back-story of dubious methods and dishonesty that will now be linked to their intended targets: skeptics in general and Anthony in particular.
So what we are left with are references and innuendos, that will survive on the internet, that will serve to smear Anthony and his projects to any credulous third parties (i.e. most of the intellectual elites who are trying to mold society for our own good). So, object achieved.
There must be lawsuits and legal action over this outright libel and the people who, in the wake of the News of the World scandal have no compunction about using similar methods to achieve their self-serving ends.
This is no Friday funny.
A physicist says:
February 16, 2012 at 7:23 pm
“ . . .the climate-change debate will be settled on a basis of sober-minded mathematics, science, engineering, and economics . . .”
a) So it hasn’t been settled yet;
b) If the Dismal Science is involved, we’re in big trouble,
c) Data will settle the debate and as of now here is what it shows:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_January_2012.png
d) the issue is not “climate-change” but the rush toward massive and ineffective disruptions to a few developed societies based on catastrophic scenarios.
e)Get over the “climate-change” label. The last glacial advance, now mostly gone, is accepted fact. Then we had settlements in Greenland and grapes in England. These disappeared with a cooling climate. And so it goes. If you phrase the issue as – Are immediate “catastrophic” disruptions to people’s lives and livelihoods reasonable based on current understanding of climate change?, then you might begin to understand why so many folks have begun to push-back on this.