This short post by Bolt really says it all:
If the sceptics’ conspiracy was real, why fake the evidence?
The problem with the great international conspiracy of climate sceptics is that it’s so small and innocent that a disappointed warmist who steals documents from the Heartland Institute finds they must fake the main one to get media attention.
Sounds a bit like their tree-ring research.
Yes, says JoNova, let’s please look at who’s funding who in the climate zoo.
==============================================================
From my perspective, it looks like an act of desperation on the part of DeSmog blog:
Source: Alexa analysis
Meet the man, assistant DeSmogger Brendan De Melle, who took a whole hour to get the documents online from the time received. Speed is more important than fact checking in journo-lism I suppose.
An entire hour. No rush to judgement by this guy.
Desmog = BC Power (un)Smart…
LOL
I just typed this in the desmogblog contact box:
“Our lawyers will feast upon your carcasses.”
Catchy, eh?
I suspect this is why they have now changed their tactics and predict everything. Faster, slower, warmer, colder, wetter drier, etc. This is also why they change their propaganda slogan from Catastrophic Anthropogenic (Runaway) Global Warming.
Long live warmcold.
Forgot to add:
propaganda slogan from Catastrophic Anthropogenic (Runaway) Global Warming to Climate Change.
John Silver says:
February 17, 2012 at 8:29 am
“I just typed this in the desmogblog contact box:
“Our lawyers will feast upon your carcasses.”
Catchy, eh?”
Oh come on. Now they’ll write another whiny post about death threats.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21486-leaked-files-expose-heartland-institutes-secrets.html
Beesaman says:
February 17, 2012 at 4:20 am
“The story has vanished from the main BBC science/enviro page and even Mr Black has buried it with an unusual flurry of ‘other’ news on his BBC blog.”
Ah yeah. I wondered what’s going on. He’s normally much slower.
They were true before they were false. So as a part of their Propaganda Op., the Warmista will still refer to the debunked “smears” down the road as though they are true. Hey, it’s Climate Science!
TTY says
How many different types or brands of scanners, drivers, and toolkits are there in the world?
How many versions does each have?
How many builds does each version have?
It took about 1 minute to find 10 versions of “Adobe XMP Core”
4.2.1-c041, 52.342996, 2008/05/07-20:48:00
4.2.2-c063, 53.351735, 2008/07/22-18:11:12
4.0-c321
4.1-c036, 46.276720, Mon Feb 19 2007 22:40:08
4.2.1-c043, 52.372728, 2009/01/18-15:08:04
4.0-c320
3.1-702
4.2.2-c063, 53.352624, 2008/07/30-18:12:18
4.0-c316
5.2-c001 ( 32 bit ) 5.2.1.10630
When you consider the number of vendors, versions, updates, etc., there must be thousands of possibilities.
This may not be a smoking gun, but it is surely smoldering.
Astonishing things happen. One of the tweets of Richard Black he uses to guide the audience away from his own blunder links to Mother Jones
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/02/heartland-institute-documents-climate
and that is the most astonishing thing I ever saw on MJ – after shortly dissing Heartland an entire fundraising e-mail by Heartland is reproduced verbatimm – they practically give Heartland a platform!
Mindmelt on the left.
As Dan Rather once said, “the document may be fake, but what it says must be true”
Richard Black should take care that he doesn’t share Rather’s fate.
The comment about fitting with the worldview of journalists is quite true. I worked as a news camaeraman and whenever I said that global warming was a hoax I was shouted down.
Interestingly I wrote to the BBC about a Roger Harrabin article, and he replied:
From: NewsOnline [mailto:newsonline@bbc.co.uk]
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 11:42 AM
To:geoftw@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Complaint Reply Required
The phrase here is major…
If the US adminstration declares unequivocally that mankind is driving the majority of recent change and the IPCC says it’s 90% certain, then the major debate is over the anthropogenic nature of recent warming, athough a few still beg to differ.
Roger Harrabin
—–Original Message—–
From: geoftw@gmail.com [mailto:geoftw@gmail.com]
Sent: 06 July 2007 12:22
To: NewsOnline Complaints
Subject: Complaint Reply Required
{Date:} 06/07/2007
{Feedback Type:} Complaint
{Title:} Mr
{First Name:} Geof
{Last Name:} Thorpe-Willett
{Email:} geoftw@gmail.com
{Phone:}
{Postcode:}
{Country:} England
{About:} General
{Network:}
{Programme Name:}
{Transmission Date:}
{Comments:}
Dear sir, the following paragraph from the story is incorrect:
In the UK, people are saturated by climate change messages, but still (according to Mori research this week) wrongly think that scientists are locked in major debate about its causes.
The scientific community is still debating this issue, so for your correspondent to say otherwise comes across as partisan. Please report, don’t decide for us.
{Reply:} yes
{Under13:} no
There were several comments in the related WUWT posts that pointed out the need to focus on more important issues and to resist the temptation to mire WUWT and the Science in banal muse. Yet, from the FakeGate episode, several interesting issues and one important concern emerged.
The take-away, for me, relates to the information that IS finding its way into K-12 classrooms and the concern it may not be factually correct. If Federal and State educational funding is being diverted to deliver a slanted view, we’re in for a much bigger problem down the road which is likely to kill inspiration in problemistic forecasting.
Anthony’s data visualization tool proposal is conceptually beyond reproach. I hope it will be 3D and insightful.
The other funding proposal isn’t logical from my perspective. It would be far more logical to first determine and evaluate the integrity of K-12 educational material related to Climate before launching a Skeptic vs “fill in the blank” view of climate change.
In my opinion, the educational proposal before Heartland should be rejected in favor of analysis. If NASA, one of the principal educational vehicles to K-12, is doing a fantastic job related to the subject matter, its far more beneficial to support their effort. If not, isn’t it far more beneficial to the student to help NASA correct the errors?
I’m a little unclear on the ethics involved here. Should we as skeptics be proud of the fact that “our” data thief is more ethical than *their* data thief? All those thousands of emails in CGI & II, and never a suggestion by anyone that even one of them were a fake or altered. The alarmists can’t steal a handful of documents without putting a cuckoo in the nest.
Cue an environmental blitz by the BBC, all aimed at nefarious conservative governments or groups hell bent on destroying the Earth.
Of course none of this has anything to do do with the BBC trying to bury an embarrassing story about Warmist loonies faking documents and the BBC taking it hook, line and sinker!
With regard to the Canadian scientists, maybe, just maybe the government is trying to stop yet more job destroying scare stories by scientists who are often immune from the ravages of their ill thought out press releases. But then some scientists aren’t publicity seeking self publicists are they? No, of course not!
I think I now have a much clearer idea as to what is considered “sound science” by Mann, Hansen, Trenberth, Karl and Santer. And Phil Jones.
geo says:
February 17, 2012 at 9:46 am
“All those thousands of emails in CGI & II, and never a suggestion by anyone that even one of them were a fake or altered.”
You haven’t been keeping up. In fact, Anthony bent over backwards to maintain that the CG e-mails had to be vetted, and admonished us repeatedly not to make any conclusions until time had shown that they held up.
The situation is not symmetric at all.
Of course, let us not forget the Grantham Institute funding for Lord Stern et al. at the LSE. He may be a good money manager, but science is not his long suit.
Oh, the one about dissuading the teaching of science in school. Great catch! Considering the modules they were developing was about science in schools.
A suggestion for anyone with more free time than I have right now: the SmogBlog (ok, deSmogBlog) and others who flogged this fake story deserve much more critical scrutiny.
People who are so manifestly incompetent will likely have some other howlers in their web propaganda history!
If Roger Black is as pure as the driven snow, then why did he not contact Watts before hitting the publish button? THIS is what he’s supposed to do as a journalist.
Getting caught is a bitch especially if they have to explain themselves in court under oath.
Olen says: “especially if they have to explain themselves in court under oath.”
I can’t see how this is not going to end up in court.
John from CA says:
February 17, 2012 at 9:41 am
“In my opinion, the educational proposal before Heartland should be rejected in favor of analysis. If NASA, one of the principal educational vehicles to K-12, is doing a fantastic job related to the subject matter, its far more beneficial to support their effort. If not, isn’t it far more beneficial to the student to help NASA correct the errors?”
John,
You are entitled to your opinion. In response to your question ” If not, isn’t it far more beneficial to the student to help NASA correct the errors?”, the answer is emphatically ‘NO’. In my experience, when governmental agencies or private companies have demonstrated a propensity to ‘shade the truth’ (or the analyses), the most effective solution is to stick a 2-pronged fork into them!
The first prong is creating a competitive source for the goods or services being provided by the ne’er do wells. Anthony’s proposal serves that mission admirably!
The second prong is investigation of the ne’er do wells, to expose their malfeasance and cut off further funding of the deceits and deceivers! It is high time for NASA to be investigated and purged of all and any of the environmental politicized dreck that is not directly associated with aerospace or astrospace exploration.
MtK
The guy looks like a trust fund hippie to me. What about all the “soft funding” the warmistas get from the media? I guess that don’t count. How about all those grants for research that are destroying the objectivity of science in order to sell a false proposition? How about a rule that grants must be equally devided between pro and con research to determine which side of an issue can produce the most creative scientific liars? Although I think that is kind of what’s going on right now only the pro AGW crowd is getting more $$$ and are bigger liars to boot.