UPDATE2 10:45PM 2/18/12: This started as a humorous reply to the “Open Letter to Heartland” purportedly signed by several prominent climate scientists. That may be true, but it is now in doubt, as none of the signers wrote it. A PR hack from an NGO did. See below for who actually authored the letter for the Team, quite a surprise!
UPDATE: I was offline and used my cellphone to post the comic above, and wasn’t able to add more at the time.
If anyone is wondering what this is in response to, read this letter from The Team, plus my response below:
An Open Letter to the Heartland Institute
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.
We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said.
Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.
So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.
We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.
These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative sources agree on these points.
What businesses, policymakers, advocacy groups and citizens choose to do in response to those facts should be informed by the science. But those decisions are also necessarily informed by economic, ethical, ideological, and other considerations.While the Heartland Institute is entitled to its views on policy, we object to its practice of spreading misinformation about climate research and personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.
We hope the Heartland Institute will begin to play a more constructive role in the policy debate.
Refraining from misleading attacks on climate science and climate researchers would be a welcome first step toward having an honest, fact-based debate about the policy responses to climate change.
Ray Bradley, PhD, Director of the Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts
David Karoly, PhD, ARC Federation Fellow and Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia
Michael Mann, PhD, Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University
Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona
Ben Santer, PhD, Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Gavin Schmidt, PhD, Climate Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Kevin Trenberth, ScD, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Source: this letter
==================================================
Here’s a reminder to these scientists who signed the letter.
Heartland has invited many of you and others to Heartland Climate conferences. There’s always been a standing open invitation in addition to the direct personal ones offered. With the exception of one scientist not listed here, Dr. Scott Denning, none of you accepted. He had the integrity and courage to engage us where you do not.
You might be surprised to find that he was warmly welcomed.
Therefore, don’t lecture us on the need for “civil debate about climate change policy options” when you don’t even bother to engage when invited. Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen were invited to the Heartland NYC Climate conferences, both times, and could not be bothered to make a short trip a few blocks in their offices to do so.
Hearing he had declined Heartland’s formal invitation in 2008, I made a personal appeal to Dr. James Hansen through a mutual contact for the first NYC conference, and even offered to send a car uptown for him. Of course that was declined as well.
Fellows, if you want open debate, lift a finger to make it happen when invited. Otherwise, please don’t presume to have the high ground and lecture us when you have no moral basis for doing so by your own inaction.
-Anthony Watts
UPDATE2:
Can’t you guys even write your own letters when you sign them? Or did you sign them at all?
Document properties of the open letter here:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2012/02/17/heartland.pdf
Look who Aaron Huertas is: http://aaronhuertas.com/
This is a personal Web page for Aaron Huertas. I’m a resident of Washington, DC and am employed as a press secretary at the Union of Concerned Scientists. My interests include communicating science and the ongoing interaction between our genetic ancestry and our modern technological society. I also watch a ton of TV series.
Looks like UCS might have cooked this up and got the team to sign off on it. Or maybe just sent it as PR with no formal approval. Why else would UCS be involved if this was a letter from these scientists?
Maybe Gavin used his credit card to pay for this. Kenji is displeased, not only about his membership dues being used for this, but for the fact he still (months since Oct11) hasn’t received his UCS mousepad that he paid an extra $10 for.
And they wonder why many in the world have trust issues with climate scientists?
With all due respect to Josh, he should have left this one alone.
The original is even funnier than the spoof.
“…we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science…”
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/scientists-emails-stolen-heartland-institute-1372.html
Translation:
We object to those who criticize our work.
Good to see that the Union of Concerned Scientists is always on hand to politic. (I fondly remember their proclamations back in the ’80’s that the Reagan’s missile defence system was a science fiction fantasy – “it would be like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet” – they would proclaim. Some decades later such anti-missile systems are now in active deployment.)
How much research does HI pay for?
How many satellites does it launch?
How much data does it process from paper copies?
How much does HI increaase the sum of human knowledge?
How much do the directors make:
e.g.
Latreece Reed $91,164
Eli Lehrer $155,150
Vince Galbiati $125,000
Jim Lakely $81,113
Sam Karnick $92,700
Diane Bast $96,512
Joseph Bast $160,000
Kevin Fitzgerald $113300
How much do CRU employees make:
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/71-of-cru-salaries-paid-by-grants/
Academic, Teaching and Research
Professor £54133 to £125000
Reader £45336 to £57431
Research and Analogous 9 £45336 to £57431
Research and Analogous 7 £29972 to £37990
Research and Analogous 6 £23661 to £31798
But their total Cost of Salaries and Employment
Academic,teaching and research £231945
Research and analogous £298755
I loved it! It’s a classic and may it be seen around the world many times over.
Question for A Fizz~ Were you Sisyphus in a previous life?
Alan, very plausibly you are almost correct.
Read sentence-by-sentence, the Open Letter to the Heartland Institute is a chain of carefully crafted factual assertions, such that each link in the chain can (if necessary) be proved-beyond-doubt as factual in a British libel court … and the seven signers of the letter are eager to present their proofs in a court-of-law.
Indeed, online-copies of the Open Letter already include links to the factual evidence.
Not wishing to be caught in the middle (as the sole defendant with deep pockets) it appears that the London Guardian has simply deleted the Open Letter from its web pages, and other news media have become exceedingly wary of printing the letter in its entirety … even WUWT has not done so.
Why would the Heartland Institute elect to sue The London Guardian, in full knowledge that (after a long battle) they likely will lose on-the-facts? For one simple reason: when it comes to attracting wealthy donors, all publicity is good publicity.
For this reason, it appears that the assertions in the Open Letter to the Heartland Institute have become the journalistic equivalent of a case of sweating dynamite … an unstable explosive that nobody wants stand near … or else (from the seven scientist-signers’ point-of-view) a genie of provable truth that is newly escaped from servitude to for-hire publicists.
WUWT, indeed?
A physicist says:
February 18, 2012 at 3:42 pm
“it was good to see that the scientists/signers regard this theft as a serious matter, to be condemned outright as “stealing” pure-and-simple … and rightly so.
There are plenty of folks (me for one) who neither regard theft lightly, nor treat it as a joking matter, because theft threatens the polity that is essential to the responsible working of democracy.”
Let me get this quite clear. This theft is the information from HI (Heartland Institute) a privately funded organisation whose information is proprietory. Not a publiocly funded organisation whose funds come from the taxpayer and which should therefore be subject to public scrutinity.
In that case I agree with them!
Keith W. says:
February 18, 2012 at 3:45 pm
“Wow, is there a disconnect there or what. Heartland had private documents stolen, but none of those indicate any criminal or even questionable activities. Some of the documents were already in the public milieu. The only document in Fakegate that had a questionable content was rather obviously fraudulent.
These guys compare this to the Climategate releases, all because the emails were “stolen”. They make no claim that any of the emails are fraudulent, and many emails call for illegal acts by the recipients. But it is the same type problem.
Pull the other one, guys, its got bells on it.”
They can claim all they want that the Climategate emails were stolen. Give us, or even the Norfolk Constabulary, the evidence that they were stolen.
UNDERSTAND, there is no evidence. Therefore that claim is FALSE.!! This is more BS.
Hilarious!
OT, but talk about kicking a hornet’s nest. Look at this prog thought-leader’s piece in support of Mann’s new creation: 8 to 2 con in comments. I lurk there. nothin like this ever:
http://motherjones.com/environment/2012/02/climate-scientist-michael-mann-video
The “London Guardian”?
No it was the Manchester Guardian.
Back then, it used to be a newspaper, sadly no more. It was also christened, the “Grauniad”, that well known anagram, by Private Eye, (I think actually Christopher Monckton,) because it usually had all the right letters but in the wrong order.
It hasn’t been considered as a newspaper for quite a few years now. As I recall, since it moved to London.
It’s still not the “London Guardian”, any more than the Times is the “London Times”!
DaveE.
physicist, the case would simply be based on the bad motives attributed in the faked document as being deliberately designed to denigrate Heartland and the Guardian’s dissemination of those without due care to verify the validity of the document and without subsequent correction and retraction when the document was both denied by Heartland and discredited by independent investigations. The slanted motives and wording are defamatory. The bare facts abstracted from the other documents are not relevant and anyway public.
Another thing I will probably never understand…
Why is asking questions and wanting to know the answers to contrary evidence, attacking the science.
I thought that was what science was all about!
DaveE,
How the mighty have fallen! Josh is so sensitive!!!!
Alan, the problem with *that* theory is that The Guardian’s reporters are taking scrupulous care to never quote from (or even mention) any of the purloined Heartland documents. Moreover, these same reporters describe the seven-scientist Open Letter to the Heartland Institute only obliquely, as “a letter made available exclusively to the Guardian” … the reporters thereby carefully disclaim any responsibility on the part of The Guardian for the Open Letter’s contents.
Elevator Summary: The Guardian’s coverage of the Heartland kerfuffle is scrupulously founded upon facts that can be independently verified and defended in court … and is adequately juicy none-the-less.
LOL – Thanks Josh!
A physicist says:
February 18, 2012 at 3:42 pm
And links to this Union of Concerned Scientists propaganda!
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/scientists-emails-stolen-heartland-institute-1372.html
Laugh even harder. !
“The Guardian’s coverage of the Heartland kerfuffle is scrupulously founded upon facts that can be independently verified and defended in court … and is adequately juicy none-the-less.”
Oh really?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/15/leaked-heartland-institute-documents-climate-scepticism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/heartland-institute-microsoft-gm-money
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/16/heartland-institute-fundraising-drive-leaked?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/17/heartland-institute-fresh-scrutiny-tax?newsfeed=true
Nice “Guardian in the bear trap” collection, Robert.
A physicist, I guess I wouldn’t want you doing the research for my legal defense team.
A decent fine upstanding crowd.
Ray Bradley, David Karoly, Michael Mann, Jonathan Overpeck, Ben Santer, Gavin Schmidt, and Kevin Trenberth = The Climategate crowd! Enough said!!!!!
The seven people who signed this letter to the Heartland institute can be said, fairly I think, to have between them about the longest USA (and sometime Australian) history of ‘unhappy science’ in the sense that their writings are often quite negative and scarcely contain a kind word for the very many people who are right now beavering away at improvement of the science. Say a word against the concept of CAGW and this team leaps into action, attacking other scientists.
Yet there is a phrase in the letter ‘…we object to its practice of spreading misinformation about climate research and personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.’
On the topic of misinformation, there are fairly common reports that one or more of the signatories is profiting privately from the promotion of the type of climate science promoted by them in the letter. In the interests of openness, would each of the signatories be cooperative by signing an affirmation that, apart from their normal salaried incomes, none of them is making money by promoting man-made global warming scientific concepts?
I can start by saying that after a few man-years of climate science work of my own, I have not received a cent for the effort, not even salary. Can you guys state along similar lines, in the spirit of openness?
Extremely well thought out, Anthony.
In my simpler words….they appear to believe themselves above it all…Monarchs, Royalty.
They deign to even send a Viceroy when invited.
So, Aaron Huertas wrote it but didn’t sign it. I wonder if any of the ostensible signatories were even aware they’d signed anything before it appeared in the Guardian? Maybe Mr. Huertas has their power of attorney… it would certainly simplify things when urgent action is required.
I don’t expect “The Team” to write their own smear letters. They are much too busy and important, and why bother when they have eager lefty NGOs to handle much of the dirty work.
“Progressive” lefty advocacy groups like UCS have operated like this for a great many years. As we have seen many times on climate and IPCC issues, the NGOs and the “climate scientists” are often joined hip to hip.
I would not assume the initiative came from UCS, though. Any of the signatories is quite capable of have close working relations with UCS, such that it would seem natural to say “he we gotta send a letter, can your PR man cook one up for us?”
A physicist says:
February 18, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Thanks for the Union of Concerned Scientists link.
I may have hurt myself laughing so hard.
Anywhere that open letter can be found Aaron Huertas.appears as the author.
Laugh !
It may be worth noting that the “created” and “modified” times are identical, suggesting that text (from an email, for instance) may simply have been copy-and-pasted into a fresh MS Word doc. It would be a rare letter of any length, especially for multiple signatories, that would not go through some amount of revision.
Thus, I am guessing that one or more of the signatories may actually have drafted and circulated text (although of course it could have been Huertas), and then used the NGO simply as their PR agent to submit to the media. It still raises “interesting” questions about what the relationships are among the scientists, UCS, and the Guardian, and especially why the Guardian would not disclose the involvement of UCS if they received the letter via that route. Or if Huertas sent the MS Word file to one of the scientists for forwarding to the Guardian, why exactly was the UCS flack involved at all?
It’s worth probing the cozy relations among UCS, these seven scientists, and the Guardian (a leftist publication by definition), but I would not assume that the scientists were not involved with drafting the letter. Presumably one drafts such a letter after some amount of email or phone discussion and then circulates it….. Still, it’s fun to know of the “hidden” undisclosed involvement of a politicized advocacy group such as UCS where pretensions of pure disinterested science were on such flagrant display.