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?
My guess would be that they know “stolen” the same way that they know that human generated C02 is the primary cause of global warming aka climate change: Because They’re Scientists And They Said So!
Provision of empirical evidence in support of their claims, alas, does not appear to be a concept with which they are familiar.
To all those glibly using the word ‘stealing’ as in ‘stolen emails’ they should realize that although this may be ‘common usage’ the publication of public emails held by the CRU was not ‘Theft’ in English law. That is defined as:
“A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to
another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and ‘theft’ and ‘steal’
shall be construed accordingly”
Regardless of whether these emails are public or private – CRU still had access to them after they were released to the Internet. Therefore, they were not permanently deprived of them therefore they were not ‘stolen’. There are all sorts of other laws which could be applied such as the Computer Misuse Act or the data protection legislation; but it was not stealing.
I had a lot of discussions with members of the Union of Concerned Scientists in the past about the use of PVC in hospitals. They object against its use, based on unfounded scares like dioxin releases from its manufacturing and burning (in dedicated incenerators). The first was a real lie, based on false allegations in Greenpeace reports, the latter a matter of incineration temperature and cleaning equipment, very little to do with the chlorine content of the garbage. Other “problems” were fake again: the use of phthalates to soften PVC bloodbags (which lengthens its shelf life!), which doesn’t show any harm, even after 50+ years of use for even the most intensive care. In my opinion, their “concern” is about alleged risks, not on real risks, while the risks (and the costs) of the alternatives are ignored… Quite similar to their stance against fossil fuels and the alternatives…
I liked the letter; this was from a group of people – use of the word ‘scientists’ would be a stretch – as:
1. They completely ignore the most obvious cause of climate change: Natural cycles. The geological evidence is ignored, or deemed irrelevant.
2. They distort/torture/cherry pick their data in a way totally unacceptable in any field of real science.
3. They spread unfounded exagerrated scare stories designed to perpetuate their comfortable life styles and own self-aggrandisement.
4. They refuse to debate the subject of climate science with sceptics, because they know very well they would be exposed as perpetrators of fraud.
5. They whine like stuck pigs every time their ‘science’ is shown to be flawed/fraudulent – not surprisingly, the volume of whining is little short of incredible.
6. They completely ignore the fact that the world has stubbornly refused to warm up, as predicted, over the past 12 years. Caveat: if they don’t ignore the inconvenient truth of recent zero warming, they concoct all sorts of blatantly ridiculous reasons for the lack of warming and continue to argue “warming is still happening”.
7. They design computer models where the outcome has always been pre-determined and which simply cannot ever hope to reflect the extreme complexities of global climate. The outcomes then become ‘settled science’ and self-righteous abuse is hurled at anyone who questions the validity of these models and their conclusions/findings.
8. They conduct the bureaucratic equivalent of ethnic cleansing – all those in government, or quasi-government, are forced to accept the CAGW theory as unquestionable fact. Any deviation from total acceptance of CAGW theory almost always results in dismissal or non-renewment of contracts.
9. They never consider the concept that a small increase in temperature might be beneficial – it is always bad/evil/dangerous.
10. They never consider that preparing for supposed ‘global warming’ is a lot less economically destructive than fighting it. In any event, anything we try to do to prevent ‘global warming’ will be totally insignificant and simply not worth the cost, nor the effort.
In conclusion, is it any surprise these ‘climate scientists’ are steadily losing the argument?
J Bowers says @ur momisugly February 19, 2012 at 1:55 am
What is more likely? That grammar is not the WEB site designer’s strong point or, if we’re talking about creative PR stunts that backfire, perhaps this.
They can’t even be honest when writing an open letter?
Speaking of the speculations about fakegate I found from suyts space this link to a very interesting article published on Forbes a couple of days before fakegate:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/01/12/please-global-warming-alarmists-stop-denying-climate-change-and-science/
John West:
Noting the letter’s “authoritative sources agree on these points”, you say, “Appeal to authority is no proof”.
Of course, that’s true. But, if you’re going to appeal to authority, it’s wise to be sure the authority supports your position. Amusingly, the Team have overlooked that simple precept. For example, if you follow the link to the Royal Society that the letter helpfully provides, you’ll find that the RS, in contrast to the Team’s “Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change”, is carefully nuanced about attribution. But, in particular, you’ll find that the RS says nothing at all about current disruption of “human and natural systems”. And, as for the future and how “severe those disruptions will become”, here’s are two extracts from RS document:
“… there is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change …”
“There remains the possibility that hitherto unknown aspects of the climate and climate change could emerge and lead to significant modifications in our understanding.”
These people are seriously hopeless.
And the BBC is not supposed to be biased?
http://twitter.com/#!/BBCRBlack/status/170857041412358144
Mother Jones has just published new internal Heartland emails that (as predicted) affirm Heartland’s intention to “to support litigation, starting immediately, to demand that false and defamatory material be removed from blogs and Web sites and publications.” With Heartland committing its lawyers to action, it’s understandable that The Guardian is being careful to criticize Heartland only for concrete actions that can be independently verified, as is the seven-scientist Open Letter to the Heartland Institute.
So if everyone is focusing on verifiable facts, and insisting upon a respectful public dialog, what is all the furor really about?
Well, it’s not complicated. Just as the CRU emails were embarrassing, but in the end were no big deal, the Heartland documents too are embarrassing, but in the end are no big deal.
The sooner that the Heartland Institute, and the scientists too, refocus their rational energies upon the primary mission — contributing to the strongest skeptical analysis of the strongest science — the better for everyone.
In the long run that matters to our children, kerfuffles involving stolen emails and purloined memos have precisely zero lasting significance. Which is why the main threat to our children’s generation is a foolish obsession with irrelevant kerfuffles. For the common-sense reason that Richard Feynman gave us: “Nature cannot be fooled” … and she is preparing some mighty big challenges for our children.
steven mosher says:
February 19, 2012 at 12:28 am
“Funnier still
One of the words in the fake memo that tipped me off was…
‘undermine’
thats warmist/leftist lingo”
There was also “working the climate issue”. Normal people don’t “work an issue”, but they might be “working on an issue”.
The PR representatives of these concerned scientist seem to have applied blinkers (blinders). They are all concentrating on the theft aspect, which is of course unpardonable, but are totally ignoring the forgery aspects, which in my view is a far worse sin.
Could it be that in their world that forgery is so common that they don’t see it as wrong?
As to the theft aspects of the e-mails, leaving aside the public v. private nature of the debate, the UK police have after many months failed to establish that it was in fact a theft. This must mean that it is far from clear, despite the claims of the team team and their apologists (yes A Physicist, I’m including you). If and when a theft is proven then I am sure that the culprit will get their just deserts, but until then the actual means of obtaining the e-mails is simply speculation.
In this respect it fits in with all the other “facts” mentioned by the so-called concerned scientists – speculation based on incomplete data gathered for too little time by instrumentation of variable quality and analysed by questionable statistics and then modelled by simplistic software.
From the letter from Gavin Schmidt et. al.
I have a simple question for them: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING?
Temperature standstill for 15 years and counting. Rate of sea level rise flattening. Massive snow disruptions. Himalayas’ ice Armageddon stood still for the past decade and so on. Yes there is climate change because, well, the climate has always changed and may soon change in a very negative direction to the one they predict.
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
Alarmists are doing everything they can to avoid looking at what the Climategate emails show. This attempt to equate Fakegate with Climategate is just another attempt. There truly is no comparison. It is not like trying to compare apples with oranges. It is like trying to compare apples with hand grenades.
I have some good friends who are environmentalists like myself, but who drank the Kool Aid at some point, and tend to mouth Alarmist talking-points. As we debate Global Warming they give me a good idea what the current state of Alarmist Propaganda is.
One response is to state the Climategate emails were “stolen,” and therefore are not admissible. They try to return to the year 2008, when Skeptics had a hunch bad things were going on behind the scenes, but sounded paranoid when they said so. Climategate proved the suspicions had a foundation in fact. Rather than settled, the science was corrupt.
When I refuse to ignore the Climategate emails because they were “stolen,” the next approach is to state “everyone talks that way, in private.” I then say it was not merely talk, but also action.
The third response is, “You have to expect such actions in politics.” I then say Climate Scientists should change their name to Climate Politicians.
I actually think that is the crux of the matter. The joke is that Heartlands is not pretending to be disassociated from politics. Heartlands states from the start it is an advocacy group. Climate Scientists, on the other hand, spent many years raising their palms and protesting with innocent faces that they were strictly focused on a science that was settled.
Then you get to the joke of jokes, and the real difference between Climategate and Fakegate. Climategate didn’t involve a single forged email. Fakegate has falsehood as its nucleolus.
Climategate revealed falsehood without using falsehood. Fakegate revealed falsehood by using falsehood. In both cases, all the falsehood was all on one side, the Alarmist side.
Any Alarmist who also loves truth had better stand up for truth, or they will be guilty through association.
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.
Credo, credo! I smell the burning incense. Or is it the gunpowder?
“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”
Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865
What a bunch of losers!
Heartland is privately funded. They have no obligation to disclose their operations. The CRU accepts massive amounts of government money.
Independent panels? Bull..
Also, the main document in this group was completely fabricated. What a joke.
The excellent Fenbeagle is at it again.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100138168/the-genius-of-fenbeagle-dan-daringpole-pilot-of-the-future/
The “team” or whoever wrote that follow-up letter STILL DOES NOT GET IT! Heartland is NOT A GOVERNMENT FUNDED ENTITY! The University of East Anglia is.
They, or someone who claims to represent all those people, say “We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking.” WRONG WRONG WRONG and WRONG! THOSE EMAILS ARE NOT PRIVATE INFORMATION because of the Freedom of Information Act. That one sentence shows these people do not get it! They still think what they do on taxpayer’s time should not be subject to scrutiny and supervision. These people, or at least the person who wrote that follow-up letter, are still disconnected from reality. The problem is, all of the gatekeepers — their bosses, the media, and others in charge — are helping them to stay secret in violation of the law and scientific method.
Furthermore, with Climategate, no one invented any fake letter. They didn’t have to.
Does A Pissyitch read the Grauniad?
There is no such paper as The London Guardian. Or least not one that I have heard of. The national newspaper is called simply The Guardian. It was originally The Manchester Guardian. I don’t buy it anymore partly because of their global warming stance, but they do still have at least two jounalists that I respect.
What day was this letter published? The Guardian doesn’t publish on Sunday and the letter does not appear on Saturday’s letters page.
The whole thing reminded me of saturated fat and cholesterol consumption causing heart disease theory that we as “independents” fought hard to prove that it is wrong. Last time I checked the “official” agencies still go by that stupid theory, we’ve pretty much proved them wrong. It still doesn’t matter to those agencies because it brings in billions of dollars to them.
Here is a classic one (at least for people interested in nutrition) – http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/08/06/final-china-study-response-html/ Denise Minger who only had a degree in English but apparently very sharp with numbers. China Study written by Dr. Campbell was filled with so many errors or misleading statements, Denise downloaded raw numbers and showed the errors. That literally made Campbell’s head explode. It was funny to watch how it turned out. Campbell questioned her education background and saying she doesn’t know a thing, blah, blah. Mann reminded me of Campbell. It’s just funny. Always whining that others are pointing out his mistakes, etc. The China Study is like the bible for those loony leftwing people that “felt” that we should cut back on animal food and eat more grain based food or whatever when too much of grain based food is causing obesity, heart disease, etc. See Wheat Belly Diet by cardiologist Dr. Davis. He went much farther than most cardiologists in nutrition that he was determined to figure out why people get heart disease. He used the actual science to figure it out and his patients are doing much better by simply making changes in the diet and mostly no medicines! Diabetes/heart disease can be reversed if you do it right but mainstream academia says impossible! They must use medicine! They are controlled by big pharma… lots of money.. China Study is no different than IPCC study being the bible for those people that they “feel” that we should cut back on CO2 to save the world. Pfft.
It’s always about money…
they are seriously hustling to divert the issue from ‘they forge and fake’
and, imo, if heartland fails to mount that alarmist forger’s head on a post, they are losers because the fraudsters will still retain the talking points they reiterated in that ‘open letter’, i.e., all the fakers have been declared innocent by multiple investigations.
you need a head on a post to start the chain of dominoes tumbling.
moncton talked big and did nothing when he had a slam dunk libel case. plz don’t repeat that, heartland. if you do, you will reward and reinforce the fraudulent behavior and continue to prove that the hoaxers are indeed above it all and you are not just a doormat but a doormat that bleeds the opposition of funds.
win or don’t play at this. you’re on the cusp of a defining moment. let’s see what you got – this is definitely a test of your character now.
Here’s Huertas’ review of Mann’s book and questions about his organization’s unfortunate name.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2ZM01HSJG3T5S/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0072N4U6S&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful