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?
You-all are reading too much into Aaron Huertas’s name in the document metadata. Happens all the time – you grab a Word doc with the right format, delete all the content (but not the metadata), rewrite it, and send it on. Proves nothing except someone who once received a document from Huertas sent it to someone who sent it to someone who sent it to the team.
Slashdot is the largest on-line forum in the world for software folks. So it’s bad public relations for the Heartland Institute when today’s lead story of Slashdot is this one:
Regardless of whether Slashdot has got the story right, the perception is spreading like wildfire among America’s technorati that: (1) Heartland is clueless about how public debate really works, and (2) Heartland’s strategy of threatening the entire blogosphere with lawsuits is dumb.
Most shocking of all – he is running OSX 10.5… Leopard….
Get with the times matey 10.8 Mountain Lion is round the corner.
i have to agree with the troll that heartland’s wolf tickets are a sign of weakness and cluelessness.
talking is to not.do
do it, heartland – stop threatening like an impotent child.
winning is very different from what you are doing by feeding talking points to trolls. you can’t scare people on the internet – heck, your threats are less impressive than you seem to imagine and where they do impress, it’s not on the dimension you imagine.
talk is cheap. don’t be cheap.
did john wayne and clint eastwood get all huffington and then do nothing or did they stfu and just do it and let everybody else talk about it? take a lesson from our romantic american heroes portrayed in the art of an earlier age. ppl who already grew some don’t threaten. people who are actual credible threats don’t use their lips on the enemy.
i’m dead sure nobody contributes to heartland that they may generate talking points for cagw trolls to flog them with. that’s to lose. we want a winner.
A physicist says
February 18, 2012 at 8:52 pm
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.
Good heavens!! That’s a first for them!
Phil C wrote: “Who is the intended audience for these conferences and who ends up attending them?” That’s easy. Anyone who wants to learn how fake scientists flip the signs on proxies (upside down Tiljander), use bad proxies (stripped bark trees), and overweight proxies (the ONE lonely Yamal tree) in order to get a hockey stick. HIDE THE DECLINE baby.
Rod McLaughlin says:
February 19, 2012 at 8:51 am
“You-all are reading too much into Aaron Huertas’s name in the document metadata. Happens all the time – you grab a Word doc with the right format, delete all the content (but not the metadata), rewrite it, and send it on. Proves nothing except someone who once received a document from Huertas sent it to someone who sent it to someone who sent it to the team.”
Why not just ask Aaron. His writing style seems to match.
A physicist says:
February 19, 2012 at 9:11 am
“Typical Slashdot Comment: “The Heartland people are making themselves look bad with these silly threats, which will lose them the sympathy they should get as victims of a forgery-based smear job.”
Regardless of whether Slashdot has got the story right, the perception is spreading like wildfire among America’s technorati”
Uh huh huh. And the significance of slashdot these days is what compared to when they were practically the only news blog?
A physicist
February 19, 2012 at 9:11 am
###
/. is populated by a bunch of whiny self important collage brats that have swallowed the leftist propaganda fed to them by them by their Marxist professors. The only reason to read /. is to find out the latest techniques and lies being used to brainwash our children.
A read of the comments to the link you provided proves that they are written mostly by mindless zombies who have no understanding of what is going on. But most lefties fall into this category.
Let us apply the “fake but accurate” meme to real life and see how it works for you. The company you work for is going to start issuing fake but accurate pay checks. Discuss.
Warmist “scientists” write:
“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.”
Warmist “scientists” conclude:
“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.”
The scientists have provided these “facts” in no uncertain terms. “Human activity is a primary cause of climate change”. This claim is nothing more than supposition, and yet they present it as fact.
So in essence just believe our “facts” and then we’ll have an “honest fact-based debate” on climate policy. Could I be so bold as to suggest we come to agreement on the “facts” before we debate political policy. The definitions below should be a good start, then we can work on the oft-changing and ever-ambiguous “climate change” term.
supposition (s p-z sh n) n. 1. The act of supposing. 2. Something supposed; an assumption.
fact (derived from the Latin Factum, see below) is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be shown to
correspond to experience. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable experiments.
@mosher: “Also, looks like they are repeating a libel”
No the team is innocent.
Even if the letter repeats a libel, we know the team didn’t write it. Ergo the team is innocent!
“Slashdot is the largest on-line forum in the world for software folks.”
I quit reading Slashdot a long time ago. It is like a digital Reader’s Digest. Not much credibility.
Now for the Irony
Most of you havent read Manns book. in it mann makes a case that sceptics share a certain vocabulary. like “final nail in the coffin”
good argument mike!. the words work like proxies for the source.
“undermine” is a proxy that indicates the writer is a warmist
Jeremy says:
February 19, 2012 at 8:13 am
RE: “construction vest”
It is the man’s arrogant attitude that is twisted. These things are actually called safety vests, such as:
http://www.safetyvests.com/
Knowing a person that was killed while jogging – hit by a car on a misty gray morning – I wish she had one of these on. Many events, even recreational ones, require these now. And about once a month I encounter a jogger, walker, or biker on our local roads with an outfit that seems designed to make them blend in with the side of the road. That’s not smart.
JoNova posts this, today. Her Latest Post
Rod McLaughlin says:
February 19, 2012 at 8:51 am
Happens all the time – you grab a Word doc with the right format, delete all the content (but not the metadata), rewrite it, and send it on.
Interesting. Our first personal computer was a Vic-20. We’ve used MS-Word since it was first shipped. The only word document with the right format I’ve ever used is the one I created for such a purpose. I just supposed everyone did the same.
I guess your way would work though.
Rod McLaughlin says:
February 19, 2012 at 8:51 am
You-all are reading too much into Aaron Huertas’s name in the document metadata. Happens all the time – you grab a Word doc with the right format, delete all the content (but not the metadata), rewrite it, and send it on. Proves nothing except someone who once received a document from Huertas sent it to someone who sent it to someone who sent it to the team.
Sorry, but that is nonsense. This is a PDF document, and the author in the metadata is the person who created the PDF file, not whoever wrote either the original or any later version of the source file (in this case a Word file). Incidentally that the create and modify dates are similar shows that there has been no subsequent editing of the PDF.
So what the metadata does show is that the file was created either by Aaron Huerta, or by somebody else using Aaron Huerta’s Mac.
(1)~SlashDot is the world’s most-posted and most-read technical weblog, and (2)~SlashDot decides which news stories deserve to be tagged as Streisand-Effect Stories.
As of today, “Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments On Leaked Documents” tops the Streisand-Effect List, supplanting SlashDot classics like:
• “PR Firm Unwisely Tangles With Penny Arcade”,
• “Actress Sues IMDb For Revealing Her Age”
• “Blogger Sued By Restaurant For Bad Review”
• “Lie Detector Company Threatens Critical Scientists With Suit”
• “4,000 Anti-Scientology Videos Yanked From YouTube”, and
• “YouTube Reposts Anti-Scientology Videos.”
SlashDot’s techies take a firm stand against attempts to suppress public comment.
To which liberals, conservatives, and libertarians generally say “GOOD.”
Bob says: February 19, 2012 at 11:25 am
Please don’t paint Reader’s Digest with the same broad brush stroke as Slashdot. Compared to Slashdot, RD is a paragon of virtue, on par with the respect Encyclopedia Britannica used to enjoy.
Phil C says:
February 19, 2012 at 8:09 am
Who is the you? – that refers to “these scientists who signed the letter.” Perhaps most notable is Gavin Schmidt who works at GISS in New York, site of two of the ICCCs who could have easily attended. I thought that was clear in Anthony’s response.
Dozens of scientists have attended the ICCC meetings. Roy Spencer (who debated Denning at last year’s ICCC in DC), Nils-Axel Moerner, Harrison Schmitt (the only geologist to walk on the moon and also a director of the Heartland Institute),Bill Gray, Bob Carter (one of the scientists who’ve had the most impact on me), etc. They pretty much range from defenders of the scientific method who have major concerns about the “consensus science” to people how strongly disagree with it, e.g. Moerner (sea level) and Gray (hurricane intensification). Some speakers were grad students doing things like looking at peat bogs to see if they can be used as temperature or precipitation proxies.
I’m not certain what the Heartland Institute’s vision for the intended “audience” was, but this isn’t far off the mark:
Journalists. Much media attention has been focused on things like James Hansen’s presentations to congress and his claims that NASA was trying to muzzle him, the Mann et al hockey stick, and claims that the Maldives were about to be flooded, and so on. The HI encouraged journalists to come and report on what the other side (heck, both sides) had to say.
Politicians. A couple ICCCs were held in Washington DC, all I believe granted free registration to active politicians. One of the first people I ran into in Chicago was a state rep from New Hampshire, where I live.
Scientists. While not a hardcore scientific conference, this let a lot of scientists meet other and compare notes. Not everything is covered well in papers and Email. This was especially important in the first ICCCs.
Lay people. Folks like me. My interest is just personal, Some people were sent by employers who who agreed the company might benefit from know more about the issues, etc. There are a lot of aspects about climate change where lay folks can make a contribution, much like we serve the fields of ornithology and astronomy. Someone, I think Joe Bast, made it clear to me the registration fees were a problem I should talk to people at Heartland about a reduced rate in the future.
All in all, the goals were to share information and accelerate climate study.
This is true: “Human activity is a primary cause of climate change”….of course: Theirs!
A very interesting smackdown of Peter Gleick. Could this have been the trigger for the fake document. Well worth a read.
A physicist says:
February 19, 2012 at 12:09 pm
“As of today, “Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments On Leaked Documents” tops the Streisand-Effect List, supplanting SlashDot classics like:”
So you are over there making your cute lists? Telling you what, Physicist, I used to read slashdot in 2000. It was fun back then.
““We hope the Heartland Institute will begin to play a more constructive role in the policy debate.”
… The request is quite frankly laughable. It is not meant to ‘mend fences’.
This letter resembles something like an unrepentant child would write . …”
Yes, John G, I also noticed this remarkably snippy and condescending sentence.
Between this unhelpful letter, whoever wrote it, and the “crudely faked ‘Heartland Strategy’ document” (as bladeshearer accurately describes it), the AGW crowd has done themselves no good this week. Or, as they themselves might say, they have undermined their own cause.
Here is Peter Gleick’s reply in comments.
And James Taylor [Heartland] replied further down.