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?
Looks like Aaron Huertas has taken his blog down. http://aaronhuertas.com/ is unreachable. Sounds like someone with a guilty conscious.
When a PR person becomes part of the news rather than behind it then they have failed at their job.
[REPLY: No, it is still there. -REP]
While not directly related to Aaron Huertas, this just shows how sort of incestuous these organizations are when it comes to people moving about. For example, a previous Union of Concerned Scientists employee who was responsible for “online communications” for the group and now is VP of Communications for Population Action International whose goal appears to be to reduce the number of people on the planet:
So it appears that the UCS is a stepping stone to bigger and better positions within the left wing propaganda machine.
Very much worth the read … James Taylor (incidentally sr. fellow at HI for environmental policy) commiserates with Gleick’s confusion, and offers a data-based POV. Bonus — Gleick has responded! And then Taylor responds to that. Popcorn time!
One commenter, btw, says Gleick’s science qualifications consist of one undergrad humanities science survey course! Plus a certitude in his own infallibility, evidently.
[REPLY: Dr. Gleick has A Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from UCB – let’s try to avoid hearsay. -REP]
An uncharacteristically clueless thread at SlashDot: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/02/19/1539259/heartland-institute-threatens-to-sue-anyone-who-comments-on-leaked-documents
I agree with the very first comment by Jack Barnes: Satire & ridicule score a very serious goal.
Morale must be low in the Warmista camp if even their best efforts are shot to pieces by … a ….. CARTOONIST! 🙂
Brian H @ur momisugly February 19, 2012 at 1:57 pm
————
Brian H,
Thanks for the link to James Taylor (of HI) at Forbes.
Gleick’s emotion based intellectual arsenal was ineffective and self-defeating. Taylor was cool headed and his case was reasonably stated.
Let’s have a Gleick and Taylor face-to-face debate!
John
A physicist says:
Unintentionally, you have yourself just completely submarined your entire argument.
First, nobody already brainwashed by the warmists gives a crap about anything Heartland has to say. Unless is appears to be self-incriminating… so what difference could it possibly make?
Second, I am among the technorati, and /. is as relevant to me as used toilet paper. Heck, I’d rather scan through Cheezburger sites daily than waste my time on politically charged garbage sites.
Fact: if an organization is “clueless about how public debate really works”, the correct response is to ignore them, since they are their own worst enemy. That is not happening.
Who, then, is actually “clueless”?
“And they wonder why many in the world have trust issues with climate scientists?”
I have no “trust issues with climate scientists” at all, for I don’t trust them at all.
A physicist said (February 18, 2012 at 3:42 pm):
“…Anthony, when I compared the WUWT (fantasy) open letter to today’s (real) Open Letter to the Heartland Institute (authored by Ray Bradley, David Karoly, Michael Mann, Jonathan Overpeck, Ben Santer, Gavin Schmidt, and Kevin Trenberth), which appeared in The London Guardian earlier today, 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…”
Outright theft is wrong. As soon as the police find the person or persons responsible for theft of the e-mails, they’ll take action. How long has it been that they’ve been searching for clues, now? As of now, they still have no proof it WAS a theft.
But if theft is wrong, so is out-and-out fabrication of a letter. And they DO have proof that the HI letter was forged.
Let’s see which “crime” gets solved first…
Ah the Union of Concerned FRAUDSTERS! I hope to HECK this is true, because it shows us that “the team” really, REALLY.. are not boni-fide scientists any more if they do not REPUDIATE this association completely.
Back in I recall, 1988….a journal (alas now out of print) called “Opinion” magazine sent out a survey on nuclear power to 2500 people listed in the “Who’s Who of American Men and Women of Science”. (About 150,000 entries. Mostly people as University Professors in Engineering, Chemistry, Physics…medical researchers, industrial Phd’s of some note, etc.) It was on nuclear power and their attitude towards it. Aside from the STUNNING 90% support for nuclear power, there also was the matter of the STUNNING 80% return rate on the surveys. Most surveys of this type obtain about a 10 to 15% return (mailed surveys, even directed to pre-selected interest groups.)
One of the interesting little “side questions” the survey takers threw in was, “Are you now, have you been, or are you planning on becoming a member of the ‘Union of Concerned Scientists”. Of the 1800 replies, there was one AFFIRMATIVE to being a member of the UCS.
On the basis of various statistical metrics, the authors in Opinion Magazine stated that “statistically”, if this was a valid sample, less than 300 of the 150,000 in the WW of American Men and Women of Science, would be members of the UCS. (Please note the UCS, who have NEVER published any credentials, or ANY information on their members, proudly tout 50,000 plus members.)
As I recall, I believe Anthony’s DOG is a member of the UCS? I’m wondering, would HE have had something to do with this letter from the TEAM? (Or would Anthony do well to use it to line his “puppy poopie” box?)
Max
A FAKER says:
“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. ”
Hey, TROLL! I find NOTHING in the Heartland documents embarrassing. Completely VALID and to the point. The EMBARRASSING point is the FAKED PDF, which was easily dismissed as being a fake.
As far as the CRU Emails go, any 3 to 6 of them, selected out…written in the UNPROFESSIONAL CHILDISH way these immature snipes write to each other, would get MOST “professionals” fired or disciplined in the REAL “private industry” world. (I had a friend, who responded to a fellow from Australia, who (on the basis of my friends rather “Irish” sounding name..when said Aussie complained, “It’s just like an Irishman, to demand the cheapest (blank) possible, without regard to quality.” My friend responded by saying, “Since my extended time in Australia will be paid for personally…I do have reason to look for the cheapest rate. Interesting to have my ancestry questioned by someone from a country that was a formal ‘penal colony’ for the British Empire!”
The Aussie responded by sending the Email to the corporate offices (for my friend) ..end result just short of firing! (Probation for a year…after 10 years of “loyal” and dedicated service.)
So THIS is why I regard the “team” as WHINY CHILDREN to be treated as such!
Has Heartland been a user of the climatgate emails?
A physicist says:
February 19, 2012 at 12:09 pm
DirkH asks: The significance of slashdot these days is what?
(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:
===========================================
Perhaps SlashDot is as confused about the facts of the situation as you appear to be. If any news blog currently comments on what is in all likelyhood a fake document, and speaks about it as if it was real and made valid points portraying the Heartland Inst in a mendacious and evil light, they should be sued for the malicious slander they are perpetuating.
Re: Gleick v. Heartland Institute
[adaptation of comment I just made at Bishop Hill]
I don’t see much plausibility to the idea that Gleick himself could have decided to undertake an assault on HI via theft and forgery of docs. However, one of his fanatical readers could easily have been moved to such actions. He has some real nutcases “supporting” him on his blog articles.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the exchange of blog articles between Peter Gleick and James Taylor on Forbes in early Jan. is fascinating. I had managed to avoid Gleick’s writings before Fakegate erupted, but he is a real…… piece of work.
The ferocity of the dust-up with Taylor is intriguing and disturbing, and it occurred just before the theft and forgery with Heartland docs. However, I don’t see any likelihood that Gleick himself could be involved — more likely one or more of his fanatical fans. When one reads the comments war following those two Forbes blog articles, it is clear that Gleick has some CAGW acolytes who (1) do see him as the center of their world, and (2) could easily decide to “strike” out at Heartland in some decisive manner. The ferocity and obsessiveness of some of the commenters there is quite striking.
Gleick v Taylor articles:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/05/the-2011-climate-b-s-of-the-year-awards/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/01/12/please-global-warming-alarmists-stop-denying-climate-change-and-science/
Have we verified that Josh actually wrote the satirical memo? Can’t be too careful these days! 🙂
Meanwhile the AAAS meeting in Vancouver is getting full coverage by the Thomson Reuters media in Canada…
[Moderator’s Note: Links make life easier. -REP]
Let’s break this down:
#1 – Climate change is occurring. What do you expect? The implications here are the climate is not supposed to be changing. When a journalist or layman like Al Gore makes a statement like this, conscientious scientists should be pointing out the mistake. When scientists say this, it’s deliberately misleading. And yet the apologists will claim no one says the climate is not supposed to change.
#2 – Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. This is not a statement of fact, but is opinion.
#3 – Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. – As a changing climate is the natural state of affairs, this is another meaningless statement. Again, the implication is the climate is not supposed to change.
#4 – The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. And yet there is little evidence this actually is happening. There is a compelling lack of evidence that the late 20th century warm period was any warmer than any previous warming during the Holocene. There is a great deal of evidence that the MWP was warmer than the 20th century warming.
/More Soylent Green
A physicist says:
February 19, 2012 at 8:07 am
Apparently daunted by Heartland’s threats, Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) has taken down an REP press release that once conveyed a sensible message:
I looked into the Republicans for Environmental Protection a few years ago. The group was started by a guy who has worked on a number of liberal causes. It’s a RINO (Republican In Name Only) group. Not at all conservative and not at all science based.
“Skiphil says:
February 18, 2012 at 11:33 pm
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 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?”
According to Gavin Schmidt UCS was involved because “you might have a list of editors of major news organisations at your fingertips, but I don’t).” Which of course doesn’t pass the blush test. He’s written an article for the Guardian where the letter was “exclusively” released.
In regards to your observation of interesting questions, consider how quickly this letter was published – faster than the speed of light….
15.24 EST. Guardian Article with reference to letter appears. (See history)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/17/heartland-institute-fresh-scrutiny-tax?newsfeed=true
17:28 Union of Concerned Scientists Tweets their press release regarding the letter at 5:28 PM. (presumably EST tweets appear in order on my computer which is EST)
19:38 Letter written and created 2/17/2012 7:38:44 PM (presumably EST since Mr. Huertas is out of DC)
I know that timestamps can’t be fully trusted. All I can conclude is that the relationship between the realscientists, the non-profit UCS, and the Guardian is cozy indeed.
“According to Gavin Schmidt UCS was involved because “you might have a list of editors of major news organisations at your fingertips, but I don’t).” Which of course doesn’t pass the blush test. He’s written an article for the Guardian where the letter was “exclusively” released.”
Publishing an article in a newspaper does not mean you have the news organization at your fingertips.
And releasing something to news organizations before it is made public means “the relationship is cozy”? No, it’s normal PR. It’s a normal way to get more coverage by making it more “exclusive”.
This is basic stuff, dude!
There are a couple of things here I don’t understand.
1) What is the big deal about the open letter possibly being authored by Aaron Huerta? I’ve written letters and memo’s on a number of occasions that went out under someone else’s signature, including the CEO. It is no different from speech writing. Those here commenting on it do nothing more than provide fodder for those calling us wacko denialists.
2) Who in their right mind would give any credence to the Union of Concerned Scientists? Their little Doomsday clock has had the world just minutes from imminent destruction for the last 50 – 60 years. We’re still here. The UCS has always appeared to me to be a bunch of neutered pansies afraid of their own shadows. Can someone provide even one example where they have been correct in their fears and warnings?
A physicist says:
February 18, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Anthony, when I compared the WUWT (fantasy) open letter to today’s (real) Open Letter to the Heartland Institute (authored by Ray Bradley, David Karoly, Michael Mann, Jonathan Overpeck, Ben Santer, Gavin Schmidt, and Kevin Trenberth), which appeared in The London Guardian earlier today, 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.
______________________________
Hence your Social Democrat myopic fantasy: this is a R.E.P.U.B.L.I.C.
No wonder you didn’t know Mike Mann’s math makes hockey sticks when even his colleagues were running it, having it pop up just like nearly everyone else on earth who ran it.
No wonder you’ve still not grasped the staggering stupidity in thinking trees are thermometers.
No wonder you’ve still archly wearing the ‘I R straight man fer muh online cherch’ attitude of naivete at the comprehensive evil, theft, you use as cover for ‘A Democracy’.
Your criminality is no less than the people who actually spent the money fraudulently stolen using government employee status and ‘scientist’ moniker for grand larceny.
You’re just too stupid to see that no matter which band of criminopaths you usher into the working of your government, the civilization suffers from your existence more than them: if you didn’t exist, they wouldn’t have a cover for their criminality.
Not shame on you.
Darwin’s Dog: all over you
is what the people who have suffered – I haven’t – deserve
after you supported fraud and caused 3rd world nations to plant the wrong crops;
after you supported fraud and caused the world’s nations to mis-appropriate weather-related emergency mitigation funds;
after you supported fraud and caused the world’s nations to have to hear, yet again and be traumatized by, your White Men Want To Sterilize the Extra Brown People in the Name of Prius and Gaia.
It’s pathological beyond any remnant of normal, healthy social thinking and just rattling that saber over the peoples of the world should be cause for having YOU be rounded up and put into a prison cell until you display some normal healthy socially oriented personal penitance for your
low
rent
corruption and terrorization of 3rd world people. I’d say they’ve been shaken down enough.
Apparently you not only don’t know why a hockey stick’s not real math, and a tree’s not a thermometer, you don’t know where to stop in adopting the political regalia of the world’s most evil people: socialists of this or that stripe.
Hoser says:
February 20, 2012 at 7:14 am
We have a similar thing here in the UK. Our current coalition government leaders are Conservative In Name Only, (CINO)!
It’s no coincidence that the acronym is also a name for a once fashionable style of trouser, or, for our cousins on the West side of the pond…
PANTS!
DaveE.
@IAmDigitap
[snip. More content-free threadbombing. ~dbs, mod.]
@Yawn
Writing an article for the Climate section suggests strongly that one knows the climate editor. I’d be happy to dig up some Climategate emails to demonstrate other Hockey Team connections to the Guardian and other news outlets if you’d like. Gavin’s statement was disingenuous, dude.
As for the practice of pre-releasing press releases, you’ve only supported the point. The Hockey Team enjoy a cozy relationship with the Guardian that allowed reference to their letter to be quickly inserted into an article based in part on fictional and misappropriated documents. The Guardian can conduct their business as they wish. But an informed reader should put little stock in anything originating from their climate department.
In the wake of Gleick’s confession, it’s hard to believe anybody would continue aligning themselves with fraudsters and thieves. But then again these are the climate wars and I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by anything. I’ll look forward to your reply.