(Received via email direct from Heartland president Bast in advance of their website posting, see Gleick’s statement/confession here – Anthony)
FEBRUARY 20, 2012: Earlier this evening, Peter Gleick, a prominent figure in the global warming movement, confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views.
Gleick’s crime was a serious one. The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety.
An additional document Gleick represented as coming from The Heartland Institute, a forged memo purporting to set out our strategies on global warming, has been extensively cited by newspapers and in news releases and articles posted on Web sites and blogs around the world. It has caused major and permanent damage to the reputations of The Heartland Institute and many of the scientists, policy experts, and organizations we work with.
A mere apology is not enough to undo the damage.
In his statement, Gleick claims he committed this crime because he believed The Heartland Institute was preventing a “rational debate” from taking place over global warming. This is unbelievable. Heartland has repeatedly asked for real debate on this important topic. Gleick himself was specifically invited to attend a Heartland event to debate global warming just days before he stole the documents. He turned down the invitation.
Gleick also claims he did not write the forged memo, but only stole the documents to confirm the content of the memo he received from an anonymous source. This too is unbelievable. Many independent commentators already have concluded the memo was most likely written by Gleick.
We hope Gleick will make a more complete confession in the next few days.
We are consulting with legal counsel to determine our next steps and plan to release a more complete statement about the situation tomorrow. In the meantime, we ask again that publishers, bloggers, and Web site hosts take the stolen and fraudulent documents off their sites, remove defamatory commentary based on them, and issue retractions.
# # #
For more information, contact Jim Lakely, communications director of The Heartland Institute, at 312/377-4000 or jlakely@heartland.org.
Joseph Bast
President
The Heartland Institute
One South Wacker Drive #2740
Chicago, IL 60606
Phone 312/377-4000
Email jbast “at”heartland.org
Web site http://www.heartland.org
Support The Heartland Institute today!
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Can anyone confirm that Gleick’s only science education was a humanities undergrad survey course? The depth of his ignorance demands an explanation.
[REPLY: Brian, that is Dr. Gleick, and I doubt anyone can answer your question without resortng to a court order…. which they will not get. Give that one a rest. -REP]
Methinks that despite much posturing and spinning there will be many sleepless nights for many in the CAGW camp and their MSM acolytes. The odds are that the warmists and their agencies will go into full attack mode with any and all strawmen to try and deflect attention from this confession.
I wonder why Gleick confessed? To try and forestall deeper investigation? Is he the “Captain Oates” of the team? Was he pushed into doing it? Were the authorities asking questions? Did some astute legal mind instruct him to try and limit damages when faced with incriminating evidence?
Whatever the reason I hope the HI prosecute Gleick and those involved to the hilt.
Old Mike
Other than the climate strategy document, what is there to retract? I guess it’s hard to tell because Joe Bast still hasn’t confirmed the authenticity of the documents.
I wish it was a tipping point – but alas – they are still at it
“”The current system is broken,” says Bob Watson, the UK’s chief scientific advisor on environmental issues and a winner of the prestigious Blue Planet prize in 2010. “It is driving humanity to a future that is 3-5°C warmer than our species has ever known, and is eliminating the ecology that we depend on for our health, wealth and senses of self.””
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/20-5
He’s upto his neck in it, and it aint water.
AndyG55 says: February 20, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Everyone should email AGU and ask if Gleick REALLY is the Chair of their ethics department. 🙂
Who better to exemplify their ethics?
We still need to contend with the fact that the Epson scan software was writing the metadata to the “Strategy” forgery PDF file at 2012:02:14 12:36:20-08:00, and the DeSmogBlog was posting the file at 13:14:06-08:00 (2012-02-14 21:14:06 GMT according to the DeSmogBlog facebook page). That is 38 minutes from Gleick’s Epson scan software to DeSmog’s public blog.
38 minutes!
Are we to believe that the DeSmoggers vetted an anonymous document that flew over the transom for a whole 38 minutes before posting it, or were there preparatory e-mails and phone conversations from a decidedly non-anonymous source?
This is just the first thread in a much larger unraveling.
get revkin – he confirmed the authenticity of the forgery, right?
here’s your wedge. pound it hard, plz.
Hey, Peter – hearin’ them banjos yet?
What’s the evidence Glieck wrote the faked document? I’m not saying he didn’t, I just want to know what the evidence is that he did? Personally, I find it credible that a zealot baited with “true believer” material could be lured across the line into such unethical behavior in stealing the additional documents in pursuit of a “higher truth”.
So, tell us. . .what’s the stylistic or other evidence that points at Glieck for the author of the “faked” document? To me, the fact that he’s coming forward now tends toward proof of remorse having belatedly released he was himself scammed. Unless someone can show me that he was about to be authoritatively unmasked anyway.
What if a CAGW skeptic did the equivalent of what Dr. Gleck did in an attempt to fight CAGW “progressive” movement? Would the “progressives” buy the following as rational justification?
“I only note that claims of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming have become increasingly difficult to justify when subjected to objective scientific investigated. A rational public debate including all sides is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts—often anonymous, well-funded, coordinated—to attack anyone who has the temerity to question the CAGW orthodoxy and to seek transparency in publicly funded climate research.”
Dr. Gleck needs to answer for his criminal activity. These people need to know that while they may believe that certain ends justify certain means, they may have to answer for those means in both criminal and civil courts of law.
Peter Gleick’s Pacific Institute’s mission is (according to their taxform 990):
Briefly describe the organization’s mission:
“TO BRING SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE TO THE RELATED PROBLEMS OF ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN SECURITY AND TO PROPOSE
PRACTICAL AND INCLUSIVE POLICIES TO PROBLEMS AT THE GLOBAL, NATIONAL
AND COMMUNITY LEVELS, AND PUT RESULTS INTO THE HANDS OF POLICY MAKERS”.
Sounds like a nice green business modell.
But who finances THAT ?
Well, even if you don’t like them and never ever would consider writing a cheque for them, Greenpeace or WWF, YOU are one of their main funders.
According to their “Financial Statement 2010” contributors are:
United Nations Global Compact Foundation
Unoited Nations Water Mandate
United Nations Environment Program
University of California Berkeley
State of California – EPA
Die Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)
http://www.pacinst.org/about_us/financial_information/10%20Audit.pdf
Taxpayers money at work – at the EPSON scanner.
I wonder if selrahC will pay heed….
“Jeff says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Repeatedly asking that the documents be taken down is a waste of breathe. The internet has them. They aren’t going away.”
===============================
Jeff, Jeff, Jeff…. They are not expecting them to be taken down at all. This is the first formal opening salvo in taking legal action. The very first step is hire a lawyer and then after that your lawyer sends out cease and desist letters.
The response that the people who receive the letters takes then comes into play when the case goes to court. One of the things typically a measure used is malice. Up until the C&D letter malice can’t be firmly established. But once the suspect parties have been put on notice their reactions can then be used to determine malice.
So this was the first step in filing civil lawsuits. There are a number of valid responses that don’t require taking down the material but desmog and the rest are not taking a tact that will stand them in good stead in court. Their choice.
If a moment of levity can be allowed, it is most “interesting” and yes, gratifying, to recall a tweet from Revkin of the NY Times within the first hours of the first blog articles on Feb. 14 (irony, irony, irony that Gleick has been undone at least in good part by the prominence he tried to give himself in HI’s view of the climate wars):
[Revkin tweet]:
=====================================================
Kudos to @petergleick as alleged @heartlandinst climate doc shows impact of his http://Forbes.com blogging: http://revkin.tumblr.com/post/17620769391/alleged-heartlandinst-climate-doc-i-mportant
4:38 PM – 14 Feb 12 via web · Embed this Tweet
=====================================================
h/t to Steve McIntyre’s invaluable timeline, since I had not looked at much of the Twitter material before…..
Peter Gleick has just been announced as the American Geophysical Union expert to lead the AGU task force on scientific ethics and integrity. He is the Chaiman of this organisation, their figure head! How absolutely appropriate to appoint a self-confessed criminal to lead this Organisation.
I wonder what drove Dr. Gleick to confess.
“geo says:
February 20, 2012 at 9:47 pm
What’s the evidence Glieck wrote the faked document?”
=========================================
It is textual go over to Lucia Blackboard and look for the first report of the Heartland documents. It is in that responses there that the textual evidence is figured out.
The evidence strongly suggests Dr. Peter Gleick as the author but doesn’t prove it. At this point it is up to him to prove he didn’t write it. Actually two something interesting from his confession.
1. He doesn’t claim not to have written the fake.
2. He doesn’t claim that the fake document he scanned and sent with the packet to everyone else was the anonymous document that got him to steal the Heartland documents in the first place. He merely states that he received such an anonymous document in the snail mail and that he didn’t alter it. Well aside from the obvious scanning it to PDF if the thing he scanned was really what he received.
Brian H: Can anyone confirm that Gleick’s only science education was a humanities undergrad survey course?
“Energy and resources’ wouldn’t count with humanities, but would it count with climate science or rather with geography and geology? I have no idea. I am in the humanities.
Here is from Wikipedia:
Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on hydroclimatology. His dissertation was the first to model the regional impacts of climate change on water resources
Great….another Oakland business goes belly-up (I assume). Soon we’re gonna have nothing left but pot dispensaries. Even Glieck is respectable compared to them.
Gleick received a MacArthur Grant (the famous “Genius Award” – about half a million for fun) for being the wonderful, ingenious, lovable little Green America hater that he is. So, Gleick is funded bigtime by Big Climate. I hope that the MacArthur people are thoroughly investigated by some media for funding hate filled Lefties such as Gleick. Maybe a NYT science reporter will take this opportunity to begin pursuing his redemption.
For those wondering why Gleick came forward now: just as with the cease and desist letters, you need to be thinking of the legal aspects of this case, not the PR aspects.
Because this is absolutely going to Court.
When there is a real fraudster using an e-mail to obtain documents under false premises, it actually is fairly easy for someone with serious IT skills to track down the email address used. Unless the perp was very skilled at forwarding things anonymously, they will usually be caught. Obviously Gleick has very poor IT skills, but was arrogant enough not to realize it. When the Demand letters went out today, Gleick went and talked to legal counsel about his exposure. That’s easy to discern, since this “confession” has clearly been heavily edited, and maybe even written by, legal counsel, not Gleick himself. He is trying to get out of civil and criminal liability, now that he realizes Heartland has the goods on him.
Heartland may even have let Gleick know that they had traced the email to him – don’t know that, but it certainly would explain why he caved today. They had the goods on him, and he knew it.
[snip -over the top – let the courts handle it – Anthony]
Looking through his list of publications, I don’t see any of what I would consider ‘real science’ in there. Mostly public policy stuff.
Nothing wrong with that, but claiming to be a scientist looks like a way to bolster his advocacy activities.
Also an AGW true believer from way back. Or if you like, one of the first to climb onboard the AGW gravy train.
http://www.pacinst.org/about_us/staff_board/gleick/gleick_publications.htm
Here is Monbiot’s attempt to purify this little bit of deception . . .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/20/who-funds-thinktank-lobbyists