(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!
Gleick was asked directly by both Anthony and Roger Pielke (Jr) if he wrote the fraudulent strategy paper. He has refused to answer both. Instead he called in the lawyers.
The implication is crystal clear.
Can’t wait to see how the BBC spin this one!
Imagine the fuss if a prominent climate sceptic was caught stealing documents.
Over to you Richard Black, we’re waiting.
Meanwhile, in an alternate universe:
“Whistleblowers – and that’s the role Gleick has played in this instance – deserve respect for having the courage to make important truths known to the public at large. Without condoning or promoting an act of dishonesty, it’s fair to say that Gleick took a significant personal risk – and by standing and taking responsibility for his actions, he has shown himself willing to pay the price. For his courage, his honor, and for performing a selfless act of public service, he deserves our gratitude and applause.”
-DeSmogBlog
—————————-
So I guess they are okay now with the FOIA whistleblower…
“Martin says:
February 20, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Gleick’s a bit of a hero actually. He single handedly exposed the going’s on behind the curtains at Heartland. He even got the head honcho at Heartland to email him the info – I love it!”
===============================================
Exposed what exactly? That Heartland gave money to various projects some of them Pro improving climate science? That doesn’t really seem like any kind of gotcha.
I would bet that if the original forged document was sent by anonymous and not made up by Gleick there would be an exchange of emails to verify the source. I do not believe He would run with this without a source He trusted. Gleick must be made to testify under oath. Rep Darrell Issa (Calif) who heads the Congress Reform and Oversight Commitee needs to be informed of these developments immediately before the trail gets cold.
http://issa.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=597&Itemid=73
It was barely a year ago that Gleick was known primarily for his periodic SFGate screeds deploring the expansion of water infrastructure in California. He was invisible enough in the climate wars that when I posited his name in the comments here as – I think – having been the source of some obnoxious quote, Anthony replied that he thought Gleick too obscure.
Well, he’s not so obscure these days.
Phone call to publishers: “Can’t you remove this from my new book? It’s only a few lines – just a stupid review! What do you mean, not til the next edition? Ow-w-w, such a headache!!”
Jeff (February 20, 2012 at 8:33 pm) wrote:
Repeatedly asking that the documents be taken down is a waste of breath[]. The internet has them. They aren’t going away.
LamontT (February 20, 2012 at 9:52 pm) chided Jeff and pointed out that it’s about lawyers and strategy, though he mistakenly suggested it’s about the websites Heartland is sending the takedown requests to.
The real intent is to demonstrate the extent of the damage the perpetrator has caused to Heartland’s reputation. If all blogs, warmist and otherwise, were to take down the documents as requested, it would militate against a claim of serious damage to Heartland’s reputation. However, if their requests are rejected or ignored, Heartland will have evidence to substantiate a claim of serious damage to their reputation, since the defamatory material will pop up whenever one searches for “Heartland” or “Heartland Institute”, no matter how much time has passed.
The warmist bloggers are in an interesting pickle. On the one hand, they can assert that they have a right to continue to “report” on the documents, even though they’re fake, and in the process increase the severity of the consequences their hero is likely to face. On the other hand, they can (as I’m sure they’ll see it) “capitulate” to Heartland in hopes of lessening the consequences for Mr. Gleick.
Will the warmists take action to spare Mr. Gleick additional liability? Don’t be silly! They’ll throw him to the wolves.
This just goes to show (IMHO) that some of these scientists think they are so smart, they’ll never get caught.. It’s like I’m watching a Columbo episode (showing my age here).. I will commend Mr. Gleick on fessing up, he is at least smart enough to see the sand castle crumbling. Some people do the ‘Not Me’ defense, or the ‘someone must have logged onto my computer and created that account, I’ve been hacked!’
Also, the posts in WUWT go to show the caliber that Sir Anthony and company maintain in this blog.. Posters may have had their suspicions they it was Mr. Gleick behind this, but others had opposing views that were rational, not delusional… For Example..
From another WUWT thread, the moderators keeping the record straight, even for someone with an opposing view…
It will be interesting how DeSmellyBlog and others handles this over the next day or two. I’m sure they will try to dismiss this, watch for the ‘His intentions were good’ comments in the other blogs, he’ll be their martyr.. Also lets see how the national media presents this. Page C32, under the Oh By The Way section.. (I refuse to call them Main Stream media, they are far from main stream).. I am surprised he didn’t wait for a Friday evening announcement, that’s what the experienced swindlers (i.e. politicians) do to hide their bad behavior…
Mr. Gleick, please stand in the corner and stay there until the adults tell you to come out.. You’ve been very bad….
You guys are such friggin’ hypocrites.
You danced a jig when the Climategate emails were released – –
But now, all of a sudden, this is a “great crime”.
You can’t have it both ways.
Either both were crimes or both were shenanigans.
There is so much bullshit on both sides – it’s nose deep.
PS – Speaking of BS – How can you damage Heartland’s reputation?
Chris B has posted some of the comments, but if you are like me and cannot help but to watch the train wreck, here is a link to the comments section of Gleick’s review of Mann’s new book. Enjoy.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1TOPDWZU54PBO/ref=cm_cd_NOREF?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx2OYVK3J7XPBQG&cdPage=3&asin=023115254X&newContentNum=30&cdMSG=addedToThread&store=books&cdThread=TxESZD5H58B2S0&newContentID=Mx26XQQZYFUP94V#CustomerDiscussionsNRPB
I realise this won’t be a popular opinion, but IMHO, I think the humility is punishment enough for Gleick and I would urge HI to be the bigger man and accept the apology asking Gleick to make a sizable donation to One Water (for example).
This way justice is done, and Heartland show they have real compassion.
The guys career is over anyway, why kick him when he’s down?
HI should still go for the corporates though
There is no rational reason, from a legal perspective, for Gleick to have fallen on his sword like this. It can only be a political decision. That being said, he may hope that this pseudo apology might buy him some time to cover his tracks, as much as can be done. Anyone wanting to sue him on the basis of the strategy memo would do well to file quickly, and get a court order preserving documents, hardware, email, and other electronic records.
The documents that are genuine will likely give rise to criminal culpability, but the more serious threat is the monetary damages from the faked strategy memo. The state prosecutors in California, and Illinois, and all U.S. attorneys who might have jurisdiction, are all Democrats. So prosecution is by no means a sure thing. Gleick and his political advisers may have decided it was worth the small risk of increased criminal exposure in order to delay or divert the more serious civil litigation that could come. Better to issue a modified mea culpa, and engage in “negotiations” to keep any discovery order from being entered for as long as possible.
Mr Watts: Many thanks for keeping us (I’m in UK) up to date on this very important matter – it’s really bigger than CG2, IMO. I’ve no doubt that Gleick has an underlying mantra of “The end is more important than the means”, as did so many of the dictators of the last hundred years.
I haven’t checked yet with the BBC/Black. I expect a lot of wriggling, and petty excuses – just as one might expect from a Delinquent Teenager – but the BBC is around 80 now and there should be a little maturity setting in.
Copner says: February 20, 2012 at 8:37 pm
… to lead the AGU task force on scientific ethics and integrity.,,
Not just expert, Chair!
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. 🙂
GeneDoc says: February 20, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Peter Gleick chairs a committee at AGU:
You don’t think he deserves the Chair?
😉
I note the CAGW crowd are taking a moral equivalence approach to Cimategate vs Fakegate. I beg to differ. In Climategate (I & II) an as-yet unidentified insider or outsider (but the good money’s on an insider) obtained and published genuine documents that show a number of publicly-funded research organisations covertly and systematically politicising a prominent scientific issue while claiming to be above reproach (which they still do). In Fakegate an identified person with responsibility for ethics in science behaved unethically to obtain and publish a mix of genuine and fake documents that do nothing more than show a privately-funded organisation promoting projects consistent with its stated aims. Indeed, this organisation’s overt support for projects in the climate change field can be seen as a direct response to the covert politicisation exposed by Climategate. If we’re playing “I hold the moral high ground” here, I think I know who’s closer to the top.
“As one environmental campaigner said: “Now it’s gone nuclear.””
Surely not!!
The ‘campaigner’ must have meant to say: “Now it’s gone with the Wind.”
MangoChutney says:
February 20, 2012 at 11:11 pm
I realise this won’t be a popular opinion, but IMHO, I think the humility is punishment enough for Gleick and I would urge HI to be the bigger man and accept the apology
====================================================
That sure didn’t sound like an apology to HI…… a mea culpa, but I didn’t read a “I’m sorry to HI or any specific parties at HI. Further, there are bigger fish to fry. Gleick put himself in the way, but, it’s likely he’s got some correspondence that we’d all like to see.
Yeh, you almost feel sorry for the poor sap, but it isn’t like he wasn’t told. I’m all for understanding that we all fail, because we all do. But, he’s in a spot he put himself in, and, I think he’s got more to say.
old44 said @ur momisugly February 20, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Email sent. Will be interesting to see what (if any) response is.
A bit disconcerting to be continually reading about “PG”; that’s what Matt/William/Briggs [delete whichever is inapplicable] calls me.
“””””
You guys are such friggin’ hypocrites.
You danced a jig when the Climategate emails were released – –
But now, all of a sudden, this is a “great crime”.
You can’t have it both ways.
Either both were crimes or both were shenanigans.
There is so much bullshit on both sides – it’s nose deep.
“””””
Those “Climategate” emails were public documents that people had tried to FOIA over and over again. No one ever claimed they were altered. This is a private organization that is being smeared with a fake document.
New post at http://www.desmogblog.com/ claiming Gleick is a whistle blower and hero. Unbelievable.
geo said @ur momisugly February 20, 2012 at 9:47 pm
The stylistic evidence is that there is an overabundance of commas, run-on sentences and not particularly commonplace hyphenations. Before Gleik’s confession, I was pretty sceptical that this was sufficient to “hang the man”. It’s commonplace for writers to consciously (and unconsciously) imitate writers they admire. Now I suspect that Peter Gleik’s admirer was himself. Perhaps the writing being below his usual standard was because he didn’t have sufficient time to polish his writing. I spend at least four times as long editing my work than I do getting the words down. I’m a slow typist.
3…2…1…and cue “Fake but Accurate” argument.
MangoChutney: February 20, 2012 at 11:11 pm
said: “….I realise this won’t be a popular opinion, but IMHO, I think the humility is punishment enough for Gleick and I would urge HI to be the bigger man and accept the apology asking Gleick to make a sizable donation to One Water (for example)…..”
Well said Mango.
I honestly think he has dented at least parts of his career beyond repair – how could he possibly chair any committee/task force dealing with ethics now? I don’t imagine he is sleeping too well at night any more.
Give it a little time, see what happens, but remember, in the end it is always a good thing to be kind and merciful.
MangoChutney says:
February 20, 2012 at 11:11 pm
“…The guys career is over anyway, why kick him when he’s down?”
Would you cut someone a break if they were complicit in the attempted monetary enslavement of your children and grandchildren?
I ask that because that is essentially what this is all about.