(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
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They lost every public debate, refused debate, manipulated and forged scientific evidence for years, got caught with their pants down in Climate Gate 1 and 2, will severely be caught red handed when a certain password is revealed for Climate Gate 3 files, then stole illegal private documents, then forged a document, then played victim and martyr. A fundamentalist religion?
From the AGW “I can dish it out but not take it” world.
Peter Gleicks column on The HuffPo where this statement/confession is posted, the comment section is closed.. I could understand after the first 500 comments, closing it, but that would have taken all of 5 minutes of commenting. Again, weak….
So, are the police on their way to Dr. Gleick’s and DSB’s homes and offices to obtain all of the computers for hard-drive inspection? The AGW community set the standard with the TallBloke incident, and those were Publicly owned e-mails.. This is a PRIVATE institution.. If Gleick claims he was not the author of the forged documents, then he should open his doors to the authorities for forensic investigation of his equipment. Just ask TallBloke, he knows how this goes… Does anyone know if Gleick commented on the TallBloke event?
Don’t hold you breath for those doors to open.
Suzanne Goldenburg at the Guardian continues to misrepresent the facts. She writes:
“A leading defender of climate change admitted tricking the libertarian Heartland Institute into turning over confidential documents detailing its plans to discredit the teaching of science to school children in last week’s sensational expose.”
How the hell can she get away with that.
So he is the brother of ‘Chaos’ author, James Gleick. Perhaps he always felt he was in his brother’s shadow, lending himself to desperately cut corners to improve his reputation. The beating of a butterfly’s wings in the West Coast has indeed caused something unpredictable.
There is no mention of Gleick’s confession on the BBC website as at 09.54 GMT 21/02/2012, not even ace reporter Richard Black has picked up on it so it can’t be true;>)
From desmogblog….
“Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.”
—————————————————————–
So when are you going to start applying some rigor to the above viewpoint then brendan?
A lie is still a lie even if you attempt to verify it with another lie.
From your view, so vigorously held as it would appear, you and your crowd have undermined democracy whilst hypocritcally accusing others of doing the same but with no proof whatsoever, just as in the agw scam you hold so dear….another trend! 🙂
We shouldnt really be surprised should we?
AGW and its supporters use any methods fair but mostly foul whilst decrying anyone who wants to hold a differing view, not only that they want to bully and co-erce, browbeat and treat like outcasts those who wont and dont hold with their own bigoted views, Mr desmogger being a prime example of the very worst of his breed.
You have no monopoly on the truth Mr smoggerblogger, its plain you dont grasp the concept of it.
By the company you keep shall you be known.
Climategate 1&2 – running and running, and the might of the alarmists’ activists/scientist/apologists/media/police forces have no clue as to who blew that whistle.
HI alarmist’s wire fraud and faked document: one week of mayhem on the alarmists’ blogs and favourite MSM – and the mighty minds of sceptics, first and foremost a certain Steve Mosher, have the culprit nailed within days, thus forcing said culprit to wring out a ‘confession’ and lawyer up.
Who are the idiots here?
Alarmists, be afraid – be very afraid!
the few post-Gleick-confession MSM pieces – and they are few – all have headlines that still suggest ALL the documents were from HI. NYT even states Gleick denied faking the fake document, which he didn’t. don’t u love the suggestion bloggers were wrong in guessing who the perpetrator was? of course the NYT piece will spread far and wide, which is why i’ve chosen another of it’s appearances in the MSM:
20 Feb: Mercury News: from New York Times: Activist deceived institute to obtain climate change papers
By John M. Broder and Felicity Barringer
(from NYT link Leslie Kaufman contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 21, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Activist Says He Lied for Climate Papers..)
The document release was cast by some bloggers as the work of a whistle-blowing Heartland employee or ex-employee, when it was in fact orchestrated by Gleick, a Yale- and Berkeley-trained scientist and environmental activist who claims that he was frustrated with Heartland’s anti-climate-change programs.
Gleick denied authorship of the most explosive of the documents, a supposed strategy paper that laid out the institute’s efforts to raise money to question climate change and get schools to adjust their science curricula to include alternative theories of warming…
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_20007679
20 Feb: Time Mag BLOG: Bryan Walsh: Climate Expert Peter Gleick Admits Deception in Obtaining Heartland Institute Papers
The major question now — beyond the legal ramifications for Gleick and the Heartland Institute — is whether the original document Gleick says he received, the strategy memo, is real or whether it’s a falsification as the Heartland Institute maintains. The problem for climate advocates, of course, is that suspicion will only grow that Gleick falsified the original document now that he has admitted using deception to get the additional memos. (And just so we’re clear, this is deception — no reputable investigative reporter would be permitted to do what Gleick did. It’s almost certainly a firing offense.)…
Worst of all — at least for those who care about global warming — Gleick’s act will almost certainly produce a backlash against climate advocates at a politically sensitive moment. And if the money isn’t already rolling into the Heartland Institute, it will soon.
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/02/20/climate-expert-peter-gleick-admits-deception-in-obtaining-heartland-institute-papers/
“a backlash against climate advocates”??? “at a politically sensitive moment”????
Wikipedia has now added this highly misleading reading of the situation:
Wikipedia: Peter Gleick
On February 20, 2012, Gleick admitted obtaining documents from The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, by fraudulent means, “in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics.” [7] Andrew Revkin wrote at the New York Times that “Gleick has admitted to an act that leaves his reputation in ruins … ” [8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gleick
Heartland’s new statement says in part: “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.
(My bold.)
Heartland Institute,
The change, coming after my request and ensuing discussion on this blog, is noted and appreciated. It is the right decision and will make a big difference in the coming battle for the public’s sentiment.
Thank you.
RTF
Perhaps we need a Josh cartoon of Peter Gleick carrying his cross to Golgotha. It would appear that he is to become a martyr for the cause according to many True believer websites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True-believer_syndrome
Interesting that he has the same lawyer as Bill Clinton, advising him what to say. That worked well didn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewinsky_scandal
“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.”
Somehow this reminds me of Clinton “I experimented with marijuana but I didn’t inhale”. Perhaps Gleick is also holding his breath on this one.
I will be keeping a keen eye on Richard Black’s reporting of this on the BBC. I’m reasonably sure that if the individual involved in the release of emails from the CRU was either uncovered or confessed to the deed there would be much coverage by Mr Black. It will be very telling if this grubby little episode is kept off the BBC website.
> 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”
But he hasn’t really apologized!
He admitted acquiring documents by fraud, but at the same time continued slapping Heartland in the face while making that admission. Essentially he mostly blames them for his actions.
And he’ also thrown his own friends to the lions, once, possibly twice:
1. When he forwarded the pack of documents via email to warmist blogs (dear 15 friends), he apparently gave them no indication that (according to his own account) the strategy doc was received separately, or that he had doubts about its authenticity.
2. In his recent admission, he continues to imply the strategy doc might be real. He has thus encouraged Desmogblog, Greg Laden, etc., to continue to publicize it. If he has any indication that the strategy doc is dubious, or if his admission is disassembling in any way whatsoever, he’s led this guys into deeper and deeper trouble when he could have rescued them.
Humility would be wonderful. But it’s a personal trait, not an event. He’ll never have or show it.
Humiliation, now, if it were thorough and public enough … Nah. Sue him into pauper-tude, say I!!
Nah. “Forgerygate” doesn’t have any bite (unlike Barq’s). It ain’t got that swing (so it don’t mean a thing). 😉
FakeGate it is!
Um.. Too close to being portrayed as The Christ. I don’t want to give the AGW crowd a savior to rally behind. Maybe tossing himself into the lion pit full of Epson scanners? Pole-vaulting?
First the melancholic hippies digs their graves, then when they dug too deep, they start shoveling down their crap trying to get out. And when they need help, they first pull their saviors down to their level of muck.
You know it’s a popcorn hour when the arrogance of the over sized ego screws everybody over in an attempt to seem intelligent. :p
I bet this guy will win a Nobel Prize for ethics. The reporting on this crime has been criminal. They misrepresent the facts, omit major parts of the story, and fill the voids with gibbering insults and apocalyptic predictions.
We should apply the precautionary principle: never believe the words of a climate scientists.
It is a cost-effective measure and should prevent possibly enormous economic damage.
(I’m kidding, but this is the reaction they will necessarily get. Thank you, Peter, we couldn’t have done anything better. Look at the attempts of the MSM to paper over the falsification – they know it’s game over when it becomes known. But they can’t prevent it! Not even wikipedia can for long!)
Still nothing from the BBC.
National Center for Science Education in Oakland – appointed Peter Gleick to it’s board to fight climate change denial in education –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/19/comparing-climate-skepticism-to-creationism-in-the-classroom/
Do we really want his ethics near studenets/teachers..
Peter Gleick is the same author of the fake Amazon.com book review on The Delinquent Teenager.
I am sure the lawyers will be glad to know he has form.
The research of anyone who would act so unethically (and perhaps “forge” such a document) should be withdrawn of course. This just shows that anyone who believes very strongly in a cause is willing to do just about anything in order to further that cause.
Gleick has written many papers, volumes on hydrological resources, become a go to climate change expert.
How many others in his position felt very strongly about their cause.