(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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So would it be safe to say that Peter Gleick is dissuading teachers from teaching science?
Everything that they purport to be done on the Skeptics’ side are actually what they are actively doing! When looking for someone to blame on the ills of the world on, the AGW crowd needs to look in the mirror more often…
It was mentioned earleir by someone, but needs to be repeated again.
Desmuggers are ruining the reputation of Heartland Institute by claiming that Gleick is a whistle blower. He is not an employee of Heartland Institute, but anybody not overly familiar with the story are now being given the impression that he acquired the documents as being an insider at Heartland. The definition of whistle blower mostly means an internal employee who tells the public or someone in authority about dishonest or illegal activities.
1. He is not an internal employee?
2. What dishonest or illegal activities are desmuggers referring too?
Gleick is repulsive, but desmuggers have done untold damage to the reputation of HI and Watts etc.
Mike H says:
“Everything that they purport to be done on the Skeptics’ side are actually what they are actively doing!”
Exactly right. I’ve often pointed out that of it were not for psychological projection [imputing your own faults onto others], the alarmist crowd wouldn’t have much to say.
lateintheday says:
February 21, 2012 at 1:49 am
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.”
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“… discredit the teaching of science to school children …”
Unlike this, of course.
http://thegwpf.org/best-of-blogs/5026-disgraceful-climate-indoctrination-in-australian-schools.html
What disgusting behaviour from a prominent alarmist.
Well on the bright side, it’s not science, is it? Gleick claims he committed this crime because he believed The Heartland Institute was preventing a “rational debate” from taking place over global warming.
“He believed”. That’s his problem: science isn’t about belief.
Looks like Gleick got some of the heat that was missing.
Is this not really anthopogenic heat of course, it is simply the result of the UHI effect.
(UHI = Upset Heartland Institute)
One important part of all of this is the role that the sceptic blogosphere had in pointing the finger at Gleick. Would he have come forward if people hadn’t already outed him as the prime susepct?
http://progcontra.blogspot.com/2012/02/sceptic-blogosphere-devours-gleick.html
I agree with your sentiments but in looking at a dictionary definition on whistle blower, from Dictionary.com:
But is this THE official, legal definition of a whistle-blower? I don’t know.. But it is generally regarded that a whistle-blower is someone from inside the company or organization who has a fear of retaliation from said company/organization (fired, demoted, etc). Thus the whistle-blower protection laws in the US.. I feel that DSM is playing with a loose interpretation of the term. Something that DSM and others would not offer to skeptics (IMHO).
I have not folowed this story at all closely so I am not familaiar with the facts.
Am I right in concluding that Gleick received (or alleges that he received) the ‘fraudulent’ memo and then hacked the Heartland server so as to ascertain whether the ‘fraudulent’ memo was genuine. Then having hacked the Heartland server and found no trace whatsoever of the ‘fraudulent’ memo rather than concluding that it was likely that the memo was ‘fraudulent’ instead. he publishes the memo claiming it real.
If those are the basic facts, at the time of publication, he could have had no confidence in the veracity of the memoo and would have had every reason to consider that it was not genuine.
If these are the facts, it appears to me that he has likely commited an offence of hacking the Heartland server AND knowingly publishing a memo which he almost certainly knows to be false.
Some suggest that he himself forged the memo. Obviously, I do not know whether that is the case, however, even if it is not the case, there appears (to me) to be strong reason to suspect that he published a memo which he knew was unlikely to be genuine.
richard black’s bbc twitter page –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/richardblack/ –
was topped by this link just now :
20 Feb: Huffpo: Kelly Rigg: Forget Logic, It’s Just Climate Schizophrenia
(Kelly Rigg is the Executive Director of the GCCA, a global alliance of 300 organizations cooperating under the banner of the tcktcktck campaign. She has been leading international campaigns for nearly 30 years on climate, energy, oceans, Antarctica and other issues. She was a senior campaign director for Greenpeace International during 20 years with the organization. After leaving Greenpeace she went on to found the Varda Group consultancy providing campaign and strategic advice to a wide range of NGOs, and led the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition’s campaign to protect the high seas from destructive bottom fishing)
Climate schizophrenia is not even limited to countries. As leaked documents revealed last week, 19 public corporations fund the climate change-denying Heartland Institute, some of whom scrambled to distance themselves from Heartland’s climate program. Of all the companies named, I was most disappointed to see Microsoft on the list, albeit only for the provision of around $60,000 worth of free software. Bill Gates the philanthropist is very worried about climate change, but not enough for his company to cut off support to a climate-denial group…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-rigg/climate-change-policies_b_1288473.html
With regard to redress for Heartland, remember, this is about donors and fund-raising. Heartland can actually quantify financial damage as a result of “permanent damage” to its reputation. Many of its donors will be low profile and shun the public eye for good political and business reasons. If as a result, they are exposed, they may curtail otherwise useful and planned donations. For an organization that defends heavily on donation funding in order to operate (whoever they are), the alleged criminal actions which have occurred here carry both a punitive and civilly redress. This is hardball – the only decisions to be made on what course to follow will be on the business case. A strong offensive by Heartland (especially if successful), will demonstrate to its donors that HI will act aggressively to protect its funding sources, which is positve spin for donors.
The very worse thing for HI to do is capitulate on a “feel-good” strategy – they lose everything if they do. Aggressive action may well fund their war-chest and it will raise the public profile of the slime side of the CAGW crowd big time in the public eye. Their goal should be a complete and very public flogging of all of the players in this – they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Most of the miscreants will look to settle privately – none can come out of this looking good.
Comments from the Agriculture community (DTN/Progressive Farmer) about this:
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Quote:
Getting to the Heartland of the Climate Debate
The Heartland Institute has found itself fending off attacks after documents from the group’s board meeting were posted on the internet. The group’s leader, Joe Bast, and others have argued that the documents were stolen, or fraudulently obtained, and that at least one of the documents is fraudulent. Journalists, however, have been confirming the validity of those documents, including statements declaring the funding of a researcher specifically to push teachers not to teach anything related to climate change.
Information on the leaked documents: http://www.newscientist.com/…
The Heartland Institute’s response: http://heartland.org/…
An LA Times piece on the controversy, given how the Heartland Institute had praised the uncovering of documents in the Climategate story in 2009. http://www.latimes.com/…
At the American Farm Bureau Federation meeting in Honolulu earlier this year the Heartland Institute made the case that there is no need to worry about greenhouse gas emissions. This was an exhibitor presentation, thus there was no counter argument from those who support climate science and the role of people in adding greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.
James Taylor, a senior fellow of environmental policy for the Heartland Institute, started off his presentation citing some recent headlines about agriculture and climate change.
“If you listen to the media what you would think of course is global warming is indeed a very difficult condition for crops,” Taylor said. “What I would like to do is present some facts, and call me on it if I am giving you my opinion that is not supported by facts.”
Taylor said he was presenting data about overall what is happening with the global climate, as well as crop production and specific climate conditions.
“What is happening to our climate that is going to affect agriculture, and are we facing a global warming crisis in general, and one that is going to impede agriculture specifically?” Taylor said. “The answer as far as science is, and as far as data is, no we are not.”
More: http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/common/link.do;jsessionid=AFC51F804A5D24FED3617144F0AA9C0E.agfreejvm1?symbolicName=/ag/blogs/template1&blogHandle=policy&blogEntryId=8a82c0bc33b7544601358b96504e1298&showCommentsOverride=false
Assume for a moment that Gleick received the strategy document from an anonymous source, as he claims.
Now that strategy document actually contains text along the lines “here’s some super stuff we’ll keep secret even from our own board”.
If Gleick wanted to verify the strategy doc, the last thing he would want to look at would be he board papers, because the strategy doc supposedly contains info that even the Heartland board don’t know.
So why would he then go do ID theft, or whatever you want to call it, to get the board papers?
It doesn’t make sense… he stole completely the wrong papers to test the authenticity of the strategy document.
perhaps english people will appreciate the headline more than most:
21 Feb: Peter Gleick – the Johann Hari of climate ‘science’
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100138560/peter-gleick-the-johann-hari-of-climate-science/
Suzanne Goldenburg is a total moron. She calls Gleick “A leading defender of climate change”. What the F**K does that mean?
fyi
Wikipedia: Johann Hari
Johann Eduard Hari (born 21 January 1979) is a British journalist who was a columnist at The Independent and The Huffington Post, and contributed to several other publications. In 2011, Hari admitted to plagiarism, was suspended from The Independent and surrendered his 2008 Orwell Prize. He also admitted to making Wikipedia edits, under a pseudonym, to attack his critics, and has said that he plans to undergo training in journalism ethics. In 2012 his website announced he was not returning to The Independent because he was writing a book…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
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Hey, guys, here’s a “dot” that just might be significant. A few months ago, in the Climategate 2 e-mails, Mann said that an investigative journalist ought to try to discover if McIntyre (and someone else, I forget who) was being secretly funded by a think tank.
Could this suggestion have “inspired” Gleick? I think it could have played a role.
Some comments suggest that Gleick most likely didn’t author the forged document because no well-educated professional would write something so stylistically poor. That could be true, but it overlooks the possibility that the forged document was deliberately written in this manner for precisely the purpose of disguising forensic comparisons of writing styles. It also gives a negative impression of the literacy of the purported Heartland Institute author, perhaps revealing an unconscious bigotry from which not even the most saintly liberals are immune where those with whom they disagree are concerned.
pat says:
February 21, 2012 at 4:46 am
What!? So the BBC is reacting to HI’s notice with a rhetorical face-spit? Incredible!
What on Earth has gotten into these people?
RTF
jim commented on February 21, 2012 at 4:24 am that DSM was using the term Whistle-Blower and he felt it was an improper use of the term. Which is usually a badge of honor.
I’ve gone to a number of legal definition webs sites, here is a clip that seems to be the common definition of a Whistle-Blower:
Here and here are two examples. So unfortunately, DSM can use the term Whistle-Blower. I might not agree with it also, but the definition is open for interpretation on this point. Let DSM think they won the battle, we’ll win the war, because I’m on the side of facts and truth.. Their side is built on (fill in the blank yourself) …
A minor correction to my previous posts. If I accidentally typed DSM, I was in error..
That should read DSB (DeSmellyBlog).
My lack of typing skills and content review are showing… sorry to any DSM’s out there….
Applying the pretzel logic algorEithm of the Theory of Inverse Reality, it spit out a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize for Peter Gleick.
Well. I have sent this and Delingpole’s piece to a handful of my fingers-in-the-ears, lalalallallalalalla eco-loon friends (sadly and highly paid scientists!).
The play only gets more absurd. I thought it would all end with Climategate I.
I underestimated.
History books will be filled with humor. …..Lady in Red
“Bill Jamison says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:32 pm
California Penal Code Section 528.5 make it a crime to create an email account in someone else’s name with intent to defraud. Seems like that applies here. Maybe Federal charges too. This is serious stuff. ”
I would not hold my breath waiting till Holder brings charges.
I wouldn’t want to be Gleick’s underwear right now.