‘All Honest Scientists Should Be Outraged’
The Heartland Institute today called on Oxford University to cancel the April 24 “Oxford Amnesty Lectures” event featuring disgraced climate scientist Dr. Peter H. Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, who committed theft, fraud, and defamation in the “Fakegate” scandal – all potential crimes and an affront to scientists everywhere.
Gleick is slated to deliver a lecture on “The Human Right to Water” at the prestigious university just weeks after he admitted to stealing the identity of a board member of The Heartland Institute to obtain confidential documents – including personal information of Heartland employees and board members – which he subsequently sent to environmental activists and sympathetic journalists.
On February 20, 2012, Gleick admitted to using deception to obtain the documents and acknowledged that his intent was to expose Heartland’s funding sources and damage the institute’s reputation.
Gleick also distributed a “climate strategy memo” he and other environmental activists claim describes Heartland’s “secret strategy” to mislead the public about the true nature of climate change. The document is a fake created by Gleick or a co-conspirator, but Gleick has yet to confess to writing it and has not asked his allies in the environmental movement to take it down from their Web sites.
“All honest scientists should be outraged that Oxford University should honor Gleick with a guest lecture,” said Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast. “The actions Gleick has admitted to having taken – lying repeatedly and committing fraud, and then denying responsibility and refusing to take corrective action – all make him unqualified to speak to students or as a scientist.
“The oldest university in the English-speaking world should be ashamed to associate itself with a bungling thief and scientific fraud,” Bast said. “John Locke, Linus Pauling, and Edwin Hubble must be spinning in their graves.”
In Gleick’s February 20, 2012 public confession, he admitted his actions amounted to “a serious lapse of my own professional judgment and ethics.” Gleick took a “temporary short-term leave of absence” as president of the Pacific Institute, but he is still listed at the Pacific Institute Web site as “president.” The Pacific Institute relies heavily on government grants and support from the CISCO Foundation, Kaiser Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Rockefeller Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Oxford Press and dozens of others.
Oxford Amnesty Lectures is a charity organization independent of Oxford University. The lectures are organized by Oxford faculty and held at the university’s Faculty of Law building.
For more information about the Fakegate scandal surrounding Peter Gleick, visit Fakegate.org, or contact Jim Lakely, director of communications at The Heartland Institute, at jlakely@heartland.org or 312/377-4000.
The Heartland Institute is a 28-year-old national nonprofit organization with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Washington, DC. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
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@george E. Smith:
April 11, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Re:
It gets complicated by governments’ claims to represent everyman, and their overreach in doing it. The issue isn’t made any clearer by rights of prior claim. Christopher Monfort is in Colorado today, discussing, in much more concrete terms than Gleick’s legal pontifications, a matter of water rights being brought by the Cattlemen’s Association against the EPA. Cattlemen think they should not have to suffer a dollar-a-head increase in grazing rights on public lands, even though the EPA wants to impose the fee to support what they claim is an infringement of the Clean Water Act.
Gleick’s problem is that he thinks government is always right to impose such fees and fines under the auspices of representing “the people”. At the other end of the spectrum are independent cattlemen who think they ought to be able to do what they’ve always done and be left alone. I think cattlemen have a right to the water as long is it isn’t getting too polluted by cattle feces, but then what?
In another instance, government tryies to regulate rainwater. A few years ago, a Colorado law said you couldn’t have a rainbarrel under your roof’s downspout because even the runoff fed creeks and rivers which ultimately belonged to others downstream by prior claim. The absurdities of government are abundant, but so are people who make these claims in support of rights based on prior claims. Governments probably need to settle such issues. Til then, I think I have a “right” to the water off my own roof – a right which I have not yet exercised, by the way.
Regards,
Bill
Surely the ONLY thing to do is to encourage those in the area to attend and ask ethics based questions ?
Ensure that the local media; (local) BBC etc are all made aware that a self admitted liar is giving a talk and thta it is hoped he will honour us by answering some questions afterwards
Stephen Brown says:
April 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm
– his daughter & her friends seem to understand this; but they do need to be aware that the lecture theatre may be ‘prepared’ to prevent this happening
Maybe Gleick wishes to lecture to on ethics to Oxford students.
It is disgraceful that the Heartland Institute should be calling for the withdrawal of Gleick from
the upcoming Oxford lecture!
Oxford University should have cancelled as soon as Gleick revealed
himself as a disgrace to Academia.
That they need prompted into this action, by others, will be seen, by many, as Oxford University and alumni as applauding, supporting and sharing his flavour of moral compass.
Maybe he played a “blinder”; possibly “noble-cause corruption” trumps integrity or is it just that
the author of “Blott on the Landscape”, Tom Sharpe, was more documentor than satiricist?
It was bad enough that the “establishment” ignored ClimateGate in both its current incarnations but
to go shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm upon a public stage and with a self-concealed fraudster speaks volumes about what passes for academic neutrality in the twenty-first century.
If “they” can’t even see the problems associated with giving Gleick centre stage then awarding Hansen the Edinburgh medal must be as acceptable, to “them”, as the easterly rising of the Sun!
Birds of a feather flock together; How can you Dons sleep at night?
Apologies for the poor format and uncorrected lines of my last post; for that I lay the blame upon my laptop playing up!
If I may be allowed a weak joke; Newton would have been shaken to the “Core”
Only the University or the ‘hosts’ have the right to cancel the invitation, but at least now they will know they have invited a self confessed fraudster.
The more information the University has about the malfeasance and unethical behaviour of some of these alarmist scientists the more it informs on their weakening position.
It’s funny Gleick and his ilk do all they can to stifle free speech of skeptical scientists and avoid debate, in contrast skeptics welcome debate. They can’t handle the truth as Gleickgate and Climategate has demonstrated.
Will be interesting if it goes ahead or not.
I lay beneath the apple tree,
when all at once it fell on me
A lustrous fruit with pulp so white
it tempted me to take a bite.
At first I wondered why it fell
but then decided, “What the h*ll”
Extract from the diary of Isaac Newton, age 13 and one quarter shortly after reading P.G’s
“Morality and Truth in Science – My part in its downfall” (Oxford University Press – 1984)
Tonio says:
Perhaps they’re waiting for the government to file criminal charges against Gleick, which would make things easier for Heartland. There are doubtlessly things we don’t know.
They’ll be waiting a long time, then. Long enough for any action they take to be meaningless.
Stephen Brown says:
She reports that most students are in favour of letting Gleick speak and then questioning him closely about various matters.
What is the likelihood, realistically, of students being allowed to ask those sort of questions?
Only the University or ‘hosts’ may cancel the invitation. It is possible the hosts had no prior knowledge of Gleickgate, at least now they will know they have invited a self confessed fraudster. If they had prior knowledge then it is disappointing if Gleick fulfills their ethical standards.
Gleickgate and climategate demonstrate malfeasance and unethical behaviour of some alarmist scientists in an attempt to stifle the free speech of anyone who questioned their science or position. In contrast skeptics tend to welcome debate and now the ‘cat is out of the bag’ we must keep academia informed of alarmists hypocritical, unethical and weak position.
Yes, disappointing if there was prior knowledge before invitation but useful PR from a skeptical perspective whether Gleicks lecture goes ahead or not. There should be an interesting question and answer section!
You can’t make this stuff up!
So many opinions….. The correct (boring) approach is to provide a summary about Gleick’s shenanigans to the event organisers and let them make the decision.
Leif and others,
This isn’t an issue of censorship…that would be the case if he were rejected for his views or opinions.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 11, 2012 at 10:50 am
“I doubt it is anybody’s business to tell Oxford who they invite to speak, but that may just be me. I’m sure there are many out there that would delight in such censorship.”
If I had to watch a lecture by a wire fra*dster and forger I’d prefer Kevin Mitnick. But that might just be me.
John F. Hultquist says:
April 11, 2012 at 12:45 pm
“So here I was, about to write something brilliant about allowing folks to speak. Even self admitted scoundrels might have something interesting to say. Gleick seems to know more about water than he does about ethics.”
Actually I wasn’t that impressed. Björn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist has one chapter about the global water situation, unsurprisingly, he refuses to panic like Gleick, and it’s much more level-headed and rational than what Gleick spouts in his lectures – there are many on youtube if you must… Gleick is an alarmist and always earned his money with alarmism…
And BTW, here’s a nice desal unit in a box…
Spectra watermakers Aquifer 360 desalinator.mpg
Hook it up to a solar panel and produce 8 to 16 gallons an hour. 2011.
heartland is calling on, eh? is that a real job description? is anything valuable produced by calling on? I am aware that the activity requires donations and contributions to finance full time callers on but I am not aware of a single value produced by an of these little angster franchises.
i really hope the ‘consciousness elevator activist bubble’ bursts soon. it would be a really good idea to get back to productive endeavors.
FireFox with AdBlock Plus, and Ghostery.
I don’t even see the ads, much less hear them.
I think it goes a long way to illustrate the integrity that Oxford University has.
That would be, “none.”
So, is there some magic incantation needed to get California to enforce it’s law on electronic impersonation, or is it only a Political Law, to be enforced only against those not in political favor?
Is this one of those things that needs a politically motivated DA to be applied, or can any old citizen file a complaint?
As I didn’t grow up under Socialism / Communism I’m not sure how all these Political Tool Only laws work….
@Jeffrey Ziegler
Just set the volume control on “mute”. I leave it there unless there’s something I particularly want to hear, like a video clip. Generally never get bothered by unwanted Audio, as it’s turned off….
Let him speak. Broadcast it from the rooftops. Also broadcast the Q&A session at the end. Let’s hear the razor sharp, intellectually honest, cut and thrust for which Oxford is so famous.
Even if you accept that there is a ‘right’ to water, that it is more than a fantasy from the heads of Gleick and his like – how will it operate in practice? Suppose some notoriously dry country like Niger has even less rain than usuall, and suppose the typically incompetent government fails to supply the population with bottled water. Then what? Does the UN send in some troops to arrest Niger’s president? Will the President’s bodyguard, whose well being depends on him staying in charge, just step aside? And moreover why not assume that the people of Niger have very little confidence in their government’s ability to provide anything (apart from death and taxes) and will make their own arrangements? Its easy to say one party has a right to water. Its more complicated when you have to look at the duty of the other party to supply it, and the consequences of failing in that duty. In practice, it would likely turn out to be just another mechanism whereby the high-minded can indulge their passion for kicking black mens bottoms and feel good about it, all the while diverting attention from great scandal to trivia like the President of Niger not being up to the job of dishing out water bottles.
Jeremy says:
April 11, 2012 at 10:32 am
The organiser of the lecture by Peter Gleick is Bronwen Morgan.
Bronwen may be blissfully unaware of the clod of controversy surrounding Peter Gleick…
You forgot the “/sarc” bit at the end, mate.
George E. Smith:
April 11, 2012 at 1:39 pm
To deprive you of access to emeralds, even from now until eternity, would be a fruitless exercise.
However to deprive you of access to clean drinking water for a period of just 7 days would certainly result in your definite and premature demise.
Please keep your fallacies of logic to yourself.
@HankHerry
> He resigned from the Pacific Institute which he himself founded. That’s a preposterously meaningless act.
No he did not resign.
He requested a leave of absence which was accepted. The very terminology clearly indicates he expects to return to the Pacific Institute at some point in the future.
Sorry about repeat posts above and occasional typing errors. WordPress used to leave the post on my page under the statement ‘awaiting moderation’ (on my iPad) but it seems things have changed leaving one to postulate if I hit the ‘post comment’ button or the page refresh button by mistake.
It’s working again now.
..if I can just get it to fix my typing spelling and grammatical errors (oh deer).
My penance is one hundred lines;
I must not post comments when half asleep early hours of the morning
I must not ………. : > )