By Christopher C. Horner
First published in the Washington Examiner, reposted here with permission
Not long ago, the American Tradition Institute initiated a transparency campaign using federal and state freedom of information laws to learn more about how taxpayer-funded academics use their positions to advance a particular agenda. On its face, this should have been welcomed by the Left, which often lays claim to the “transparency” mantle. It is instead causing great angst.
Our project would compile the context to the “Climategate” scandal, which, as activist academics central to its revelations assured us, was really an out-of-context misrepresentation. Curiously, the same people think this project a very bad idea.
So do the media and environmentalist establishments. Of the latter, the Union of Concerned Scientists became particularly exercised, mobilizing left-wing groups to urge universities not to satisfy our requests for public documents.
None of these groups, incidentally, was troubled by a series of similar requests by Greenpeace, whose effort we replicated. They only became opposed when we sought the emails of the sort of activists with whom they work.
Some of these, recently obtained from Texas A&M University, provide one explanation for this reversal.
For example, they reveal a sophisticated UCS operation to assist activist academics and other government employees as authorities for promoting UCS’s agenda. This includes “moot-courting” congressional hearings with a team of UCS staff, all the way down to providing dossiers on key committee members, addressing in particular their faith, stance on gay marriage and stimulus spending. Of course.
This also includes directing the taxpayers’ servants to outside PR consultants — apparently pro bono or else on UCS’s dime. Keep this last point in mind.
They also expose the New York Times reporter who covers the environment, science and specifically the global warming issue, Justin Gillis, as being no disinterested party.
Gillis wrote a piece in May laboring to undermine one of the most highly credentialed and respected climate “skeptics,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Dr. Richard Lindzen. This front-page article prompted my request for information reflecting how the A&M professor and activist whom Gillis quoted was using his taxpayer-funded position.
The specific correspondence began when Gillis wrote that interviewing Lindzen for a piece on his area of expertise was “unavoidable,” and “[s]o I need a really good bibliography of all the published science” countering Lindzen’s position on cloud feedback — “that is, anything that stands as evidence against Lindzen’s claim that the feedback has to be strongly negative.”
Remember, this was a reporter for the New York Times writing this. In the released emails, Gillis comes off as an activist posing as a journalist, sneering at Lindzen. Of another prominent skeptic, Gillis wrote, “I sense you’ve got him in a trap here … can’t wait to see it sprung.” (Ellipses in original.)
Our transparency campaign caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth among academia and its affiliated societies, the Washington Post, and the American Constitution Society. They joined UCS to attest that these sacrosanct exchanges of ideas would be fatally chilled if not granted an unlegislated exemption from freedom of information laws.
So you might be surprised to learn that the Texas A&M email production shows the academics actually forwarding their email discussions outside their circle. To New York Times reporters, for example. They even often copy reporters on the very exchanges they otherwise insist represent an intellectual circle that must remain free from violation by prying, nonacademic eyes. Awkward.
Following my Texas A&M request, a producer contacted me from “Frontline,” a PBS program known for grinding liberal axes. She wanted to discuss our Freedom of Information Act litigation. As we are currently only involved in the high-profile case involving the University of Virginia’s Climategate records, I referred her to lead counsel.
It turns out she was really interested in records requests with two different, more cooperative schools: the Texas A&M request, and one I filed at Texas Tech University. The latter sought a professor and climate activist’s correspondence about a chapter she was writing for Newt Gingrich’s upcoming book. (Naturally, this Texas Tech professor who opposed providing me the emails had already provided them to a Los Angeles Times reporter.)
Now, you might ask, how would two otherwise fairly obscure Texas activists become the subject of interest to “Frontline”? That brings us back to UCS.
One of the emails produced by Texas A&M shows its activist contacting, and being given advice by, a D.C. media consultant, Richard Ades of Prism Public Affairs, “a strategic communications firm that operates at the intersection of public policy and the media” according to its website. The professor says he was referred by Aaron Huertas of UCS.
I have sent two other public records requests following up on these points. Expect the usual suspects to respond in their usual way. The media, academia and environmentalist pressure groups share an agenda, and work closely together to advance it. Remember this when these interests assail efforts to obtain public records shedding light on these activities.
Christopher C. Horner is director of litigation for the American Tradition Institute and author of the forthcoming book “The Liberal War on Transparency: Confessions of a Freedom of Information ‘Criminal’ ” (Threshold).
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It should be noted that the Union of Concerned Scientists requires no scientific qualifications whatsoever for becoming a member of the organization. In fact, as demonstrated by the UCS membership granted to my family dog, all that is required to be part of UCS is a valid credit card, and they don’t even check if the member and the card match. – Anthony
Honesty and transparency. . . That’s for little people.
Climate Scientists have a moral obligation to lie, cheat, obfuscate and pretend because they know, they KNOW they are so smart and so correct, that their work is so critical to saving humanity.
Because they are smart, progressive environmentalists who cannot be wrong.
Anthony,
Perhaps you should consider setting up a profile for Kenji on LinkedIn. With his credentials as exemplified by his membership in the UCS, perhaps he could bring another revenue stream to your family.
cohenite says:
July 8, 2012 at 1:51 am
Sue them:
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/news-legal-action-against-agw/#comment-1080894
In the middle of that thread is one of the funniest strings of comments regarding angry goats in the pac nw
July 6, 2012 at 2:59 pm ·
Global Warming makes goats get angry yep thats right, due to a deep snowpack in JULY I MIGHT ADD the goats are pissed off and rightly so.
If it was not for global warming we would not have so much snow and the goats would return to their more friendly state of mind.
The damage caused by CO2 is untold…………..
http://iceagenow.info/2012/07/aggressive-goats-force-closure-olympic-national-forest-trail/
I wonder if Newt Gingrich is aware of Katherine Hayhoe’s duplicitous behavior?
gerrydorrian66 says:
July 7, 2012 at 8:04 pm
“Shortly before Climategate became public, I heard from an American journalist that the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit had been deleting data…..
I was passed around from extension to extension until I finally got somebody who identified herself as the manager of the press unit, who said the data were deleted because of copyright issues. A few days later the scandal broke.
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As I recall the Climategate information first went to news Journalists but I can not find the reference.
I did find this very interesting information.
So it looks like the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit was aware of the data information breach and the first thing they did was to DELETE THE DATA!
This is not really surprising given that Jones tells Mann that he is sending station data. Says that if McIntyre requests it under FoI he will delete it rather than hand it over. Says he will hide behind data protection laws….
To put this in context for any new-comers, these are the e-mails referring to circumventing FoI. The listing is from Bishop Hill’s compendium of CRU email issues – link
(The numbers refer to climategate #1 e-mails but link no longer works)
The proper term to address the UCS is Fellow Travelers.
They follow in the foot steps of our Undocumented Worker-in-Chief. HIs first Executive Order was to seal and hide all of his personal information and records. Call him, Mr. Transparency!
What a role model. No wonder those around him, like Holder, tend to flout the law at every turn. “Daddy does it all the time!”
Dingy, dirty subway … I thought thats what the greens want us to ride.
I too fear the use of the word “liberal” in Christopher Horner’s title is giving away a precious word to “leftists”, meaning all those, no matter how they label themselves today, who prefer authoritarian practices, a government-by-themselves (elites) in control, with mind, thought, research, and the police function obeying their dictates. The “scientific method” is not only abandoned, but demonized. To call these people “liberal” is a travesty. Those who find themselves more “conservative” or “libertarian” (American party system) should not permit the misuse and emotional abuse of “liberal”.
Our ancestors fought an extremely hard-won battle mostly within Western societies/civilization that permitted the possibility of “liberal” ideas and practices according to this definition: “associated with ideals of individual freedom, greater intellectual liberty, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives, such as the U.S. Constitution.”
At the same time, Christopher Horner is that kind of investigative journalist/researcher/scientist who is providing information leading to “greater intellectual liberty” that can help us identify those institutions we want to continue compared to those we choose to assign to the “lost-to-authoritarian” or mind-control dustbin. Transparency and accountability are fundamental.
As always, gratitude to Anthony and WUWT.
Peter Miller says:
July 8, 2012 at 12:39 am
….. I believe we constantly need to stress the difference between AGW and CAGW – alarmists like to muddle them together to confuse the general public. AGW is real, but it is only a very minor factor impacting on climate, which has been mostly beneficial to mankind. While CAGW is best left to poorly written, poorly conceived, science fiction novels like those written by crackpot cult leader L Ron Hubbard.
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L. Ron Hubbard was no crackpot, he was a CROOK. As science fiction author, L. Sprague deCamp said ” I knew L. Ron when he was a small time crook.”
Seems the CAGW alarmists are following in L. Ron’s footsteps.
You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.– L. Ron Hubbard (Response to a question from the audience during a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association on (7 November 1948), as quoted in a 1994 affidavit by Sam Moskowitz.) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard
Horner is in the top three of the real heros who are going to finally put a stake in the heart of this fraud. You can guess the other two.
If not for what the spectre of global warming alarmism has forced upon our attention we might have suffered the evil that public-funded education has become. Now we can do something about it. That is the gift of this hoax.
@William Howard Astley
” Cloud feedbacks are still considered to be highly uncertain (IPCC, 2007), but the fact that these feedbacks are strongly positive in most models is considered to be an indication that the result is basically correct.”
It occurred to me this morning that the reason the feedbacks are reported to be ‘highly uncertain’ are that they are known, feared and therefore not reported. From a Warmist’s perspective, the last thing the AGW models need is a Big Negative Feedback (BNF). It would be more correct to say that the “feedbacks are highly uncertain and will remain that way until such time as the funding stops pouring into the public trough.”
It should be fairly easy to show, in spite of all the guessed-value variables in the models, that when BNF’s are incorporated, the models predict the current stasis/cooling (at least the 100 year stasis in New Zealand and the slow cooling over the past 30 years in N America).
BNF remains the last big variable which is already known in the literature but not incorporated into the models. I can’t see it being incorporated by those with a vested interest in climate alarmism.
The Union of Concerned Socialists, citizens and scientists for environmental solutions. Just try to find out from the UCS how many of the former and latter make up their membership. Good luck.
For a minimum donation of $5, anyone can become a member.
What else is there to say about the UCS?
Leo Morgan says:
July 8, 2012 at 3:11 am
I recommend you delete the word ‘Liberal’ from the title of your upcoming book.
You will increase your sales among those who most need to read it.
Attack the issues not the people, and you win the people over.
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I certainly agree with that. CAGW should not be a liberal/conservative issue. The Political Activists are the ones who are making it a right vs left issue so they can use the “herd mentality”. Do not play into their hands.
papiertigre says:
July 8, 2012 at 4:19 am
“holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and an M.A. in Zoology from the University of California, Davis and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego.”
Hysterical. I nearly coughed a lung out when I read “Ph.D. in Ecology”. His resume reads like a spit take.
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I noticed many of the Universities named were from either The Peoples Republic of Taxechusetts, The Peoples Republic of Kalifornia or the newest addition (Thanks to John Denver no doubt) Colorado.
Speaking of climategate, isn’t it about time that we get some kind of decision on Mann’s UVA emails?
When asked if I am a “conspiracy theorist” by warm-mongers, I respond by saying I prefer the term “systemic bias theorist”.
Leo Morgan says:
July 8, 2012 at 3:11 am
“I recommend you delete the word ‘Liberal’ from the title of your upcoming book.
You will increase your sales among those who most need to read it.
Attack the issues not the people, and you win the people over.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
DirkH says:
July 8, 2012 at 6:00 am
You are assuming that Liberals think rationally. Is there evidence for this?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, Willis Eschenbach is an example and so is Rosa Koire, a classic “Liberal” lady who wrote Behind the Green Mask and runs the blog Democrats Against Agenda 21
Do not make the mistake of attributing the nasty greedy cunning attributes of the leaders of a movement to the rank and file members. Many liberals and conservatives are actually on the same side but the Media works very hard to convince them otherwise as do the leaders. – Divide and Conquer is the name of the game.
During the 20’s it was Lenin’s ‘Innocents’ Clubs’: Radicals were led believed they were advancing socialist humanism.
The ‘Innocents’ Clubs’
Most liberals are genuinely concerned about other people and therefore they can be engaged in conversation and lead around to looking at new information. I have done so many many times. Conservative Christians are the same. One just has to be careful about hitting the “Hot Topic” button too soon. However if you have already established yourself as a reasonable person in their mind they will listen to your new information.
“The collusion of the climate crowd”
Many thanks to Christopher C. Horner and the American Tradition Institute for their efforts. This is a very well written article.
As most of the long term followers of WUWT and Climategate already know about the CAGW scam. It is important to provide reviews and summaries from time to time as more newcomers to the issue haven’t seen the in-depth discussions that have been covered since the release of Climategate emails and the following cover-ups. The scam has been exposed and the efforts of the players to put a cover-up on it is the most damning. A lot of these players were previously in the closet but had to come out to try to keep the scam alive. That has been the greatest revelation.
Those such as Watts, McIntyre, and too many others to begin to name deserve recognition and honors.
The truth is out and no amount of lies and spin will put it back in the bottle. Justice needs to be applied and may be swift if and when it begins. The CAGW scam has destroyed trust in science, academia, governments, EPA, NASA, the media, the courts, etc, etc. The fact that it ever got off the ground is astounding. That it became so widespread even more so. The cover-up and attempts at it’s defense is something that no word can describe. It is the worst case of racketeering and fraud in recent history. Well … at least equal to some politicians, but they are on the bandwagon also.
The good side to it all is that many will no longer trust the media, the government, academics, etc. Hopefully critical thinking may arise from the ashes, I hope.
Gail Combs says:
July 8, 2012 at 8:40 am
One just has to be careful about hitting the “Hot Topic” button too soon. However if you have already established yourself as a reasonable person in their mind they will listen to your new information.
I’ve learned through long experience that there are some people you *can’t* hit the “Hot Topic” button with — but that button may not be the one you thought it would be.
Which is probably the reason conversations at my barbecues are limited to technical discussions on pondscaping, pisciculture, and “Why Lite Beer Shouldn’t Be Called Beer”…
pyromancer76 says:
July 8, 2012 at 7:33 am
Those who find themselves more “conservative” or “libertarian” (American party system) should not permit the misuse and emotional abuse of “liberal”.
Unfortunately, “liberal” was co-opted by the radical Left long, long ago. Ironic that they now prefer to be called “progressives,” which was the fraternal socialistic (i.e., politically correct) term of choice in the USSR used to describe “useful idiots.”
On its face, this should have been welcomed by the Left, which often lays claim to the “transparency” mantle.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha! I needed a good laugh to get my day started. The modus operandi of the modern left is the antithesis of transparency.
It is instead causing great angst.
What else is new? Gee, we haven’t seen any examples of this from the left in the last decade or two. /sarc
The modern left would have to return to the rock the crawled out from under if they were ever transparent about what they do or want to do.
Julian I’m willing to give Ms. Spanger-Siegfried the benefit of the doubt, as originally noted (“or three depending on the content of Erika Spanger-Siegfried’s Master’s degree”). Still, whichever is the case, she’s been as silent as the rest.
Lucy, agreed — your abbreviation is better, with its pronunciation algorithmic possibilities. 🙂
Has your dog got a credit card?