The Gleick Scandal 2

I am replying here to several interesting comments to my last post. From reader D. E. Bishop:

I haven't seen any Proof of forgery yet. Does it exist? I don't mean opinions or suggestions or insistences, or even, "Everybody knows... Proof. Is there any proof?

I reply that the burden of proof lies solely on the person who disseminates the document. Meagan McArdle has done a masterful job of presenting the internal evidence against the document. What does Peter Gleick have to say in defense of it?

At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute's climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute's apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it.

In the absence of further evidence of the "anonymous document's" authenticity, a person with any sense of honor is not only entitled but obligated to regard it as fraudulent. Others have pointed out that no one else claims to have received the same document. Gleick is the only source.

Reader A.I. posted this:

The pot would be the climate change skeptics and deniers that have their undies in a bunch over alleged "fraud" in the kettle outing possibly forged documents from the Heartland Institute. They/you seem to be forgetting their/your total lack of outrage at the way information was obtained by HACKING emails in the episode I reference while gleefully distorting the contents of those emails in an effort to discredit the findings of climate scientists.

If I have yet to express outrage over the release of the East Anglia emails, it is largely because no one has yet discovered how they were obtained or who obtained and first disseminated them. The problem with emails is that they travel around in bundles and often end up in the wrong hands. It is not impossible that the emails were legitimately obtained.

It is more plausible to assume that the University of East Anglia email system was hacked. That would be a serious invasion of privacy and perhaps a crime. In previous comment I conceded that "If a credentialed critic of AGW were found to have stolen the East Anglia files, that would be a deep wound to his or her reputation."

By contrast, we know everything about the Gleick case except who produced the suspicious document. Here is what Gleick himself has admitted, continued from above:

Given the potential impact however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else's name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget. I forwarded, anonymously, the documents I had received to a set of journalists and experts working on climate issues.

So Gleick fraudulently obtained genuine documents and attempted to use them to support the "anonymous document". This is scandalous behavior: scientifically and intellectually dishonest. It is more and less amusing that, until very recently, Gleick was the chair of the American Geophysical Union "Task Force on Scientific Ethics."

Friend and infrequent supporter Bill Fleming has this:

I agree with KB's post here if I understand what he's saying correctly. Integrity is essential in this debate. Positively essential from those who wish to affect change in our energy practices. And further, they need to convince the world, not just the Republicans. It's time to be impeccable. It could be past time.

Thanks, Bill. That was indeed my point.

Comments

[larry kurtz]

sexing up a dossier is hardly a new development in the war for the hearts and balls of the human race.

[Bill Fleming]

All that said, it would really be tragic if, once all the cities have flooded and the pestilence is upon us, all the climate change nay-sayers had to say was, "well, those guys lied once too."

[A.I.]

Point one: It makes little difference how the University of East Anglia emails were obtained KB, they were not meant for public dissemination. They were confidential communications between scientists who were challenging each others findings in an effort to find truth.

Point two: People who knew full well these were private communications used them anyway, took them out of context and distorted them to bolster the notions that global warming is a hoax, that scientists conspire to push the "climate change myth" in order to garner research grants, etc, etc.

Point three: I make no excuses for Gleick other than he got caught up in the passion of his beliefs and did some unethical things in their defense. What he did was wrong, but those who used the East Anglia emails to bolster their beliefs or simply make a buck were hardly more ethical than Gleick.

So, we have two wrongs that do not make a right and we have a hew and cry from folks who committed acts no more ethical than those they now decry. Spare me the righteous indignation, empathy would be a more appropriate response. And note that Gleick has apologized for his tactics, when do we here the same from the other side?

[duggersd]

A.I., I am not condoning hacking servers and stealing e-mails. As I understand it, you are correct in saying they were not meant for public dissemination. However, I have not heard anybody claim they were forgeries. These do seem to determine that there was/is indeed an effort to hide data from the public that did not support the global warming theory. Is this a little like what Daniel Ellsberg did with the Pentagon Papers? Many people see him as a hero.
It sounds like, and it is yet to be determined definitively, that the documents dropped by Gleick are forgeries, and he probably knew that. And now we have people using his possibly forged documents as evidence against an organization.
And Bill, when we are in the midst of another Ice Age, you can remind all of the global warming crowd that the skeptics stole some e-mails once.

[Mark Anderson]

All you have to do is look at how conservatives have looked at climate change. It has everything to do with politics, conservatives don't accept fact based arguments so why bother.

[Donald Pay]

We have the identity of the author of the disputed "fraudulent" memo through statistical analyses of similarities between the disputed "fraudulent" memo with various comparative known texts of potential sources. The most likely source of the "fraudulent" memo is Joe Bast, who is the chair of Heartland Institute.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/joe-bast-fake-document_b_1297042.html

[Ken Blanchard]

A.I.: On point one, maybe and no. The rules governing email communications are very unclear. I would not publicize an email sent to me without the permission of the sender, but am I morally let alone legally obligated not to do so?

The East Anglia scientists were not "challenging each other to find the truth." They were discussing how to spin a case that they themselves recognized to be weaker than they wanted it to be. The emails were a big embarrassment to the AGW agenda.

On points three and four: you urge me to be sympathetic to Gleick and chide me for not being sufficiently outraged by the E.A. emails. Fine. I see no sympathy on your part for the authors of the latter or outrage directed at the former. Let us both confess to some emotional bias here.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: I know you hate Heartland but don't you have to admire them a bit? If Heartland produced a fake document and fed it to Gleick, well, he swallowed it whole, didn't he? Regardless of the origin of the document, Gleick showed himself to be corrupt. He proved what AGW critics have frequently alleged: that the climate science movement is willing to sacrifice scientific and scholar scruples for their agenda.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: yes. It would also be tragic if the world were really to condemn millions of people to continued poverty in order to avert climate change and then we found out that our computer climate models were wrong. The fact that Gleick was well meaning won't help at that point, I am guessing.

[Donald Pay]

The people who have demonstrated corruption over years and years is Heartland Institute. They have been a cog in the corporate funded anti-science propaganda machine for decades, and have taken money for their anti-science crusade from ExxonMobil and Phillip Morris.

[Donald Pay]

What has been exposed by these leaked documents goes far beyond any supposed dispute over climate change Heartland Institute has tried to gin up. I'm sure KB would like everyone to focus on just that part of the documents, but there is a lot of criminality unmasked by Gleick's document dump.

The rightwing is more concerned about the now exposed illegal churning and money laundering operation being orchestrated through tax-exempt think tanks in order to hide and gain tax advantages to the super rich for their campaign donations. Heartland is being exposed as a money launderer for the super rich who want to buy elections and get tax write offs. This is the same sort of money laundering operation that was perfected in Wisconsin by Reince Preibus, David Block (Cain's old campaign chairman) and Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/scott-walker-heartland-institute_n_1285100.html

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: If you want to accuse Heartland of criminality, you might at least provide some evidence. I suspect you don't need no stinking evidence. No one has shown anything in the Heartland documents that was not already known. Heartland has been very open in disclosing its donors.

As for the "super rich", here is a bit from Steven Hayward at Powerline:

"It happens that the Environmental Defense Fund in a recent report thanks 141 anonymous donors for their support. Recently the Sierra Club was exposed for having taken $26 million in anonymous support (until it leaked) from Chesapeake Energy, a fossil fuel company."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/02/climate-gleick-out-update-plot-thickens.php

[Donald Pay]

Better pay attention, KB. The rot has infected the National Republican Party, and the entire right wing echochamber, where you get most of your informatiion.

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11305/angry-badger-campaign-revealed-another-charity-gets-involved-wi-recall