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by tazmic » Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:00 am
compared2what? wrote:tazmic wrote:Joe Bast of the Heartland Institute (with some 'extremely subliminal' cut-scenes):
Seriously? Joe Bast? I mean.... Joe Bast???
....
I don't really know what else to say.
by seemslikeadream » Wed Feb 22, 2012 10:35 am
It appears to have followed the script written by a consultant to the Republican party, Frank Luntz,in 2002. “Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”
Luntz’s technique was pioneered by the tobacco companies and the creationists: teach the controversy. Insist that the question of whether cigarettes cause lung cancer, natural selection drives evolution, or burning fossil fuels causes climate change, is still wide open, and that both sides of the ‘controversy’ should be taught in schools and thrashed out in the media.
Heartland Institute Funnel of Funding Infographic
By Zachary Shahan On February 19, 2012
Skeptical Science has put together a nice infographic of the Heartland Institute’s funding sources and where the money goes based this week’s leaked documents (note, however, that nearly half of the Heartland Institute’s revenue, $14.26 million of its $33.9 million, comes from a single anonymous donor, according to the document). Some notes from Skeptical Science before showing the infographic:
These numbers come from the Heartland 2012 Budget and Fundraising Plan documents (in US dollars). Note that while some of the figures in this graphic have been confirmed, Heartland has not yet confirmed that all the numbers are correct. There is also no reason to doubt their veracity to this point. If any of the numbers are found to be in error, we will revise this graphic accordingly.
Although there are too many donations and programs to include in a single graphic, we selected some of the larger and more prominent contributors for the upper half of the graphic. Most of the programs and individuals in the lower half are potentially climate-related, with the exception of Operation Angry Badger, which we included because it potentially vlolates Heartland’s tax-exempt chartiable organizational status, and James Taylor, because he frequently writes climate “skeptic” blog posts for Forbes.
Additionally, some notes from the AP:
Because Heartland was not specific about what was fake and what was real, The Associated Press attempted to verify independently key parts of separate budget and fundraising documents that were leaked. The federal consultant working on the classroom curriculum, the former TV weatherman, a Chicago elected official who campaigns against hidden local debt and two corporate donors all confirmed to the AP that the sections in the document that pertained to them were accurate. No one the AP contacted said the budget or fundraising documents mentioning them were incorrect.
…
The most sensational parts of the documents — and much of what has been confirmed independently — had to do with global warming and efforts to spread doubt into what mainstream scientists are saying. Experts long have thought Heartland and other groups were working to muddy the waters about global warming, said Harry Lambright, a Syracuse University public policy professor who specializes in environment, science and technology issues.
“Scientifically there is no controversy. Politically, there is a controversy because there are political interest groups making it a controversy,” Lambright said. “It’s not about science. It’s about politics. To some extent they are winning the battle.”
A 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences surveyed more than 1,300 most cited and published climate scientists and found that 97 percent of them said climate change was a man-made problem. Yet, public opinion polls show far more doubt in the American public.
Source: Planetsave (http://s.tt/15KR3)
Scott Walker, Targeted For A Recall, Which Heartland Institute Aims To Fight, Documents Show Scott Walker Recall
WASHINGTON -- Recently leaked documents show that a Chicago-based conservative think tank plans to spend money on an issue-advocacy campaign timed to influence a potential recall election of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, which could happen as early as April. The proposed campaign highlights the invisible hand that nonprofits, shielded from disclosure laws, can wield in electoral politics.
According to documents leaked and posted to DeSmogBlog, the Heartland Institute has budgeted $612,000 for a Wisconsin campaign called Operation Angry Badger. The campaign consists of an effort to inform voters of the success of Walker's budget law, passed on June 26, that included a reduction in the collective bargaining rights of workers in public employee unions. The budget sparked a labor-led protest movement that has consumed Wisconsin politics over the past year.
The leaked budget document describes Operation Angry Badger as "a research and education project built to take advantage of the public interest in Wisconsin’s Act 10 generated by recall elections that could take place." The plan includes print and Web advertising to help publicize Walker's changes to collective bargaining rights and what the institute claims are the high salaries of public school teachers and poor educational results within Wisconsin's schools. The group also proposes creating blogs during a potential recall election to counter local newspaper and media reports on the Walker budget, school teacher salaries and public employee unions.
"The stolen documents appear to have been written by Heartland’s president for a board meeting that took place on January 17," the Heartland Institute wrote in a statement. "The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to 're-send' board materials to a new email address." The institute also claims that certain leaked documents are fraudulent, although it did not assert this about the budget with details about Operation Angry Badger.
After Walker's controversial budget was enacted, Wisconsin saw a large increase in spending by advocacy groups, inside and outside Wisconsin. These efforts, mostly funneled into television and radio advertising, popped up, not amid debate over the bill, but during the run-up to the recall elections last July and August. Outside groups spent $34.5 million on efforts during that first round of recall elections. Issue ads, which are ostensibly non-electoral in nature, accounted for at least $13.68 million of the outside spending in those recall elections, according to a report by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonprofit group that tracks spending on elections in the Badger State.
"For the most part, Wisconsin only sees these [issue ads] around election times," Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, told The Huffington Post. "We call these phony election ads."
The Heartland Institute is just one of a collection of groups gearing up to play a role in a potential next round of recalls. The institute's planned campaign would be billed as issue advocacy, precluding it from disclosing expenses and donors.
Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group founded by Charles and David Koch, and the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute are now running issue ads on television in Wisconsin touting the Walker budget in what might end up being the prelude to a recall election of Walker. The two groups spent $1.1 million on issue ads in the final weeks of 2011 asking residents not to sign recall petitions for Walker or other state senators.
A group siding with Walker's opponents, the Greater Wisconsin Committee, spent about $800,000 in December on issue advertisements supporting the recall of the governor.
An ongoing debate over whether issue advocacy should be more regulated during an election season flared up after the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case in January 2010. The court opened the door for nonprofit groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Heartland Institute to spend money on direct electoral appeals.
To stay within the boundaries of their tax-exempt legal status, nonprofit groups must spend less than 50 percent of their expenses on these newly allowed direct electoral appeals. This has led to an explosion of spending by ideological nonprofit groups, especially by conservative organizations, for electoral appeals and issue advocacy. These nonprofit organizations sometimes rely on issue advocacy campaigns (that craft a negative portrait of a candidate and thereby influence elections) so that they will end up spending more than 50 percent of their budget on non-electoral matters.
While the courts have upheld the distinction between issue and electoral ads, groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Karl Rove-linked Crossroads GPS have faced criticism for producing issue ads that target specific candidates.
Watch the new Americans for Prosperity issue ad in Wisconsin.
The Heartland Institute And Murdoch Media
By Patrick Lockerby | February 20th 2012 08:32 PM
The Heartland Institute and Murdoch Media
The Heartland Institute story broke on February 14th. The revelation that anti-science bunkum has been funded by corporate dollars was no surprise to those of us who have been investigating these propaganda mills. Peter H Gleik has confirmed that he was the one who obtained the secret documents. In confirming that he got them straight from the Heartland Institute he also confirms their authenticity.
The world at large also needs to know that Rupert Murdoch's media empire - which often cites the Heartland Institute as a source for "climate science" - has managed to block publication of anything relating to this denialgate story in all but two of its outlets.
At the time of writing, of the mighty magnate Murdoch's multiple media mouthpieces only The Australian has covered the denialgate news. The story broke February 14th, but the Australian story was posted February 17th. However, it was straight copy from an AP newsfeed.
The other denialgate material was merely a pathetic bit of blogspin here and here by Andrew Bolt.
In the UK, the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Times also failed to cover the story. The Telegraph - or Toiletgraph as I prefer to call it - instead of this globally important news printed a nasty smear about how Richard Dawkins' ancestors kept slaves. The Daily Mail, a newspaper which once prided itself on investigative journalism, recently managed to distort a news release from the U.K. Met Office so badly that the Met Office felt the need to post this response. The Daily Mail and the GWPF seem to have a cozy relationship in which the GWPF gives "science advice" to the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail is linked through Daily Mail and General Trust plc to DMG Radio Australia - whose chairman is Lachlan Murdoch - the eldest son of Rupert Murdoch.
Not one of the following Murdoch "News" outlets has covered the Heartland Institute deniergate affair as far as I can ascertain:
alicenow.com.au
brooklyndaily.com
brooklynpaper.com
BxTimes.com
couriermail.com.au
dailytelegraph.com.au
dailytidings.com
djnewswires.com
efinancialnews.com
foxnews.com
foxtel.com.au
heraldsun.com.au
marketwatch.com
mxnet.com.au
news.com.au
ntnews.com.au
nypost.com
online.barrons.com
online.wsj.com
postcourier.com.pg
sky.com
sky.co.nz
sky.de
sky.it
the-leader.com
themercury.com.au
thesun.co.uk
thesundaymail.com.au
thesundaytimes.co.uk
thetimes.co.uk
th-record.com
timesledger.com
A news blackout is a very old propaganda trick. The hope is that the target audience will never hear the other side of the argument. Meanwhile, the propagandist keeps repeating the same old propaganda slogans: it's the sun, it's cosmic rays, etc.
Rupert Murdoch, like the old time radio broadcaster: "is a sovereign lord. He decides whether the event is spoken about at all, that is, whether it is broadcast."
"One-sidedness is indispensable because the confusion around us is so great that every impression will quickly be shoved aside by a new one. Nothing is forgetful as the masses. Something can have appeared in a thousand newspapers and have been talked about by the millions, but a few months later it will be completely forgotten."
quoted words from Eugen Hadamovsky.
When it became known that our production of greenhouse gases was unsettling the world's climate system, the world's sovereign states joined together in an unprecedented attempt to identify and address the problem. The sovereign states asked the world's scientists to investigate and the world's scientists responded. Amongst those sovereign states were the U.S., Australia, Canada and the U.K. It is in those countries that political think tanks like the Heartland Institute and the GWPF have been most actively engaged in trying to undermine the scientific base of evidence which informs our democracies. It is notable that in order to undermine the scientific authority of the IPCC, the Heartland Institute funded the NIPCC.
"And what do we do with this money? Well we in turn hire students whose job it is to review current papers in the literature and these are reviewed and get published in the NIPCC reports."
Fred Singer
So, do you trust some of the world's top climate scientists, or a bunch of students who are presumably told which cherries to pick?
These and other paid propagandists have deliberately set out to undermine the democratic process by which climate policy is decided. Under the guise of freedom of speech they have freely lied through their teeth for a few pieces of silver.
Modern democracies depend on science for their very survival, and science depends on true freedom of speech.
Fortunately, ordinary people are now waking up and smelling the bullshit. They know they are being had. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but when you place democracy itself in peril and think you can get away with it, then you fool only yourself.
Democracy and freedom of speech are not for sale to the highest bidder - period.
Scholarly Society Rejects Deception Regarding Heartland Institute Documents
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to a blog post late yesterday, 20 February 2012, by Dr. Peter Gleick regarding documents purportedly from the Heartland Institute which he disseminated, AGU President Michael McPhaden issued the following statement:
"AGU is disappointed that Dr. Gleick acted in a way that is inconsistent with our organization's values. AGU expects its members to adhere to the highest standards of scientific integrity in their research and in their interactions with colleagues and the public. Among the core values articulated in AGU's Strategic Plan are 'excellence and integrity in everything we do.' The vast majority of scientists share and live by these values.
"AGU will continue to uphold these values and encourage scientists to embrace them in order to remain deserving of the public trust. While this incident is regrettable, it should not obscure the fact that climate change is occurring or interfere with substantive scientific discourse regarding climate change."
On Thursday, 16 February, prior to his blog post, Dr. Gleick resigned as chair of AGU's Task Force on Scientific Ethics, which first convened in November 2011. In his resignation, he cited "personal, private reasons" and expressed concern that he would not be able to fulfill his responsibilities as chair. His resignation was accepted.
Following Dr. Gleick's resignation, a search began immediately for a replacement. Effective today, 21 February, the new chair of AGU's Task Force on Scientific Integrity is Linda Gundersen, Director, Office of Science Quality and Integrity, USGS (U.S. Geological Survey).
About AGU
The American Geophysical Union is a not-for-profit society of Earth and space scientists with more than 61,000 members in 146 countries. Established in 1919 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., AGU advances the Earth and space sciences through its scholarly publications, meetings, and outreach programs. For more information, visit http://www.agu.org.
SOURCE American Geophysical Union
The Heartland Affair: A Climate Champion Cheats — and We All Lose
By Bryan Walsh Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012
Late last year, Peter Gleick — the president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security; and a respected expert on water-and-climate issues — co-authored a paper on the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) task force on scientific ethics and integrity. Gleick and his co-author Randy Townsend of the AGU wrote that advancing scientific work to create a sustainable future would only be possible if scientists had the trust of the public and policymakers. And that trust, they added, "is earned by maintaining the highest standards of scientific integrity in all that we do."
Strong words, and true ones too, but Gleick himself has failed to live up to them — and his actions have hurt not just his own professional reputation but the cause of climate science as well. Last week an anonymous person who called himself a "Heartland Insider" e-mailed six documents to 15 media and bloggers that purported to be internal memos from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank that advocates highly skeptical views of climate science. The documents — which were quickly posted on sites like DeSmogBlog — contained detailed information about Heartland's internal finances, including the names of major corporate donors like Microsoft and General Motors. The documents also outlined Heartland's strategies, including efforts to promote school curricula that would cast doubt on the established scientific finding that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are dangerously warming the planet.
(MORE: Climate Expert Peter Gleick Admits Deception in Obtaining Heartland Institute Papers)
For advocates of climate action, the Heartland documents offered a rare glimpse into the world of the conservative power players who work to cast doubt on climate science and delay action on global warming — the same people authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway called the "Merchants of Doubt" in their 2010 book by the same name. For its part, the Heartland Institute claimed that the documents hadn't been leaked from inside the group but had instead been obtained by an outsider who had posed as a board member. The organization also said that at least one of the six documents — a short memo claiming to be a summary of Heartland's work on global warming — was a fake, and threatened legal action against the bloggers posting the documents.
"It doesn't matter what you believe about climate change, or if you're a liberal or a conservative," Heartland president Joseph Bast wrote in an e-mailed press statement on Feb. 20. "You ought to understand and denounce this unethical behavior."
As it turns out, Bast may have a point. On the evening of Feb. 20, Gleick revealed that he had sent the alleged Heartland memos to the climate reporters and analysts, and that he had used deception in order to obtain some of them. Writing in the Huffington Post, Gleick said that at the beginning of 2012 he had received an anonymous document in the ordinary mail that appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute's climate-program strategy. He said he did not know the source of the document, so he tried to confirm the accuracy of the information. In an effort to do so, Gleick said he "solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone's name." He said those new documents confirmed the information in the original memo, and that he made no changes to any of the documents before sending them out anonymously. "My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate," Gleick wrote. "Nevertheless, I deeply regret my own actions in this case."
(MORE: Climate Change and Farming: How Not to Go Hungry in a Warmer World)
As his apology concedes, what Gleick did was wrong. No reputable investigative reporter — certainly not one who worked at TIME — would be employed for long after obtaining insider information by lying the way Gleick did. Think of the outcry over James O'Keefe's use of sting tactics to record employees from the now defunct political group ACORN as they gave advice to a supposed pimp and prostitute (actually O'Keefe and an associate). Credibility is nonnegotiable in journalism — it's the only way we can believe what we read or watch — and if a reporter lies in the pursuit of facts, the resulting story will be much harder to believe, even if it really is true. Gleick isn't a journalist — though as a regular blogger on the Huffington Post, he may qualify in a new media sense — but he was still creating a story. You can't drink from a poisoned well.
Many climate advocates, while acknowledging that Gleick made a mistake, are calling him a heroic whistle-blower. "For his courage, his honor and for performing a selfless act of public service, [Gleick] deserves our gratitude and applause," wrote Richard Littlemore of DeSmogBlog. But the prize for which Gleick broke the rules and damaged his own credibility hardly seems worth it. The alleged memos seem to confirm that the Heartland Institute is trying to push its highly skeptical view of climate science in the public sphere, which is only surprising if you've paid exactly zero attention to the climate debate over the past decade.
(MORE: Europe's Deep Freeze: Why Climate Change Is Not (Entirely) to Blame)
If anything, the Heartland memos — which are now hard to judge because we can't be sure exactly what's real — indicate that fossil-fuel companies don't seem to be spending that much money on climate denial, at least with this group. Exxon stopped donating in 2006 — it had given $675,000 before that — while the archconservative Koch Foundation gave just $25,000 in 2011, all of it earmarked for health care research. Most of the money seems to come from individuals, including one person referred to as "the Anonymous Donor" in the memos who gave $14.26 million to Heartland over the past six years. While that's strange — there must be better uses of $14.26 million — it doesn't exactly seem like a vast right-wing conspiracy, even if one person parted with a lot of cash.
The Heartland Institute seems to be mulling its legal options for now, though in the court of karma it may simply be getting its just due. Back in 2009, when a still unknown hacker stole and posted thousands of private e-mails from climate scientists in the controversy that became known as Climategate, Heartland didn't seem too worried about the provenance of the documents. "This is new and real evidence that [climate scientists] should examine and then comment on publicly," Heartland president Bast wrote after the e-mails surfaced in 2009. That the "new and real evidence" had been hacked didn't bother Heartland any more than the fact that many of the Heartland memos were obtained deceitfully has much bothered many climate activists even after Gleick's admission.
(MORE: Fighting Climate Change by Not Focusing on Climate Change)
It's easy to wonder why they should care. Climate scientists have come under attack repeatedly in recent years from skeptics who seem indifferent to the facts themselves. You can't find a Republican presidential candidate who accepts the scientific consensus on climate change; Rich Santorum earlier this month called climate science "an absolute travesty of scientific research." The journal Nature was speaking for many in the climate community when its editors wrote in 2010 that climate scientists must realize they are in a "street fight." And we all know that in a street fight, anything goes.
But that's not how it works in science — and that's what the entire climate movement is supposed to be based on. Scientific integrity isn't about having the right goals. It's about using the right methods, which is why research is policed so rigorously, and why even the hint of cheating can ruin a career. Scientists aren't perfect, and there is enormous temptation to bend the rules and massage results — which happens more often than the scientific community would like to admit. But science works because the importance of those rules is drilled into students from the moment they first step into a lab. It's why the public still trusts scientists far more than any other public figures. It's how we know what's real and what's not.
That's not how politics works, to say the least — which is one reason climate advocates have always faced such an uphill battle. It's not a fair fight, but we have to believe that over time, the truth will win out. And we won't get there by taking shortcuts.
PHOTOS: Fragile Planet
PHOTOS: Global Warming Threatens Penguins
by compared2what? » Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:11 pm
tazmic wrote:compared2what? wrote:tazmic wrote:Joe Bast of the Heartland Institute (with some 'extremely subliminal' cut-scenes):
Seriously? Joe Bast? I mean.... Joe Bast???
....
I don't really know what else to say.
Joe Bast is president and CEO of The Heartland Institute. Perhaps you have him confused with someone else who is less on-topic?
by brainpanhandler » Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:00 pm
by Ben D » Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:58 pm
brainpanhandler wrote:So as not to derail this thread too much with a seemingly insignificant side issue with the denier trolls I think I'll bump the global warming, eh? thread and we can continue there wrt the pew poll from January 2012 which shows that only 25% of americans believe "dealing with global warming" should be a top priority.
by Iamwhomiam » Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:01 pm
Ben wrote:
Oh dear me, if scientists would just stick to doing honest science and stay out of the politics of AGW, the better off for all...
Btw, does this mean he has broken any laws and if so, what's the likely outcome?
Ben wrote:Iamwhomiam wrote:
Well, they could lose their status as a tax exempt 'charity,' but they'd just establish another, with a similar name though probably with different principals (officers, Directors).
That would screw-up their donors tax filings and they (the donors) would lose their tax write-offs, meaning that portion of their income they intended to donate would now become taxable. But it's a time consuming process, and tax filings can be amended, after all.
Something tells me you didn't read my post Iam. Try it, it works better that way...
And by the way, I don't know how well you follow the ever changing landscape of AGW politics, it does now seem that it's only a matter of time before it becomes clear to both sides that the 'Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy' you quoted from in an earlier post , is a fake....
Statement by The Heartland Institute on Gleick Confession
Rigorous intuition in deed!
I wrote:
"I can explicitly confirm, as can the Heartland Institute, that the documents they emailed to me are identical to the documents that have been made public. I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication."
Thanks for your correction, c2w. and his career is gone up in smoke. It doesn't matter if Heartland presses forward for prosecution, the government will if he did assume a board member's identity.
Yes, Ben, I read your post. You do just love to be the center of attention, don't you. It seems the irony of my response was beyond your capacity to grasp.
You are aware of the title of this thread, aren't you? and you post this:
I'm not sure though anymore about the majority of people being sympathetic to the AGW cause, iirc, the recent Pew poll showed only 29% of the US population thought GW was a priority issue.
Kind of missing the point, Ben, again.
Ben wrote:
Look here Iam, I truly don't want to hurt your feelings, but it has to be said,...your posts to me just aren't sufficiently coherent to respond to in a meaningful way.
I've tried, Lord knows how I've tried,..but I don't find any evidence of your actually understanding what I've said in the context of the subject matter at hand, not only in this instance, but regularly.
by Iamwhomiam » Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:06 pm
by brainpanhandler » Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:06 pm
by Ben D » Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:42 pm
Heartland publishes an “Open Letter to Directors of the Pacific Institute[
FEBRUARY 29, 2012 – Today, The Heartland Institute sent the letter below to the following members of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Institute:
Peter Boyer, Trustee, The Ayrshire Foundation
Gigi Coe, Trust for Conservative Innovation
Joan Diamond, Chairperson, The Nautilus Institute
Anne Ehrlich, Senior Research Associate, Stanford University
Eric Gimon, Department of Physics, University of California – Berkeley
Corey Goodman, Managing Director, venBio LLC
Margaret Gordon, Second Vice-President, Port of Oakland
Malo Andre Hutson, Affiliated Faculty, University of California
Olivier Marie, Business Strategist, Haas School of Business
Richard Morrison, California Advisory Board, The Trust for Public Land
Robert Stephens, President, MSWG, Inc.
Michael Watts, Geography Department, University of California, Berkeley
We will post at http://www.fakegate.org any replies we receive. Previous press releases from The Heartland Institute plus links to dozens of news reports and commentary on Gleick’s transgressions can be reviewed at Fakegate.org. 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.
February 29, 2012
Dear _________:
On February 27, the Pacific Institute made the following announcement:
The Board of Directors of the Pacific Institute is deeply concerned regarding recent events involving its president, Dr. Peter Gleick, and has hired an independent firm to review the allegations. The Board has agreed to Dr. Gleick’s request for a temporary leave of absence …
The Heartland Institute’s staff, directors, donors, and other victims of Mr. Gleick’s crime look forward to reviewing the outcome of your investigation. Please confirm that you intend to make public the results of your investigation.
I hope that you and the firm you have hired will pay special attention to the documents I have enclosed:
The emails Gleick exchanged with Heartland prior to committing his crime, in which he was respectfully invited to debate Heartland Senior Fellow James M. Taylor on the issue of climate change at Heartland’s anniversary benefit event in August. In these emails, Gleick is informed of Heartland’s policies regarding the confidentiality of its donors and why we adopted that policy. Gleick declined the invitation to debate.
The emails Gleick used to steal documents intended to be read only by members of Heartland’s board of directors. Gleick falsely assumed the identity of a member of Heartland’s board on the same day (January 27) that he declined the invitation to debate climate change with Taylor.
The forged memo Gleick included with the stolen documents and falsely represented, in his message accompanying the documents to 15 allies and journalists, to have come from The Heartland Institute. I have highlighted the forger’s own words, as opposed to text that was copied and pasted from the stolen documents, and included my own analysis of this fraudulent document.
Gleick’s partial confession, in which he admits to having stolen the documents but claims that the memo, which he previously said came from The Heartland Institute, came “in the mail” from an anonymous source. He claims he stole documents because “a rational public debate is desperately needed,” a debate he had just declined to participate in. He offers his “personal apologies to all those affected,” presumably including people he knew his actions had put in harm’s way. He does not say or offer to do anything that would limit or undo the harm he caused.
I hope you will tell me, as you review these documents, if you recognize the author of the highlighted text of the forged memo, and if you believe Gleick received it from an anonymous source, and if you believe Gleick has shown any personal remorse for what he has done.
Finally, please pass along the following questions to the “independent” firm you hired to investigate Gleick:
Did Gleick use Pacific Institute computers to establish the Gmail email account under the name of a Heartland board member?
Did Gleick use Pacific Institute computers to establish the Gmail email account under the name of “heartlandinsider@gmail.com,” which he used to send the fake memo and the stolen documents to 15 media outlets?
Does the investigative firm intend to examine whether Gleick is the author of the fake memo?
Does the outside firm have access to all of the personal computers Gleick may have used to write and send the emails or to write the forged memo?
Is the fake memo or any trace of it on Gleick’s personal computer(s)?
Is the fake memo or any trace of it on the Pacific Institute’s computer system?
Is there evidence (as a blogger says) that the fake memo was scanned into a PDF document on a scanner at the Pacific Institute?
Does the Pacific Institute have possession of the hard copy of the fake memo or the envelope in which it was supposedly sent?
What steps does the Pacific Institute plan to take to preserve these and other documents relevant to the investigation?
Sincerely,
Joseph L. Bast
President
The Heartland Institute
by wintler2 » Wed Feb 29, 2012 11:13 pm
Fake Heartland "Scientist" Infiltrates Canadian University
Bogus climate course “a source of embarrassment to the institution”
An energy industry public relations man and lobbyist with no background in climate science has infiltrated Carleton University in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, teaching a course on climate change denial that other Carleton professors describe as “a source of embarrassment to the institution.”
Tom Harris, who originally trained as a mechanical engineer, has been a strategist for the climate change denial industry for at least a decade. A favourite presenter misrepresented as a PhD at the Heartland Institute’s regular climate change denial conferences, Harris has worked directly for companies like the international PR giant APCO Worldwide or for energy industry lobby firms such as Toronto’s High Park Group. More recently, he has launched or led at least three phony “grassroots organizations” – energy industry front groups that promote confusion or denial in climate science.
http://www.desmogblog.com/fake-heartlan ... university
by Allegro » Sun May 06, 2012 12:24 am
by Simulist » Sun May 06, 2012 12:53 am
by Marie Laveau » Sun May 06, 2012 11:23 am
swindled69 wrote:Climate Science?
We as Human's have absolutely NO real understanding how our Climate works, so, arguing for or against "Global Warming" is such horse shit.
What's happening is a lot older than the Human Race and we just need to accept that and try to work on things that we can actually change.
by brainpanhandler » Sun May 06, 2012 1:03 pm
Marie Laveau wrote:swindled69 wrote:Climate Science?
We as Human's have absolutely NO real understanding how our Climate works, so, arguing for or against "Global Warming" is such horse shit.
What's happening is a lot older than the Human Race and we just need to accept that and try to work on things that we can actually change.
I don't disagree with your assessment that humans are ignorant AND stupid...that was what you were saying, isn't it?....but, I don't think we, as a species, can put billions of tons of particulates into the air over a span of about two hundred years and not expect some serious consequences.
Whether anthropogenic climate change is factual or not honestly has nothing to do with the fact that humans have become horrific parasites (or maybe we always were), unable to see beyond ourselves, our ignorance, and our incessant consumption.
I happen to believe in anthropogenic climate change. I've watched my cold state become almost balmy in the past twenty years, snowfall decrease alarmingly, (although that is not particularly true throughout- as the scientists warned, some places will have massive amounts of precip and others places will fall) I've picked strawberries in October and November (!!!!!), and this year we were more than a MONTH ahead of a normal spring. The sun (as some believe) may be behind it, but, again, you can't put billions of tons of toxic particulates into the atmosphere (not to mention nuclear weapons testing for years and years and years) and not expect horrible things to happen.
This morning's headline: PERU WARNS PEOPLE TO STAY OFF BEACHES AS PELICANS AND DOLPHINS DIE IN THE HUNDREDS.
Humans are idiots.
marie wrote:The sun (as some believe) may be behind it
marie wrote: (not to mention nuclear weapons testing for years and years and years)
by JackRiddler » Sun May 06, 2012 6:51 pm
swindled69 wrote:Climate Science?
We as Human's have absolutely NO real understanding how our Climate works, so, arguing for or against "Global Warming" is such horse shit.
What's happening is a lot older than the Human Race and we just need to accept that and try to work on things that we can actually change.
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