Heartland Institute Document Leaker Comes Forward, Maintains Documents Are Real 442
The Bad Astronomer writes "Last week, an anonymous source leaked several internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a non-profit think tank known for anti-global-warming rhetoric. The leaker has come forward: Peter Gleick, scientist and journalist. In his admission, he cites his own breach of ethics, but also maintains that all the documents are real. This includes the potentially embarrassing '2012 Climate Strategy' document stating that Heartland wants to 'dissuade teachers from teaching science.' Heartland still claims this document is a forgery, but there is no solid evidence either way."
Let's see.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Who has MORE reason to lie about this?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let's see.... (Score:5, Informative)
I'd hardly call a 5 year average net profit margin of 8,81% particularly fat.
Re:Let's see.... (Score:5, Informative)
I'd hardly call a 5 year average net profit margin of 8,81% particularly fat.
For an established company delivering a commoditized product, that's a pretty big margin.
Honestly, I thought it would have been higher.
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There are some special considerations.
There in the part of the market that requires a lot of fixed capital equipment that require long lead times and specialization. Deep sea oil wells, refineries, etc. When there is over capacity in these types of industries profit margins are brutalized. DRAM and Chemicals are 2 good recent examples. Oil has not been plagued with that for the past 10 decade. There are few people willing to risk billions on a project that has a 10 year recover time.
I am not sure which w
Billions, Millions, whatever. [Re:Let's see....] (Score:3, Informative)
It takes in excess of $100 million to drill a deepwater offshore well these days, and it takes ~10 years after the exploration phase before the production starts (assuming success). Given those costs and a 10:1 success ratio in less-explored areas, an obscene profit margin can disappear pretty quick,
Yeah! Why, with a profit margin of only 38 billion dollars a year, at a hundred million to drill a deepwater offshore well, they'll be losing money if they drill a mere three hundred and eighty deepwater offshore wells every year, and not one actually produces oil.
Oh, wait-- the cost of drilling the well doesn't come out of their profit, it's already incorporated in their expenses. So, that forty billion dollars of profit already accounts for the costs of drilling wells. Never mind.
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Yeah, but their expenses include the congress critters they've paid off...
The fossil fuel industry and the RIght (Score:5, Insightful)
The fossil fuel industry and many of the issues that the Right in this country are harping on have an interesting pattern.
They take an issue that could be potentially dangerous to their profits and turn it into an emotional issue - in this case Global Warming - and when it becomes an emotional issue, all reason is thrown out the door and rational discourse becomes impossible.
Global Warming was discovered decades ago. The fossil fuel companies started to become threatened by it. So we go from scientists have data about global warming and what we could possibly do about it to scientists have a Liberal Agenda to destroy capitalism and our Way of Life.
I have a neighbor and in-laws who live on a steady diet of Fox News and Talk Radio; such as Hannity, and if Global Warming comes up, they say words like "hoax", "socialist", "cause higher taxes", "destroying America", "predictions based upon inaccurate computer models", etc .... in very angry tones.
They're thinking emotionally. The anti-global warming crowd did a very good in turning this into a personal emotional issue.
They do this with other issues. Turn an issue from a purely academic one into dumbed down emotional rhetoric, and you got the other guys by the balls.
That's where the climate scientists got screwed. The fossil fuel industry got their PR people on it and then the right wing talking heads grabbed onto it, and now we have this mess of an issue that I for one have given up complete hope that anything can be done now.
tl;dr: industry is great at turning a scientific issue into an emotional one - an "us" vs. "them" issue and neutering the opposition.
Re:The fossil fuel industry and the RIght (Score:5, Insightful)
For certain conservatives, Global Warming might actually seem like a big of a threat. Global Warming calls into question their idea of what America is supposed to be. The bastion of free capitalism. The problem that Global Warming presents is huge and scary to them. The problem is that Global Warming shows that the system is broken and not perfect. It's enough to make libertarian heads explode. The government is required to do something that isn't protecting private property from thieves? Heresy.
It's very existence contradicts the deregulation, trickle-down-economic, let-the-corporations-and-job-makers-run-wild conservatives because it's something the market can't fix. Of course, if there's something that the markets can't fix, then the principles that their lives are built around might be wrong. And that can never be allowed.
Re:The fossil fuel industry and the RIght (Score:4, Insightful)
As opposed to the always calm, unemotional arguments of environmentalists and global warming activists? Come on, there's plenty of emotion (if not outright hysteria) on both sides.
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On both sides sure, but there is no emotion in the scientific facts. You can always find people who agree with the reality for stupid reasons, but that does not make it wrong. I apologize if we are focusing more on correcting those that disagree with reality for stupid reasons than those that agree with it, but it just kind of mak
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it just kind of makes sense to do so.
Not if you're trying to convince them to join your side, it's not. Yes, if all you want to do is trumpet "I'm right! You're wrong! Shut up, you morons!" you're free to do so, but that's going to significantly harden the other side against you.
There are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who have little or no real opinion about global warming. They don't think about it. If they do, they're going to think of cases like this (if they're on the right) as very good examples of when someone the left did
Re:The fossil fuel industry and the RIght (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to the always calm, unemotional arguments of environmentalists and global warming activists? Come on, there's plenty of emotion (if not outright hysteria) on both sides.
The two sides are not even remotely comparable. Most IPCC scientists are thoroughly against environmental alarmism.
All you have to do, is follow the references that some "alarmist" or "skeptic" comes up with. Keep following them to their source, and assess whether they are actually using them correctly. This is shockingly easy to do, and you if you do it, you will quickly discover that the "skeptics" are actually "believers" since they will believe anything that reifies their biases. (Environmentalist ideologues do this as well -- but we're talking about the "scientific" debate here.)
Since the facts are squarely stacked against the "skeptics", we see a lot of projection, denial, hostility, anger, externalisation, and very, very little unemotional argumentation.
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Both left and right try invoking emotional responses, the difference is the left typically goes for guilt, for causes benefiting the more defenseless, (children, animals, environment, developing nations, oppressed peoples, etc), and the right goes for righteous anger (you are being screwed by the morons in charge, here's how!).
In Canada, the last 6 months have seen the Conservatives in charge accuse opponents of draconian copyright and tough-on-crime legislation of being extremists or terrorists ourselves.
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One of the interesting things about the Heartland documents is that they make it pretty clear that they're not being funded by oil companies.
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Peter Gleick has a reason to lie in order to advance his career by making *someone* besides his mum know who he is.
The Heartland Institute has a reason to lie because the information purportedly obtained by Mr. Gleick is highly prejudicial in nature.
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Why should the government have any reasons to lie about the moon landings? The astronauts were there, several times, they landed, and they came back. Nothing to lie about, as far as I can tell.
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Why should the government have any reasons to lie about the moon landings? The astronauts were there, several times, they landed, and they came back. Nothing to lie about, as far as I can tell.
Presuming the claim of the adversaries is true - that they were faked - the government has an incentive to lie, both then and now.
Logically, you can't say "If X is true, then Y has a big reason to lie about it, so X is probably true!".
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If the moon landings were fake, they were already a lie. So "the government has a reason to lie about the moon landing" ist equivalent to "The government has a reason to lie about a lie". This is circular reasoning. Your conclusion is equal to your precondition.
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If the moon landings were fake, they were already a lie. So "the government has a reason to lie about the moon landing" ist equivalent to "The government has a reason to lie about a lie". This is circular reasoning. Your conclusion is equal to your precondition.
You just restated my post, but with bad grammar and spelling.
Congratulations.
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I think the point was that the U.S. needed to show that it could do something that the Soviets couldn't, so there was plenty of incentive to fake a moon landing if they couldn't pull it off. By contrast, assuming the moon landings were real, there isn't much reason for someone to lie and claim that they were fake. Thus, the government would have had better reason for faking the moon landings (and certainly for subsequently continuing the charade) than the random people claiming that it is fake have for ma
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I think you're misunderstanding that post:
Logically, you can't say "If X is true, then Y has a big reason to lie about it, so X is probably true!"
So, logically you can't say "If the landings were faked, then the government would have a big reason to lie about it, so the moon landings were probably faked!"
Makes sense to me - And I've seen more than a couple of conspiracy theorists use similar "logic" to support all kinds of crazy stuff.
Re:Let's see.... (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you for identifying yourself as completely incapable of rational discussion on this issue.
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You can't make a decision based on intent or benefit, you have to make a decision based on evidence.
Seems completely rational to me. Maybe read the entire post instead of making a snap judgement based on half a paragraph?
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Thank you for identifying yourself as utterly incapable of rational discussion on this
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Well technically he is correct. Later on he does say you have to make a decision based on evidence and not intent or benefit (motive).
People that want to claim the Moon landing was faked only have a few reasons. Most of that is related to a "search for the truth" and uncovering government conspiracies, etc.
The US government however had a very good reason to lie that is far more believable. The Cold War. It was all about propaganda and penis measurements. At that time there was a huge competition in cou
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You don't need a reason or incentive to lie about something.
But it sure helps!
It's only prudent to look at the ones who benefit.
The government does gain more from lying about the moon landing. But then if you're a rational human you realize that you can't 'fake' a Saturn V launch [youtube.com] and so once that's done there isn't much incentive to lie at all.
Instead Moon Hoaxers selling books have the greater incentive to lie.
The rest of the Moon Hoaxers aren't lying, they're just paranoid and stupid.
Let's look at the track record... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah, these are the guys that told you cigarettes were healthy, and that there was no reliable evidence that they harmed people. The world is full of shills and whores who will lie to your face if the price is right. Why should this be a surprise. These guys have a track record. The only thing controversial here is that these reprobates are telling a significant amount of the population exactly what they want to hear. I know its hard, double rough for some, when the lies they tell sound so sweet (consistent with your belief systems...), get over it. These people are not your friends and if China should hire them tomorrow, they'll give you 20 good reasons why eating lead is great for you.
Wake up, that smell is your ass on fire, and these clowns are holding the matches.
Re:Let's look at the track record... (Score:4, Funny)
Not really ... historically ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh yeah, these are the guys that told you cigarettes were healthy, and that there was no reliable evidence that they harmed people.
Not really, they worked with Phillip Morris to spread material on the effects of secondhand smoke, which was questionable at the time they did so (they had long since stopped doing this before actual studies confirmed the effects). Every think tank ofcourse helps it's sponsors ...
You need to keep history of something in mind. There's a history to every idea, as hard as that is to see. Until 1954, the official medical opinion on smoking itself was that it was healthy as well (there were suspicions from 1912 onwards). Even today I heard someone claim that smoking pot does not have worse health effects than tobacco smoke (think about it : no filters on the sigarettes -> you're actually inhaling burning leaves directly into your lungs which will never again come out. Healthy ? Of course not)
This is still happening to other products too. E.g. soda is supposedly healthy (esp. soda with "added vitamin C" or some such. It's not healthy at all). And sugar-free soda is worse, again something often denied. Or another popular one, that TL lights are healthy and generally good, especially CFL bulbs. We all know you get headaches from them, they can induce epileptic seizures, and research confirms long-term health effects. But they're "better for the environment". I guess environment doesn't include people.
Re:Not really ... historically ... (Score:4, Informative)
Even today I heard someone claim that smoking pot does not have worse health effects than tobacco smoke (think about it : no filters on the sigarettes -> you're actually inhaling burning leaves directly into your lungs which will never again come out. Healthy ? Of course not.
Surely it depends on what is actually being burnt and inhaled. Normal cigarette smoke has things like formaldahyde, benzene, ammonia and acetone - all known carcinogens while normal pot smoke does not. What's ironic here is that your default position is what I heard from all source of authority, until just recently.
There is even a recent medical study indicating that moderate, chronic pot smoking increases lung capacity compared to tobacco-smokers and non-smokers alike:
http://pulmccm.org/main/2012/asthma-review/infrequent-pot-smokers-have-better-lung-function-than-non-tokers-jama/ [pulmccm.org]
And FWIW, I've never used an illegal drug in my life, not even once. I don't have a dog in the "pot is better for you" fight.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
these are the guys that told you cigarettes were healthy
Citation needed.
Who, at the Heartland Institute, told us that cigarettes were healthy? Do you have any evidence that the HI told us that, gave money to people who told us that, or were in any factual way related to telling us that?
steveha
Re:Let's look at the track record... (Score:5, Informative)
Never mind, it's right there in Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute#Smoking [wikipedia.org]
The tone of the GP post was just right to punch my buttons. Even a single link in support of the rant would have been nice.
steveha
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Even a single link in support of the rant would have been nice.
I think he was intentionally making a point that The Heartland Institute is so over the top loony that reporting the truth makes the report look like a disregardable parody.
Re:Let's look at the track record... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that the Wiki entry doesn't actually say "cigarettes were healthy" in any way shape or form. That is an editorialized addition that is not in evidence. And during the period of time (go back and check) people were claiming secondhand smoke was worse than actually smoking.The Anti Smoking crowd was making up its own BS at that same time. I guess that goes unnoticed and unmentioned because smoking is nasty (it is)
People lie, exaggerate and otherwise stretch the truth to support their position. Shocking ... I know. The point being, there is no reason to exaggerate unless you're wrong. ;)
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Although this talk is about AGW, it gives a very good overview of the think-tank situation in the USA. American denial of global warming [youtube.com].
If you think AGW has nothing to do with it, then it is time to hit the books, and learn something rather chilling ab
At least they are exposed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Have to applaud the whistleblower for having the courage to do this. Heartland is clearly a tool, not just for deniers, but for industry which would profit from a (further) dumbed-down populace. Where is the outrage, probably due to the present level of dumbing-down, there isn't very much. Bread and circuses.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Plus, given just how well funded and connected they are, I am sure that the story will be pained rosy for them in the
Where's the outrage? (Score:2)
I guess I can't speak for everyone, but I can't summon much outrage over this at all? Personally, I feel like it's simply a case of another "special interest group" with an agenda getting caught up in a situation of someone showing the world some of their internal content that leaked. I don't even care if people can eventually prove that one of their specific papers was real or fake.... As others posted, we know where they sided on the cigarette issue, and we're pretty clear where they side with respect
Forgery - (And obviously so) (Score:5, Informative)
Here is one article written about it (by someone who believes in AGW)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Traits of a Cult. (Score:2, Insightful)
1. The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
Hansen, Jones, et. al.
2. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
Read the latest textbooks? AGW is taught as a FACT, pages and pages. Have to indoctrinate early ya know.
3. The group is preoccupied with making money.
Government Grants. Although I have to say that these guys are more narcissists that money grubbers.
4. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even puni
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Then let's play the science game - state your falsifiable hypothesis of either AGW or CAGW. What observations of CO2 levels and global average temperature, past, present or future, would disprove your hypothesis? Add other variables if necessary, and be specific.
Obligatory popper reference: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html [stephenjaygould.org]
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These guys have something to say about that [wsj.com]
Denialism (Score:5, Interesting)
It is denial, because it is a black and white issue, they are right, and there is an inability to cognitively represent any disconfirming evidence. They always see themselves as sane, and therefore people who disagree with them are: stupid, evil, or uneducated.
Lord Monckton is at the zenith of climate change denialism. I honestly believe that he doesn't know he is just making stuff up. Vetren anti-science debunker potholer54 puts out a challenge to denialists: come up with ONE thing that Monckton gets right, that calls into question the IPCC's conclusions. To complete the challenge, you actually have to find Monckton's references, and assess that they really support what Monckton say.
And this is the key sticking point. Denialists just believe anything they hear, so long as it confirms their biases. It is obvious that denialists doen't follow references, because of the absurdly high number of mistakes that are made.
There is actually a slew of falsifiable hypotheses in AGW. All of them are very precisely defined and tested. An argument is built from 1000s of studies of more then 100 years of scientific research.
Don't believe me? Crack open an IPCC report and actually read it.
PS: Popper is not without critics in the philosophy of science, but that is another story.
Re:Denialism of natural climate change (Score:3)
I think the problem is that they want legitimately falsifiable hypotheses, not just silly statements like the CO2 absorption spectrum means that AGW is true. Yes, if any of the physical constants of the universe weren't what they are, then all of our science would be falsified. But it takes more to come up with a more than trivial hypothesis of AGW (trivial, meaning that human CO
Re:Forgery - (And obviously so) (Score:5, Informative)
I agree that Megan McArdle's analysis of this document is interesting and worth reading.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/ [theatlantic.com]
For a document that supposedly is a glimpse to the inside machinations of a bunch of corporate suits, it sure has an odd tone.
See also the followup:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/heartland-memo-looking-faker-by-the-minute/253276/ [theatlantic.com]
The metadata and timestamp analysis is interesting as well.
steveha
Re:Forgery - (And obviously so) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Forgery - (And obviously so) (Score:5, Interesting)
No evidence? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No evidence? (Score:5, Informative)
Anthony Watt is just another right wing corporate whore with no credentials, no scientific training, no mainstream credibility, and a big mouth (very common in the wingnut alternative reality).
It should also be noted that he was implicated in the leaked documents. He has every reason to claim that they are fake.
Follow the references (Score:3)
All ya gotta do is follow the references. It is shockingly easy to do.
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You gotta find something on Watts' site that actually
As for the stuff on Gleick. Whatever. Got nothing to do with the evdience on AGW.
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You realize that voting present in the Illinois Senate is similar to voting no, except it has a different impact on how the bill in question gets handled after the vote gets tallied, right? That it has nothing to do with not having an opinion?
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Ugh. Comment got attached to the wrong post. Sorry.
stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting analysis of the memo... (Score:5, Informative)
Some pretty interesting and pretty detailed analysis of the memo here [theatlantic.com].
I'm inclined to say the memo is probably fake given all the weirdness surrounding it, and given who the "leaker" is.
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I'm Confused (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
It appears the rest are documents that he knows are official that he acquired deceptively in order to verify the anonymous document. My own personal hunch, as I first noted when this broke [slashdot.org], is that '2012 Climate Strategy' is a cheap fake thrown in with real documents. There is probably no way to verify this one way or the other but I don't think this summary or Phil Plait's blog posting adequately explain what Gleick did exactly. Here is one thing that is going for the validity of '2012 Climate Strategy' and that is if Gleick did not alter it then some of the sums and investments roughly match up with the budget document -- which caused Gleick to believe it is completely authentic. However, fiscal knowledge of the Heartland Institute might be more public than people think ...
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Someone mod this guy up. This was my understanding after RTFA. Gleick got some stuff about Heartland anonymously, then did a quick fact checking and forwarded the whole kit & caboodle off to some journalists. The thing is we still don't know where the original stuff came from.
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Either Gleick revised his post or Bad Astronomer got this one wrong.
I think you're just confused.
The summary and especially the BA's blog post are accurate and not contradicted by what you quoted. The blog post in particular points out that he received many of these documents anonymously at first, and then sought to verify them using the deceptive practice that is mentioned in the summary.
Since this update in particular is about the source of the documents, and their veracity, the part about how he verified the documents is rather relevant.
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Maybe I'm confused -- what substantive difference is there between receiving several documents including the climate strategy one, and only receiving the climate strategy one?
Heartland (Score:2)
Here is the meat - (Score:2)
"I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed." (from Gleick's Huffpost piece.) Haggling over the provenance and ethics of the Heartland documents is a dangerous distraction. People with a financial interest in perpetuating the status quo (and no sense of honesty, scientific ethics or responsibility to future generations) are going to look for every opportunit
Different documents (Score:2)
Heartland institute says the document entitled "Heartland Climate Strategy" is a fake.
Peter Gleick says the document entilteld "2012 fundraising strategy and budget" is real.
They are probably both right. Why is this news?
Scientist / Journalist / Politician (Score:2)
So just to help me clarify here, we are not free men and we must exist and act within little narrowly defined jobs, all with conflicting standards and goals. Unfortunately this dude doesn't seem to have a clearly defined job so it's hard to evaluate him:
1) If he's a scientist he's supposed to at least appear objective and honest (reality, especially in private, is permitted some divergence). Both sides of this issue flake out from facts into intense social engineering so all players on both sides fail. T
Be careful how you parse a careful confession... (Score:2)
...he never says "they are real", he only says "he got them anonymously".
Gleick has lawyered up, and I'm getting some popcorn.
It's not stealing (Score:4, Insightful)
Heartland claims [heartland.org] 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.
In fact, he made no such confession. What he said [huffingtonpost.com] is: 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.
Then, he went to the effort of attempting to verify the authenticity and accuracy of the documents by pretending to be someone else and asking for information directly from Heartland [slashdot.org]: 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.
So, he did pretend to be someone else, but he stole nothing. If the original documents were stolen (which is pure speculation), it was by someone other than Gleick. Impersonating someone else is certainly nothing to be taken lightly, but it's a well established technique used by reporter and investigators when using your real name may impede or alter your access to the information. Whether a crime was committed requires more details than given. But there is no evidence that he stole anything, and as such, he may have a slander or libel claim against Heartland for their statement. IANAL.
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Next news story will involve a suspicious deadly accident involving the leaker.
More likely - the Right will claim Peter Gleick is a party to Obama's Socialist Plot (whatever that is.)
Re:Waiting.... (Score:4, Funny)
Next news story will involve a suspicious deadly accident involving the leaker.
More likely - the Right will claim Peter Gleick is a party to Obama's Socialist Plot (whatever that is.)
Isn't that enough? You know that's it's OBAAAAMAAAAAAAAA (insert waving "spooky hands" gestures here)! Oooooooooo! And it's SOCIALIIIIIIIIST! And a PLOOOOOOOOOT! Scaaaaaaary!
So in conclusion, that's why we need more military funding. What are you, some kinda KENYAN COMMIE?!? HUH? HUH?
Re:Waiting.... (Score:4, Informative)
No experience?
Went to Harvard law school, edited the Harvard Law Review, Lecturer at Columbia, gave up a potentially lucrative career to help poor people as a community organizer. Bestselling author. Elected to the US senate.
Granted he had limited executive experience, but only one of the 8 candidates in that primary had executive experience (Bill Richardson, former governor). All the others were from the senate or house.
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Harvard graduated 8 American presidents. It's a great school, and you'll have to do a lot better than "So what?" to dismiss its pedigree. Same goes for his U of Chicago position; lecturer is the same thing as professor except without a tenure track. He taught law at one of top five programs in the country while at the same time working as a full-time community activist and pursuing public office. "So what?" That's a prestigious, demanding, and exemplary career in academia and public service that is exactly
Re:Waiting.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The cowardly pundit will say Democrats do it and Republicans do it. This is true but banal. We could also say the Hitler and Lincoln were imperfect human beings.
There is a whole new level of crazy that has gripped Republican politics, and it is really too bad. I would love to have seen John Huntsman do well in the primaries, or even see the Republicans field some accomplished credentials. (e.g.: Colin Powell would be more accomplished then the entire republican field put together.)
Now we have the party of anti-science. We have Karl Rove eschewing the "reality-based community" which looks for solutions through judicious analysis. We have reactionary politics and faith-based righteous indignation. Somewhat ironically, Jesus preached love, not fear. And the christian right are driven by fear of all sorts of things -- mainly irrational.
The republicans really need to remake themselves, but the Tea Party has been a step in the wrong direction. More fear and reactionary politics. It really is too bad.
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Go live on pluto. (Score:5, Insightful)
See, here's another moron sticking up for this shitty president.
There are people who just hate one side or another. And they predictably come up with the most shockingly shallow bullshit. And when someone points out /anything/ that might question deeply held prejudices, the ideologues call them stupid.
/greatly/ if people like you suddenly moved to pluto, where you could scream at each other all day, and the rest of society could actually get on with addressing the ISSUES.
The truth is not always on one side or the other, and it is not always neatly in between -- and society as a whole would benefit
I say this, already expecting a big woooossshhh before I even hit the Submit button. Part of me thinks you are a charity case.
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Re:Waiting.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Solving the problem of climate change is really an economic growth opportunity. Really. Re-read. Don't dismiss. Think. We have a huge R&D investment opportunity, and new high-tech industries and products... and guess what... Europe and Asia may take it all.
Economic growth is utter bullshit. Economists and politicians keep feeding us this rubbish about how much better off we are now than in the past, and how much better it can get. Sure, we have it better than people before the 60s. People in the 60s and 70s had it better than we do now, barring some minor quality of life improvements from better technology. But we have longer working hours, in families where 2 instead of 1 parent works full time. We have a degrading environment. We have inflation and massive public debt that, when you trace it back, is owed to people who rape the economy and pay our politicians to allow them to continue doing so. We have a world full of people who think CYA instead of thinking about getting shit done. Screw economic growth. I'd be much happier in a world without rip-off merchants, where people work for a decent living, and government spending was about the kind of cool shit they did before I was born, like going to the moon. Not wars designed to further line the pockets of already obscenely wealthy people, boosting population wide "economic growth" while having no effect on 99% of us barring a few extra coffins being shipped home.
Re:Fire him (Score:4, Funny)
He should be fired, and possibly prosecuted if any crimes were committed.
Yeah. Put him in jail with this Assange guy! What do I say. Burn'em!!!
Re:Fire him (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should he be fired if as you say possibly no crimes were committed, and what did he do that was unethical?
The primary problem seems to be:
"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."
If he was a tech journalist reporting some babble about apple or samsung or the mighty GOOG or whoever, he'd have run the story without even bothering to verify and that would be considered "just show business as usual".
Re:Fire him (Score:5, Interesting)
Depending on state law, it might even be a crime. I doubt that, though, since I can't imagine Gleick is dumb enough to make a confession without at least checking with a lawyer first.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at HP and pretexting psuedo-scandal. Its all a big "eh" who cares, right up there with speeding on the highway or a journalist violating a NDA to leak a story. Journalistic ethics is an oxymoron so thats not even open to discussion.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Hmmm, given the excerpt of the California code above, it seems rather more likely to be a criminal matter than a civil one. No discovery to be had there.
Re:Fire him (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh for.... TGS itself said "he cites his own breach of ethics". Sounds to me like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
I think he did the right thing. It would be even more unethical to let the bastards keep lying.
Re:Fire him (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, the truth needs to be made public. If these assholes are lying, then using false pretenses to get information out of them is perfectly fine. You think investigative reporters go around telling the targets of their investigation honestly who they are and what their profession is? Of course not, they'd never get any damning information if they did.
I don't know... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, right, the only possible ethical action is to forge a document to show just how evil these bastards are, because none of their actual documents look very evil.
Hmmm. Maybe, just maybe, their actual documents don't look very evil because they're not such evil bastards?
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http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AO923_scient_G_20120220154702.jpg [wsj.net]
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You realize that voting present in the Illinois Senate is similar to voting no, except it has a different impact on how the bill in question gets handled after the vote gets tallied, right? That it has nothing to do with not having an opinion?
Reposted to attach to right comment.
Fake, but Accurate. (Score:3, Insightful)
Been there, done this.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't like the Heartland Institute and I wouldn't attempt to defend them or their actions, but your points are weak:
creating controversy and doubt over the fact that smoking causes health problems
OK, that's indefensible.
drafting policies targeted at reducing the services provided by the federal government to nothing more than a "competitive marketplace"
You're begging the question by assuming that they're wrong. I'm not saying they're right, but I don't think either "big government" or "small" government approach is inherently correct.
instituting "market reform" into the education system and championing charter schools (here in los angeles, charter schools show up in the news once a week for some major breech of trust, child abuse or embezzlement scandal)
As we all know, all regular public schools have spotless reputations [latimes.com]. Can you cite evidence that charter schools have higher crime rates than non-charter schools?
the same reaganite health care privatization and deinstitutionalization mentality that landed an entire generation of schitzophrenics and invalids on the streets of skid row.
That's just sensational
Re: (Score:2)
And...the document isn't accurate in portraying the story.
Koch didn't drop $200k in 2011, they *hoped* to get $200k in 2012. (on top of that, they weren't for climate issues)
Nothing in the legit documents talks about how to "undermine the official United Nation's IPCC reports" (skeptics see themselves as debunking the IPCC)
Nothing in the legit documents talks about "keep opposing voices out" (Heartland *invited* Gleick to speak at events, for fuck's sake!)
Nothing in the legit documents talks about "dissuadi
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And Dan Rather didn't try to throw an entire US presidential election by lying out of his face. It was "fake but accurate" until he got caught with his shit running down his legs either.
Funny how ethics suddenly becomes this slippery slope.
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After Mosher received a posting from the hacker complaining that nothing was happening, he replied: "A lot is happening behind the scenes. It is not being ignored. Much is being coordinated among major players and the media. Thank you very much. You will notice the beginnings of activity on other sites now. Here soon to follow."
He doesn't sound too concerned that the data was obtained illegally. Bit different when the shoe is on the other foot eh?
Re: (Score:3)
That would mean that the leaker definitely didn't work for RealClimate and could still have been a UEA insider.
That hypothesis would still require the "leaker" to have hacked RealClimate which indicates some hacking skills (and incidentally would also be an illegal act). There is also the matter of the data uploads to a server at a university in Russia which the "leaker" also had access to. And, this is not the first time that a fictional "mole" has been blamed to obscure the true source, McIntyre has admitted previously lying about a "mole insider" at CRU:
On 24 July, McIntyre says he received a freedom of information (FOI) refusal from CRU. He announced it on his website. The next day McIntyre announced that he had got hold of a mass of data.
He was initially coy about it. He said: "Folks, guess what. I'm now in possession of a CRU version giving data for every station in their station list."
The next day he said: "I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security My guess is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole."
This was a tease. There was no human "mole", just a security breach. Rotter in San Francisco later blogged that "In late July I discovered they had left station data versions from 2003 and 1996 on their server without web page links but accessible all the same. They were stale versions of the requested data ... just sitting in cyberspace waiting for someone to download."
McIntyre later admitted that "I downloaded from the public CRU ftp site ... No hacking was involved". Climate emails: were they really hacked or just sitting in cyberspace? [guardian.co.uk]
So in conclusion, yes, it is possible that there was a rogue