59 thoughts on “Response to HI written by Advocacy Group”

  1. My comments are getting discarded I think. I just tried to post in the “channelling” story.

    Don’t think I’ve done anything naughty to merit memory-holing.

  2. Nothing wrong with it at all, if they had specified in the letter, that the letter was initiated by an activist NGO with 3 times the budget of the Heartland Insitute.
    .
    Actually, I would have been happy if they just said UCS.

    Are we witnessing the start of the 501(c)(3) wars?

  3. Nothing wrong with it at all, if they had specified in the letter, that the letter was initiated by an activist NGO

    .
    Er… “Initiated?”

  4. Er… “Initiated?”

    How ’bout “sponsored”, “financed”, “facilitated”, “enabled”, “greased”, or “fronted”?

  8. “Which advocacy group?”

    Im thinking it’s this one:

    “For more than 20 years, UCS has worked with leading experts to educate United States decision makers and the public about global warming, and implement practical solutions at an international, national, regional, and state levels.”

    Andrew

  9. Neven: As the UCS has “Legislative” in its budget, and brags about stopping some legislation on its “Successes” page, we can safely say they are an Activist NGO.

  11. No surprise there. I had come to the conclusion litigation is pretty much inevitable, against “Heartland Insider” (if he can be identified), against the faker (if the can be identified and is a different person from the faker – he may be the same person), and some blogs.

    Heartland can’t allow the fake document to remain unchallenged, and it seems unlikely those trumpeting it are unlikely to agree to remove it, especially since they are continuing to claim it’s genuine.

    I’m no lawyer, and legally they may be in the right about asking for the other docs to be removed, but PR-wise, it does seem it could be an overstretch. That said, they probably want to be seen to be protecting the identities of their donors and other such private info in the other docs.

  12. Toto: it is, on the information I have, apparent that the UCS initiated the letter, by typing, then sending the letter to to at least 7 scientists.

    Then they released it on their web site.

    While it is possible, one or all, of the scientists asked the UCS to do this, I think its unlikely. It orginated, it was created, it was transmitted to the 7, and it was collected and released by the UCS.

    That makes them mom, father, doctor and the taxi ride home from the hospital all in one, for this particular baby.

  13. Roger on a very tight time line also.
    Someone named Alan Huertas creates the letter at 13:28 guessing EST
    Guardian publish article that includes the letter at 15:24 EST
    On twitter they link to the Press Release highlighting the guardian article with the letter at 14:20 possibly EST but could also be 17:20 EST if Katy was at the AAAS meeting on the west coast. Not sure how that works.
    Concerned Scientists@UCSUSA
    Scientists who had emails stolen ask Heartland Institute to end attack on #climate science http://ow.ly/98UkJ
    2:20 PM – 17 Feb 12

  14. You cannot conclude with certainty that the person named in a document’s metadata as the author actually wrote the content.

  15. Phil Clarke (Comment #90643)
    February 19th, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    “You cannot conclude with certainty that the person named in a document’s metadata as the author actually wrote the content.
    ”

    ————-

    Phil Clarke,

    You are correct. Just last week I was in Tokyo at a meeting with a client where the COO of the company I represent in Asia gave out flash drives with some of our sales presentations on them as presents. When I latter looked at one of the presentations on the flash drives, the metadata showed the creator of the docs to be former company employee who left 3 years ago and is now our dog-eat-dog major competitor for work with the Japanese client we were presenting too. Oops! Our COO had just taken a 3 year old presentation and made a completely new presentation without considering to look at the author shown in the original file’s metadata.

    I had to take the Japanese client out to dinner to formally apologize.

    John

  16. Phil Clarke (Comment #90640) ,
    Sure, maybe Aaron at UCS volunteered to type in the document based on a draft document actually written by those named climate scientists. Or maybe someone sat at Aaron’s computer at UCS and wrote the document, or maybe someone is just faking the metadata and nobody at UCS was involved in any way. Motivation seems missing.
    .
    The the most likely explanation, of course, is that Aaron wrote the document and sent it to the signatories for approval.

  17. DeSmog just got served.

    From: Jim Lakely
    Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 9:32 AM
    Subject: Stolen and Faked Heartland Documents

    February 18, 2012

    By email and Federal Express to:
    Mr. Brendan G DeMelle
    Editor DeSmog Blog

    Re: Stolen and Faked Heartland Documents

    http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy

    Dear Mr. DeMelle:

    On or about February 14, 2012, your web site posted a document entitled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” (the “Fake Memo”), which is fabricated and false.

    On or about the same date, your web site posted certain other documents purporting to be those of The Heartland Institute (“Heartland”). Heartland has not authenticated these documents (the “Alleged Heartland Documents”).

    Your site thereafter has reported repeatedly on all of these documents.

    Heartland almost immediately issued a statement disclosing the foregoing information, to which your web site has posted links.

    It has come to our attention that all of these documents nevertheless remain on your site and you continue to report on their contents. Please be advised as follows:

    1. The Fake Memo document is just that: fake. It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact. Publication of this falsified document is improper and unlawful.

    2. As to the Alleged Heartland Documents your web site posted, we are investigating how they came to be in your possession and whether they are authentic or have been altered or fabricated. Though third parties purport to have authenticated them, no one – other than Heartland – has the ability to do so. Several of the documents say on their face that they are confidential documents and all of them were taken from Heartland by improper and fraudulent means. Publication of any and all confidential or altered documents is improper and unlawful.

    3. Furthermore, Heartland views the malicious and fraudulent manner in which the documents were obtained and/or thereafter disseminated, as well as the repeated blogs about them, as providing the basis for civil actions against those who obtained and/or disseminated them and blogged about them. Heartland fully intends to pursue all possible actionable civil remedies to the fullest extent of the law.

    Therefore, we respectfully demand: (1) that you remove both the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents from your web site; (2) that you remove from your web site all posts that refer or relate in any manner to the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents; (3) that you remove from your web site any and all quotations from the Fake Memo and the Alleged Heartland Documents; (4) that you publish retractions on your web site of prior postings; and (5) that you remove all such documents from your server.

    Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information.

    Very truly yours,

    Maureen Martin

    General Counsel

    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/02/heartland-sends-out-first-legal-notice-about-stolen-and-faked-documents/#comment-975404

  18. Re the metadata in the PDF file: it does not say who wrote the source file, only who created the PDF file (from a Word file in this case). And John Whitman’s scenario (Comment #90646) is not possible. In that case the “create” and “modify” dates would not be identical.

    What the metadata does tell is that the PDF file, as published, was created either by Aaron Huerta or by someone else using Huerta’s Mac (presumably after Huerta had logged in).

  19. From the horse’s mouth:-

    “The letter was written by the people who signed it, and it’s publication was coordinated by Aaron Huertas at UCS, a group (of which I’m a member) that has been very helpful in making making media connections for the scientists – you might have a list of editors of major news organisations at your fingertips, but I don’t). – gavin]”

    http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=10829#comment-228255

    I am guessing the text was agreed by the signatories, sent to Aaron who pasted it into Word to produce the pdf. Whatever – the thread title is inaccurate.

  21. Ahhh…”coordinated”.

    I guess I was close with “facilliated” and “enabled”.

    I guess seven bright scientists weren’t cleaver enough to type it themselves and find Heartland’s address.

    Oh wait…”publicized”.

    Of course! The whole reason we even have “climate science”.

  24. So we had some climate warriors getting their undies in a bunch because they had convinced themselves that the NIPCC report was “nefariouisly” sponsored by Heartland (even though their friggin logo was on the cover),

    http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/tell-me-whats-horrible-about-this/#comment-89800

    I wonder if the same climate warriors will claim there’s no big deal that an “open letter” was “coordinated” by an advocacy group. Only when TSHTF do they own up to it.

    Nice.

  25. Phil Clarke

    I said “publicized”. In this case, it was “published” because a PR hack “publicized” it.

    Gavin so much as says so in the passage you quoted.

  28. One one hand we have UCS claiming in a press release that the open letter was written by the signatories. On the other hand we have evidence that open letter was written by a UCS press secretary. That puts UCS in a very difficult position with regard press integrity.

  29. Publication of any and all confidential or altered documents is improper and unlawful.

    Why all the secrecy, Heartland?

  30. I guess seven bright scientists weren’t cleaver enough to type it themselves and find Heartland’s address.

    Aaron would have caught this unfortunate typo. Just sayin’.

  32. This letter must have been rushed as it was distributed on the Friday before a long weekend, tomorrow is Presidents Day in the U.S.; a Federal Holiday.

    I wonder how many of the alleged signees are Federal employees and I wonder if they used their e-mail to discuss the content of the letter before agreeing to sign off on it.

    If only there was some way to access those e-mails…

  34. Heartland can’t allow the fake document to remain unchallenged,

    I agree they can’t. They can’t because to do so would:
    * Result in donors no longer giving.
    * Suits by named employees suing Heartland for not protecting actual honest to goodness private information, e.g. salaries, names, positions, reasons for termination etc.
    * Members of the board possibly suing for release of honest to goodness private information: names, home phone number, addresses, email addresses etc.

    In contrast, CRU wan’t going to have these things happen because it’s not donor funded and for all the whining about ‘personal emails’ the CRU leaker/hacker redacted the sort of information that laws prohibit employers from sharing with the public.

    If Heartland is going to continue to exist as a private foundation the have to go after and be seen to go after whoever did this.

    Also, the way this seems to have been leaked, it at least appears that people who received the leaked/purloined/non-standardly-obtained documents communicated by email with others. The “Friends” email suggests 15 people.

    Obviously, Heartland is going to want to see the headers on those emails. It seems Heartland isn’t going to wait around the way CRU did. So, whoever did it might get caught. (Or not. Who knows?)

  35. Ahhh…attempting to score points on spelling errors…

    …for those who have nothing else…

    Oh, I have plenty. But the irony of you making a dumb mistake while calling scientists stupid was too much for me.

  36. Boris,

    If you “have plenty”, why keep harping back to the spelling error?

    I guess the subject matter is really too much for you.

  37. Has Heartland said anything in response to the supposedly “fake” document to allow us to discriminate between it being a private (and thus unofficially “Heartland”) draft by Joe Bast or similar vs. something created fraudulently?

    I ask as someone who agrees that there are things to be very suspicious, but who thinks that Heartland could resolve this definitively very easily and isn’t.

    [Obviously so that we don’t have to waste time on this, I am part of the zomgcommiefakeconsensus or what have you. This is immaterial to my question. If any fraud has actually been committed I will call for punishment.]

  38. thingsbreak

    Has Heartland said anything in response to the supposedly “fake” document to allow us to discriminate between it being a private (and thus unofficially “Heartland”) draft by Joe Bast or similar vs. something created fraudulently?

    This seems to be what the wrote in a letter to Littlemore.

    . The Fake Memo document is just that: fake. It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact. Publication of this falsified document is improper and unlawful.

    I’d take this to mean they are saying Joe Bast did not write it. That would preclude it being a draft written by Joe Bast.

    I ask as someone who agrees that there are things to be very suspicious, but who thinks that Heartland could resolve this definitively very easily and isn’t.

    What do you think could be resolved easily by Heartland? It seem to me t the people who supplied the documents to the bloggers could resolve it easily by producing the email the obtained from Heartland, along with headers and showing it included all attachments. Or the bloggers could provide make the headers of the “Dear Friends (15 of your) public.” The things could be traced.

    What step are you envisioning Heartland could take?

    I am part of the zomgcommiefakeconsensus or what have you. This is immaterial to my question. If any fraud has actually been committed I will call for punishment.]

    I know you are a member of group ZCFC– and also that it is immaterial to your question.

    My questions to you are real questions. I’ve read people say Heartland could clear it up at blogs– but I have to admit I’m not sure how exactly they could prove the fake is a fake. If it’s fake… well.. they have nothing!

    But if it’s real, person who leaked it could provide provenance of the thing. All they have to do is step forward. (Mind you, I don’t advise them to do that. But it seems to me the only remotely “easy” way to prove it’s real.)

  39. “is seems to be what the wrote in a letter to Littlemore”

    Yes, I’ve read all that, and I understand why someone not inured to the legalese of such things might think that’s a full denial. It’s not.

    “It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland.” That means if it was at all edited by a third party, including a header/footer or document number removed, they can claim it was not Heartland. Moreover, if it was written- as so many of these things are- by a third party consultant and was in a pre-draft or draft stage and had not been officially endorsed by HI even if it was written to the specifications of HI, it’s still plausibly deniable.

    “It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.” This can be as little as an uncorrected title of a program that was undeniably in the budget, an unrevised date, or something similarly trivial.

    My admittedly ancillary experience with legalese leaves at least as much room for this to be a working HI document as it does being from a third party that is somehow “pro-climate” or what have you.

    “I’d take this to mean they are saying Joe Bast did not write it.”

    Did someone say “no language is Joe Bast’s”?

    “That would preclude it being a draft written by Joe Bast.”

    That’s adorable.

    “What do you think could be resolved easily by Heartland?”

    Discovery. I hope they try their damnedest to prosecute, and I would love to see what shakes out.

    “t seem to me t the people who supplied the documents to the bloggers could resolve it easily by producing the email the obtained from Heartland, along with headers and showing it included all attachments.”

    The person who allegedly obtained these documents allegedly (per HI) did so illegally. Why would you expect him or her to make it easy to caught?

    “What step are you envisioning Heartland could take?”

    Discovery. I think that Heartland is a legitimate, non-profit organization that has every right to act as it has been. I think that the accusations that it has been skirting the law are unfounded and HI has nothing to lose to show that it isn’t trying to do things that its attackers claim it is. Heartland and I are on exactly the same page on this.

    “My questions to you are real questions. I’ve read people say Heartland could clear it up at blogs– but I have to admit I’m not sure how exactly they could prove the fake is a fake. If it’s fake… well.. they have nothing!”

    Discovery could demonstrate this beyond any doubt. The “skeptics” seem to be of two minds on the “fake” document. Many are saying the document is fake and that there is nothing damning about the other documents. They contend that the “fake” document is what is providing the meat of the outrage. Without it, they claim, there’s no reason to be upset.

    Discovery could demonstrate what the intent of an oil and tobacco lobbying agency would have trying to influence elementary school education would be. Clearly, we would disagree what preventing teaching science might be as said so explicitly, but I think people would be interested in what the goal would be regardless.

    “person who leaked it could provide provenance of the thing. All they have to do is step forward. (Mind you, I don’t advise them to do that. But it seems to me the only remotely “easy” way to prove it’s real.)”

    Well that would be stupid for many reasons. First, we know that the broad majority of the data are real, because they’re internally consistent and at turns implicitly and explicitly confirmed by other documents or comments made thereafter. Second, according to HI, they were obtained illegally, which would make giving extra info self-defeating if true.

    I have been known to punctuate phrases like the alleged faker in several respects- I’m forgoing the parens to not appear over dramatic. I’ve used the phrase “anti-climate” many times in verbal and possibly non-circulated written documents; it’s not uncommon for me to be on Pacific time, or use an Epson scanner.

    I find the circumstantial “evidence” thin, as someone from my position of course would.

  40. thingsbreak

    “It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland.” That means if it was at all edited by a third party, including a header/footer or document number removed, they can claim it was not Heartland.

    I’m not sure I know what you mean. If Bast wrote it, the statement ““It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland.” becomes false. I don’t see how a 3rd party editing it or removing the header or footers would turn the text into “not written by Joe Bast”.

    if it was written to the specifications of HI, it’s still plausibly deniable.

    Ok… I guess I could see where Joe calls up a bakery and says, “Please bake me a vanilla cake with raspberry frosting”. That’s having something make to his specifications, but he didn’t make it. But it doesn’t really make much sense that Joe Bast would call someone outside Heartland and ask them to write a super-secret confidential memo for circulation to a small enclave of Heartland insiders. Is that what you are suggesting the language could mask? I guess it could, but it seems like a wildly implausible thing.

    Maybe I’m not getting what you mean because it’s too abstract and I lack imagination of what possible ways the text of that letter could be written. If you could suggest a concrete hypothetical that that is consistent with the wording in the Heartland letter being true and that seems plausible given the facts, that might help me understand what you are driving at.

    “It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.” This can be as little as an uncorrected title of a program that was undeniably in the budget, an unrevised date, or something similarly trivial.

    I agree with it could. But I’m not sure what your point is. They’ve said it’s fake.

    “That would preclude it being a draft written by Joe Bast.”

    That’s adorable.

    I see… . Please explain how it’s wrong.

    Discovery could demonstrate this beyond any doubt

    Maybe. But Discovery happens after suits are filed. I don’t see the what point you are trying to make.

    Many are saying the document is fake and that there is nothing damning about the other documents. They contend that the “fake” document is what is providing the meat of the outrage. Without it, they claim, there’s no reason to be upset.

    The fake document provided most of the quotes in the blogs breaking the story. I don’t think there is any doubt about that.

    The fake document provides some spin with word use. I don’t know what others said, but I already wrote that I didn’t think there is much that’s damning about actual actions discussed in the fake document either. The reason I thought that is that I read the other documents.

    But the language in the fake is organized to give it a certain spin which sounds bad. For example: in the other documents there is nothing to suggest the purpose or educational materials is to get teachers to stop teaching science nor is there anything to suggest that the purpose of the NIPCC document is to undermine the IPCC. Also, in the budget it’s pretty clear the funding to people like Singer etc. are to work on things like the NIPCC document. In the strategy memo it’s worded to make it sound like they are just handing the guys money just to breath.

    But since the other documents make it clear that Singer etc. are getting money to write the NIPCC document — which is a perfectly open activity everyone knew about– I didn’t decide they were being given money just to breathe based on the strategy document. But to people didn’t read the other documents quoting from the fake document made it appear that’s what was happening.

    Discovery could demonstrate what the intent of an oil and tobacco lobbying agency would have trying to influence elementary school education would be.

    I’ll admit that I don’t know the extent discover takes in a case like this.

    I have been known to punctuate phrases like the alleged faker in several respects- I’m forgoing the parens to not appear over dramatic.

    Me too. If you read a number of my recent blog posts, they’ve been adding * after close-paren brackets and including footnotes to indicate I used them. In one post I even double nested my parentheses.

    I don’t think I used anti-climate.

    Quite a few people here have teased Mosher on his parentheses theory.

    But it seems to me that we are straying from your earlier claim that

    I ask as someone who agrees that there are things to be very suspicious, but who thinks that Heartland could resolve this definitively very easily and isn’t.

    You’ve said Discover a few times–and you seem to suggest that’s the easy process at Heartland’s disposals. but I can’t image you are proposing that very easy resolution at Heartland’s disposal is to sue and use the Discovery process to learn something and then present it in court. That strikes me as a not-easy process.

    That said: I suspect they may do it.

    So now, in addition to not knowing what very easy resolution process is at Heartland’s disposal to resolve this matter, I am also curios to know the details of the letter writing process you envision Bast having used to write a super-confidential memo,

  41. Oh: Thingsbreak–
    I should say: I think Heartland will sue if they think they have any case at all. I don’t think they have much to fear through the discovery process and I think it will make donations pour in.

  42. “I’m not sure I know what you mean. If Bast wrote it, the statement ““It was not written by anyone associated with Heartland.” because false.”

    Yes, you don’t know what I mean, and you don’t understand the internal protocol of any big law, lobbying, PR organization.

    Legally, the individual Joe Bast can write things in his “spare time” that technically have nothing to do with HI. Depending on the context, Joe Bast is free to “speak” under the first amendment with ZERO “association” with HI.

    “I don’t see how a 3rd party editing it or removing the header or footers would turn the text into ‘not written by Joe Bast’. ”

    You’re under the impression that Joe Bast has denied any connection to his actual writing in any context.

    “Maybe I’m not getting what you mean because it’s too abstract and I lack imagination of what possible ways the text of that letter could be written.”

    You’re not getting what I mean because you don’t either don’t speak legalise, and/or we have different biases.

    That’s okay, we’ll just have to wait and see.

    “You’ve said Discover a few times–and you seem to suggest that’s the easy process at Heartland’s disposals. but I can’t image you are proposing that very easy resolution at Heartland’s disposal is to sue and use the Discovery process to learn something and then present it in court. That strikes me as a not-easy process.

    That said: I suspect they may do it.”

    I suppose I am saying “easy” in the context that they’re presumably already going to do it. Its implicit in what they’d have to do to build an affirmative case, so I don’t see the downside in at least hyping it now.

  43. thingsbreak,

    Legally, the individual Joe Bast can write things in his “spare time” that technically have nothing to do with HI. Depending on the context, Joe Bast is free to “speak” under the first amendment with ZERO “association” with HI.

    Ahh, now I know what you mean! I was unaware anyone could make this sort of claim and believe it to be a true claim.

    You’re not getting what I mean because you don’t either don’t speak legalise, and/or we have different biases.

    Likely both. But if you are relying on some sort of point of legalese and you want to be widely understood, you might need to be very explicit. (As you now have been.)*

    I suppose I am saying “easy” in the context that they’re presumably already going to do it. Its implicit in what they’d have to do to build an affirmative case, so I don’t see the downside in at least hyping it now.

    I think suits are not unlikely for many reasons. For one thing, I think it’s in Heartland’s best interest to sue provided
    1) the letter really, truly is fake-qua-fake and not just “if we use legalese we can claim it’s fake even though normal people would consider it real” and
    2) They have a case that can be made to stick against someone.

    Libel is hard to get to stick. But if the letter is really, truly, no bones about it fake, I think they’ve might have something for creative lawyer to make a suit out of.

    I do think those discussing copyright at Laden’s blog are focusing on the wrong thing. I don’t think this suit is going to be about copyright.

    *Note bizarre use of ().

  44. http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/scientists-emails-stolen-heartland-institute-1372.html

    The press release by the UCS makes no mention of efforts by UCS staff in coordinating efforts over the open letter. It states quite clearly that the signatories wrote the letter.

    We also have reference in the UCS press release to the publication of the open letter in the Guardian newspaper as the first public source of the open letter. The Guardian also makes no mention that the UCS were involved.

    Now you would think that an organisation like the UCS would pride itself on an open and honest approach in communicating its activities, and that its activities were beyond approach.

    What did happen is that UCS misrepresented the facts about its own involvement in producing this open letter. It indulged in a bit of fakery over its own press release.

  45. Pielke, did you even read the article.

    “Scientists Who Had Emails Stolen Ask Heartland Institute to End Attack on Climate Science
    UCS President Kevin Knobloch Calls Heartland Institute’s Strategy ‘Disturbing'”

    It’s right there in the headline.

  48. bugs, this is to let you know that UCS supports denying billions of poor people the opportunity to rise out of poverty. Leaving the world’s poor without the energy they need to produce a better economy means they can’t get better food, better healthcare for their kids, better shelter, or a longer life. UCS advocates actions which will cause the unnecessarily premature death of billions.

    Of course, this is completely off topic. Just like the smoking BS you find so interesting.

  49. I do think that UCS should explain their involvement in help draft and publish this open letter. Their initial press release makes it look as if the drafting of the open letter and its publication was done solely and independently by these scientists and that UCS were simply commenting on this after the fact

    It is highly likely that Mr Huertas also wrote the initial UCS press release.

    As I said we need an official response for UCS to declare their involvement and to correct their initial press release.

  50. bugs, this is to let you know that UCS supports denying billions of poor people the opportunity to rise out of poverty. Leaving the world’s poor without the energy they need to produce a better economy means they can’t get better food, better healthcare for their kids, better shelter, or a longer life. UCS advocates actions which will cause the unnecessarily premature death of billions.

    I’m confused. I thought the UCS were a bunch of socialists who want to redistribute the world’s wealth to poorer countries?!?! Now I find they are trying to kill poor people?!?! Billions of them ?!?!!!?!!?!?!!?!

    Well, I can’t support this at all. Co2 must not be a greenhouse gas after all.

  52. bugs, this is to let you know that UCS supports denying billions of poor people the opportunity to rise out of poverty.
    .
    Actually, Stan, YOU are doing that by enforcing your non-negotiable way of life on the world. The poor can’t rise out of poverty (including the tens of millions of poor in your own country that you never hear about) because it’s never enough for you. And so you send the IMF, World Bank and WTO to developing countries with your conditions for credit that completely cripple their society, increases corruption and lets multinationals suck their economy dry. At the same time you dump your heavily subsidized GMO wheat and corn on their markets under the guise of humanitarian aid, so farmers go bankrupt and have no alternative but to move to mega-cities and live in abysmal conditions.
    .
    The reason poor, developing countries remain poor and developing is because our developed economies have to keep growing indefinitely (read: the rich getting richer, with the middle class like Stan functioning as their lackeys, keeping the slaves down through neocolonialism).

  53. Neven/Bugs,

    Bull puckey. The reason skeptics are skeptics is because there is no established, proven link between increasing atmospheric CO2 and a runaway warming effect. And policies to forego proven, cheap energy production in favor of expensive, subsidized, unreliable energy production are galactically stupid — unless of course your true aim is to cripple the global economy, which is what a goodly chunk of watermelons really want. Either that, or they are just galactically stupid. Probably both.

  54. Naw, Neven, the poor remain poor because they don’t have access to cheap fossil fuels. Delusional naifs like you are the ones pushing the CAGW agenda of the WTO and World Bank which is designed to keep the dark-skinned people of the world in abject poverty.

  55. Re: Neven (Feb 20 09:23),

    Oh, puhleeze.

    You’re completely neglecting the corruption factor. Many poor countries remain poor because their governments are corrupt or incompetent and there is no rule of law to allow people to profit from their labor. Look at South Korea vs. North Korea. Look at what China has done once it stopped being dogmatically Communist. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

    I do agree that the IMF and the World Bank may do more harm than good. But there may be no choice but austerity for a country like Greece.

  56. neill (Comment #90767)
    February 20th, 2012 at 10:33 am
    Neven/Bugs,
    Bull puckey. The reason skeptics are skeptics is because there is no established, proven link between increasing atmospheric CO2 and a runaway warming effect.
    ——————————————————-
    Somebody is claiming a runaway warming effect?

  58. tty (Comment #90651) said @ February 19th, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    “Re the metadata in the PDF file: it does not say who wrote the source file, only who created the PDF file (from a Word file in this case). And John Whitman’s scenario (Comment #90646) is not possible. In that case the “create” and “modify” dates would not be identical.”

    —————-

    tty,

    In the situation I described with the company I represent, the metadata pdf inherited was from the PowerPoint source file’s doc metadata. The dates on the pdf metadata reflect pdf creation/change dates. The powerpoint’s author showed on the pdf metadata.

    John

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