Now the FBI!!
There aren’t many details in the story. I also don’t know whether “calling the FBI” requires the FBI to do anything. But evidently, a call has been made.
179 thoughts on “Heartland calls FBI”
Comments are closed.
Now the FBI!!
There aren’t many details in the story. I also don’t know whether “calling the FBI” requires the FBI to do anything. But evidently, a call has been made.
Comments are closed.
Different subject Lucia.
Heartland received an angry letter from an individual that one ‘might’ view as threatening and responded to that person that they had informed the FBI.
I’m pretty certain that this is a fairly standard response for organizations that receive ‘threatening’ mail.
Communicating a threat is a federal crime…rarely is it prosecuted. Occasionally the FBI may pay a visit.
18 USC § 875 – Interstate communications
Gleick’s lawyer has swallowed the pudding?
Well he is speaking like he has.
Emails??? Nobody ever said anything about emails. Looks like the Examiner got it wrong.
Copner,
“Gleick’s lawyer has swallowed the pudding?”
Maybe. But advocates are advocates, and you can never trust that what they say is anywhere close to true. Which is why it is for me so mind-boggling that so many climate scientists seem to think it is a good idea to act like an advocate (Glieck is only the most extreme of cases, but very far from the only one). It is like trading your most valuable asset for nothing. I don’t understand the reasoning, and never will.
One may wonder if the entire intent behind Gleick’s self-immolation is to put him precisely in the position to have discovery against Heartland.
I have decided that Megan McCardle (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/some-more-thoughts-on-heartland/253449/) writes very much like Lucia! (And appears to suffer fools no more gladly.)
.
Lucia, you could be a famous journalist…wait… maybe you are already!
He doesn’t really have much discovery rights against Heartland. Discovery is limited to relevant documents. Hard to imagine how anything other than communication between Gleick and Heartland staff would pass the relevance test.
@John: That’s what I was thinking. And even if he gets some discovery, it’ll be attorney’s eyes only under a protective order given his past and admitted proclivity for posting Heartland confidential documents online.
I did find the last line to be a hoot – Gleick even now wants to “determine once and for all who is truly behind Heartland and why”.
Spellbound (Comment #91532)
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:41 pm
One may wonder if the entire intent behind Gleick’s self-immolation is to put him precisely in the position to have discovery against Heartland.
Heh, that’s an interesting thought. However, given what they’ve actually got so far (which is basically nothing), This strategy is nothing less than “insane” (which has been pointed out in other blogs).
Oh, and please forgive my use of “(” and “)”. 🙂
Well I see what the defense is doing. It is trying to create an image of Gleick as the whistleblower. ” yeah he commited a crime but we all know why he would do it….”
Then they start billowing about who is really behind HI and all that. So take it for what it is. They have nothing but a little hissy fit and hope to Heaven….oh wait Warmers don’t believe in Heaven….maybe a Myan statue that they can get the conversation off of the moron move Glieck made.
Dude
I think most judges would bar a whistleblower defense as a matter of law. Gleick just doesn’t meet the requirements.
That little fool who gave WikiLeaks a trove of US intel was also called a “whistleblower” by his advocates. Bradley Manning is now held in military custody awaiting trial that could have resulted in the death penalty, but prosecutors have decided only to go for life in prison penalty.
Let Gleick try to pull the whistleblower defense: it won’t work in this case either.
Aside legal definitions, even as PR move it fails (except to a small group of green zealots), because:
1. He wasn’t an insider with knowledge of wrongdoing, which is part of the common man’s definition of whistle blower. The public is however very familiar with pretexting and identity theft.
2. The only document that contains any dirt, even if you believe his own account, he had before he did any pretexting. The pretexting only allow him to obtain innocuous material.
“determine once and for all who is truly behind Heartland and whyâ€
If Santorum is right it’ll turn out to be SATAN!
It appears Gleick did violate one recently passed California law on online impersonations:
http://sfappeal.com/news/2010/12/online-impersonation-law-goes-into-effect-jan-1.php
I just wrote an email to Senator Simitian informing him of the situation. He’s from Palo Alto. I don’t know where Gleick lives– Berkeley, I would presume– but apparently the law relies on local authorities for enforcement, although the state AG can be called in.
A whistleblower defense would have to be based on HI violating the law, wouldn’t it? I don’t see where they’ve done that.
Dude
For what I read I think both HI and Gleick are going for victim status. I suspect the US legal system is going to be one of the last to believe in Gleick’s self-professed sainthood.
> A whistleblower defense would have to be based on HI violating the law, wouldn’t it? I don’t see where they’ve done that.
You obviously haven’t read John Mashey’s carefully compiled report. /sarc
> For what I read I think both HI and Gleick are going for victim status.
HI are victims.
They are still being slandered. Their private information has been exposed. And their lawyers, donors and staff are being harassed or slandered too.
I hope for Mashey’s sake that no one with the power to involuntarily commit him takes a look at those reports.
After thinking about the events of the last couple of days, my considered opinion is that Dr. Peter Gleick is toast. And not lightly browned toast with butter and strawberry jam; smoking charcoal-to-the-core toast. He has no real options. He will likely lose his job at the Pacific Institute (which he co-founded!), few will want him to be associated with their organization (too much baggage). And he will face endless (and richly deserved) ridicule if he attempts to communicate publicly about global warming.
.
He might actually rehabilitate himself by coming clean on every detail of what he did, and being honestly contrite. But I am reminded by Dr. Gleick’s actions of the story of the frog and the scorpion. I just don’t think he is capable of acting in his own best interest, if that means giving quarter to his political opponents. Like the scorpion, he would prefer to die than change his nature, which for Gleick would mean accepting that his opponents have a right to disagree with him, and acknowledging they are honest in their beliefs. In other words, give a measure of respect to those who disagree with him. He can’t bring himself to do that. He just can’t. It is his nature.
.
And that my friends is the fundamental problem with climate science: an utter lack of respect for anyone who disagrees. I do hope others involved in climate science are paying attention… but I doubt they are.
SteveF
I thought that at first too. But I’ve changed my mind. I suspect that right now his legal team is shopping for a friendly jurisdiction where he can cop to a favorable plea on the criminal stuff. That allows him to avoid having to produce the anonymous letter for forensics.
Then they will prepare to defend the civil stuff but will probably settle with deep green pockets paying the tab. They are probably currently working on a book deal for him to expose all the seedy side of the big oil funded denial machine. Then he will make a comfortable living on the green lecture circuit.
He may not be the high profile leader that he was. But he will be a hero to the Eco fanatics.
John Vetterling (Comment #91554),
Maybe. We will see how it unfolds.
I’ve got my popcorn
I keep wondering what will happen if his transmission got picked up by a clerk sitting in the train station in Highland Park while commuting in on the metra . . . .
I think Gleick will emulate Alger Hiss and deny guilt, scorn remorse and then revel in his new found status as a martyr for the cause when he gets mired in legal actions. Like the trials of the 60s (the Chicago 7 comes to mind) his trials will be used as political theater to further the political and policy goals of the warmist movement.
Lucia,
Criminal prosecution in Illinois would definitely complicate his life. Actually coming clean would probably solve his criminal problems (worst case: suspended sentence, small fine, etc.) in Illinois and elsewhere, but I just don’t think he can make himself do it. He will never acknowledge that the other side has a right to disagree with him and promote their POV.
.
As you noted earlier, the HI office is located in a district where the DA is likely to be very un-interested. If HI raised a big stink about the DA not acting on a clear case of wire fraud… who knows. Could happen. But I doubt it. This is an important left/right political issue after all, and everywhere that Gleick would seem to have criminal liability there are democrats in charge of selecting which cases to prosecute. I think Gleick is safe from criminal prosecution. (Of course, I have been wrong 5 or 6 times before in my life. 😉 )
“. That allows him to avoid having to produce the anonymous letter for forensics. ”
Ding ding. The palin hacker did time for obstruction. destroying evidence. Gleick confessed. Da is happy he didnt have to work.
plead it out for community service
Here’s the story of the FBI looking into it:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/02/fbi-called-over-climate-change-mole/305161
I suspect they will shop for a federal prosecutor. That would preempt any local “denier” DA from taking the case. DC might be useful but Chicago could work out as well. He will plead guilty to exactly what he said in the HufPo piece. His attorney will make a big show of how what he did was for the greater good but it was still wrong and now he is prepared to accept the consequences. He gets a slap on the wrist and NEVER has to produce the anonymous letter.
Then he goes down as the Daniel Elsberg of the environmental movement.
Discovery will not work in Gleick’s favour. It will illuminate the source of the faked document and expose him and possibly others to significant civil damages claims.
SteveF (Comment #91553)
“And that my friends is the fundamental problem with climate science: an utter lack of respect for anyone who disagrees.”
SteveF February 22nd
“There’s plenty of personal information in the UEA emails.â€
Your are delusional. I will no longer communicate with you. Bye forever.
Both McIntyre and Watts have a chronology of the exchange of emails (supplied by Heartland) between Gleick and Heartland which took place in January 2012 regarding Heartland’s invitation to Gleick to debate James Taylor at Heartland’s annual dinner where he could meet Heartland’s donors. As well as offering travel and accommodation expenses, Heartland offered Gleick a $5,000 donation to a charity of his choice.
In the exchange, in which Gleick repeatedly asked why Heartland did not make it’s donors public, Heartland explained that they used to but
Here’s a motive for forging the Strategy Memo, how about, having been directly informed that harassment of donors was as issue in the past, Gleick unlawfully impersonated a Heartland board member in order to obtain confidential documents, found evidence in those documents only of an advocacy group doing what advocacy groups do, created or conspired to create an inaccurate, sexed up document in order to provide sound bites and then arranged for that information to be published on multiple Alarmist web sites in the full knowledge that it would inspire ‘nut jobs’ to do exactly what they’ve done.
Far fetched, possibly, but who would have thought a respected scientist ‘genius’ who spoke often on integrity in science would confess to committing wire fraud in support of a cause!
I think a bit of scepticism is called for here.
What does ‘called in the FBI’ mean, and how would one do that?
Why does this story only only appear in a free tabloid?
And why does the headline say ‘called’ when the text says ‘have been in talks with’ – who called who?
Why is the story so lacking in any detailed facts?
I posted it on ClimateAudit – Kevin Mitnick, Art of Deception, Chapter 2. The book is online as a PD if you want to read it. That’s how I think he probably got in.
Not precisely like the creditchex example – but bigger is maybe the same: people (in this case Heartland) accidentally disclose info which they don’t realize can be used against their organization to get more info.
PaulM asks:
Use the phone, Luke.
Seriously, what’s the problem?
Type FBI into google, the FIRST button on the FIRST page on the FIRST hit from Google is labelled “CONTACT US”.
For the legal eagles, what do you think it would mean for the Pacific Institute if a person were to have committed an offence on their premises, or using their facilities (internet, PC) ? Does it make a difference if said person were to hold senior office in the Pacific Institute ?
Could the Pacific Institute face liability ?
per–
Maybe. 🙂
Gleick is the president. Presidents have significant discretionary authority to act in the interest of the institute. For many things they don’t need to seek permission or authorization from someone else.
If the president of an institute is doing something on institute grounds, it’s difficult to argue he is not acting on behalf of the institute. I don’t know what arguments would be presented in court one way or the other.
We don’t have timestamps for the pretexting activities. But surely Heartland do.
However we do know:
The scan was made at 12:41 on Monday 13th February
The email was sent out at 09:13 on Tuesday 14th February
This would seem to be during office hours. Was Gleick at work at the Pacific Institute at those times?
P.S.
One other detail we don’t have, is whether the pretexting was done partly by phone, or entirely by email. Everybody assumed a phone was involved – but McIntyre’s last story contains the following:
“Shortly after Gleick refused Heartland’s invitation, he sent an email to an administrator at Heartland, in which Gleick impersonated a Heartland board member and changed the email destination of the Heartland board member, subsequently obtaining board documents.”
http://climateaudit.org/2012/02/23/heartlands-invitation-to-gleick-details/#more-15663
Copner–
He supposedly works 35 hours a week for the Pacific Institute. It wouldn’t be surprising if he was at his PI offices during working hours on a Monday or Tuesday. But none of here would know. IPs and interviews with witnesses may be required to learn that.
Couple of thoughts – First, with regards to discovery, I think Gleick’s attorney’s comments are just bluster. Certainly, they can request access to innumerable documents but that (a) doesn’t mean that a judge will fully grant their request and (b) they can publicly reveal that information. As noted above, any access to Heartland documents granted through discovery would likely come with a protective order prohibiting their release to the public. Should any such release be made, both Gleick and his attorneys would be risking additional sanctions.
With regard to the speculation above that going for a plea deal would somehow allow him to get away with not producing the original for forensic evaluation, I just don’t see how copping a plea would do that. In fact, production of the original could required as part of a plea deal or be requested by Heartland in discovery for any civil action. If he has already destroyed it (or any electronic medium, such as a computer hard drive, which may hold evidence), he could face evidence tampering and hindering an investigation charges should a prosecutor decide to proceed with the case.
> But none of here would know
This statement, signed by Gleick and others, was released to the press on Feb 13th – http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/top-climate-scientists-warn-congress-over-keystone-xl – was there any media festivities or activities around it?
We also know Gleick viewed (and tweeted that web page) on the evening of the 13th.
Here is what I know about Gleick’s activities on the 13th and 14th:
Feb 12, 11:10am Pacific (2:10pm Eastern) – James Taylor of Heartland publishes an article critical of Gleick. Gleick responds in the first comment (soon after?), criticizing HI and demanding “So, Mr. Taylor: let’s have the complete list of your funders.” – http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/01/12/please-global-warming-alarmists-stop-denying-climate-change-and-science/
Feb 13, 01:00, Pacific (?) – “@PointSpecial “Depends what you mean by consequences… the poles have lacked ice caps in the past.” WADR, this is the dumb comment of day.” – Gleick tweets via Twitter for Android – http://twitter.com/#!/petergleick
Feb 13, 01:16, Pacific (?) – “@PointSpecial: @PeterGleick Do you deny that the planet has lacked ice caps in the past?” Not when human civilization was around.” – Gleick tweets via Twitter for Android – http://twitter.com/#!/petergleick
Feb 13, 12:41:52pm, Pacific – “Strategy Memo” scanned – (PDF properties)
Feb 13, 9:13pm, Pacific (?) – “Top climate scientists warn Congress over Keystone XL http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/top-climate-scientists-warn-congress-over-keystone-xl via @350″ – Gleick tweets via Tweet button on web page – http://twitter.com/#!/petergleick
Feb 14, 9:13 a.m. Pacific (12.13 pm Eastern) – “Heartland Insider” sends email to bloggers – source: http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2012/02/timeline-of-higate.html
Nick Stokes (Comment #91567)
Re: Contrasting SteveF saying in Comment #91553, “And that my friends is the fundamental problem with climate science: an utter lack of respect for anyone who disagrees.â€
And SteveF telling you on February 22nd, “[You] are delusional. I will no longer communicate with you. Bye forever.”
Nick, as a blog commenter you are sui generis. Sometimes astute, at other times (,seemingly,) dunderheaded. On-topic/thread-derailing. Truth-seeking/lawyerly. Delightful/frustrating.
So, I wouldn’t necessarily draw general ,)or generic(, conclusions from SteveF’s remark.
Was it the dust up over the Wall Street Journal publishing the 16 contrarian’s letter, but not publishing the letter by 255 warmist climate scientists that pushed Gleick over the edge into pretexting?
He appears to have had a strong personal stake in this (as I will show), and perhaps took the non-publication of the 255’s letter as a personal attack?
1. From
http://climateaudit.org/2012/02/23/heartlands-invitation-to-gleick-details/#more-15663
“On January 27, Gleick declined Heartland’s invitation.”…”Shortly after Gleick refused Heartland’s invitation, he sent an email to an administrator at Heartland, in which Gleick impersonated a Heartland board member”
2. So what else happened on January 27?
Answer: Gleick seems to have got really upset about the WSJ publishing the 16 contrarian’s letter, but not publishing the 255 warmist climate scientists letter.
He wrote an article on Forbes complaining about it – published at 6.54pm
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
He also made 4 consecutive tweets complaining about it:
Remarkable Editorial Bias on Climate Science at the Wall Street Journal – Forbes onforb.es/wYcJbK
11:59 PM – 27 Jan 12 via Tweet Button · Details
Deep Bias on Climate Science at the Wall Street Journal. http://onforb.es/wYcJbK. Ignore 255 National Academy Scientists; favor 16 contrarians?
1:29 AM – 28 Jan 12 via Tweet Button · Details
#WSJ rejects climate essay from 255 National Academy of Science scientists; accepts anti-climate essay from 16 others. onforb.es/wv5rHU
5:45 AM – 28 Jan 12 via web · Details
#WSJ rejects climate essay from 255 National Academy of Science scientists; then accepts anti-climate essay from 16. onforb.es/wv5rHU
6:24 PM – 28 Jan 12 via web · Details
3. Now why would he take the non-publication by WSJ as a personal affront?
Read the letter for yourself, and you might find a clue:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/689.full.pdf
Go to page 2
There is a list of 255 signatories. In alphabetic order by surname – except for one who is out of order, first, with an asterix by his name. Can you guess the name? It’s:
P. H. GLEICK,*
And what does the asterix mean? At the very end of the letter it says:
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
peter gleick @ pac inst . org
(spaces added to email address by me to avoid spambots)
Which suggests that he wrote the letter, or at least organized it.
4. I don’t know why Gleick would turn on Heartland if annoyed about the non-publication of his letter, but he does seem to have been upset that the WSJ chose not to publish his letter, and to publish the opposite view instead.
This incident about the letter is mentioned on the Pacinst site – I find this line now interesting ” sparking investigations of the sixteen scientists who signed the op-ed submitted to the WSJ”
Here is the link and text:
http://pacinst.org/publications/online_update/feb_2012_online_update.htm
Standing Up to Editorial Bias on Climate Science – Peter Gleick Writes, Thousands Respond
On January 27, Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick responded to the op-ed piece “No Need to Panic about Global Warming” published in The Wall Street Journal, which claimed climate change was not occurring. In his Forbes blog post, Dr. Gleick said, “The most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of The Wall Street Journal in [the climate sceince] field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered to The Wall Street Journal, and were turned down.” That letter was subsequently published in Science magazine.
Responses from Dr. Gleick’s post by climate scientists, environmental activists and organizations, and the public have been remarkable — sparking investigations of the sixteen scientists who signed the op-ed submitted to the WSJ; dozens of editorial pieces in prominent publications and by organizations such as The Huffington Post, Catholic Alliance for the Common Good, The New York Times Dot Earth Blog, The Australian, Media Matters, and Climate Progress debunking the WSJ’s flawed and misleading arguments about climate science; and thousands of comments and conversations on blogs, social media outlets, and forums on the current climate dialog in the media. Later that week, The Wall Street Journal implicitly acknowledged their “climate goof” by accepting a letter from 38 climate scientists, including Peter Gleick, who responded to the WSJ op-ed.
“While much of the opposition to addressing the issue of climate change is political,” Dr. Gleick commented, “it often hides behind pseudo-scientific claims, with persistent efforts to intentionally mislead the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change.”
With efforts by well-funded climate change deniers to sow confusion and delay action by Congress and the public, the Pacific Institute has taken a stand to address climate science misinformation and to push for planning to
prepare for increasingly severe negative impacts of climate change.
-Read Peter Gleick’s blog “Remarkable Editorial Bias on Climate Science at The Wall Street Journal.”
-Read the climate scientists’ Wall Street Journal letter.
-More about climate change.
This becomes interesting as well – notice the line about “sparking investigations”
http://pacinst.org/publications/online_update/feb_2012_online_update.htm
Standing Up to Editorial Bias on Climate Science – Peter Gleick Writes, Thousands Respond
On January 27, Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick responded to the op-ed piece “No Need to Panic about Global Warming” published in The Wall Street Journal, which claimed climate change was not occurring. In his Forbes blog post, Dr. Gleick said, “The most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of The Wall Street Journal in [the climate sceince] field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered to The Wall Street Journal, and were turned down.” That letter was subsequently published in Science magazine.
Responses from Dr. Gleick’s post by climate scientists, environmental activists and organizations, and the public have been remarkable — sparking investigations of the sixteen scientists who signed the op-ed submitted to the WSJ; dozens of editorial pieces in prominent publications and by organizations such as The Huffington Post, Catholic Alliance for the Common Good, The New York Times Dot Earth Blog, The Australian, Media Matters, and Climate Progress debunking the WSJ’s flawed and misleading arguments about climate science; and thousands of comments and conversations on blogs, social media outlets, and forums on the current climate dialog in the media. Later that week, The Wall Street Journal implicitly acknowledged their “climate goof” by accepting a letter from 38 climate scientists, including Peter Gleick, who responded to the WSJ op-ed.
“While much of the opposition to addressing the issue of climate change is political,” Dr. Gleick commented, “it often hides behind pseudo-scientific claims, with persistent efforts to intentionally mislead the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change.”
With efforts by well-funded climate change deniers to sow confusion and delay action by Congress and the public, the Pacific Institute has taken a stand to address climate science misinformation and to push for planning to
prepare for increasingly severe negative impacts of climate change.
Perhaps Illinois might be the most favorable place for Gleick in terms of prosecution. Without casting too many aspersions on the Illinois political scene, it is known that “Chicago Politics” can subvert it’s own legal system and it is the power base outside of DC for the present administration.
Just sayin’
Chris–
INAL. But my understanding is that crimes need to be pursued under the language of a specific statute. If I am reading it correctly, the applicable Illinois law for a transmission coming from outside the state puts the jurisdiction for the crime in the county where the transmission is received. Heartland is in Chicago. Chicago is in cook county but Cook County politics are somewhat distinct from Chicago and if persued this would be pursued by the county not the city.
That said: The States Attorney is a Democrat and this issue might not be her top priority. (I have no real idea– but even without the D/R issue, I don’t think this would be perceived as being as urgent as murders, etc.).
Even so, we actually don’t know where Gleick’s transmissions were received. I looked at Heartland’s page. Several live in the suburbs. At least one is in the far northwest suburbs, which I would suspect would place them in Lake county which is more dominated by Republicans. The time for the emails makes it unlikely a person who receives it was commuting… but… you never know. If the transmission was picked up by a Heartland staff member telecommuting from home, then prosecuting could fall into the hands of a states attorney outside Chicago. That would not be good for Gleick.
In a movie, I think the transmission would turn out to land in Lake or DuPage county. But in real life, it’s probably Cook County where this issue will not be given top priority.
The WSJ editorial board is biased against warmists? Gosh, I never would have thought that possible!
/sarc
Apparently PG doesn’t read the WSJ editorial page and op-eds or watch the weekly show on Fox News. I’d bet he doesn’t even know anyone who does, or at least would admit that they did to him.
Copner @ 9:19: Good find. I just posted the following to a similar post of yours over at WUWT but it appears they are having problems with posts. (Hope they haven’t been hacked.) :
“Said Gleick’s lawyer John Keker, “Heartland no doubt will seek to exploit Dr. Gleick’s admitted lapse in judgement in order to further its agenda in the ongoing debate about climate change, but if it wants to pursue this matter legally, it will learn that our legal system provides for a level playing field.†Keker added, “Dr. Gleick looks forward to using discovery to understand more about the veracity of the documents, lay bare the implications of Heartland’s propaganda plans and, in particular, determine once and for all who is truly behind Heartland and why.—
No contrition here and I doubt that Gleick has any either. I would guess that Gleick intends to plead his case to the public in that he was attempting to expose the evil doer, HI, and that the documents indeed (in his mind and those of his supporters) show that to be the case. I think what we fail to do in our analyses is put ourselves in the shoes and mind of a super advocate like Gleick. He truly believes that he is fighting evil forces.
Well,
Lets just say that I’ve known the FBI was called in for several days.
Here is what was important about that. Some people, like Tobis, made the argument that if HI had anything to do with making the memo HI would not call the FBI in to investigate. Why? because a good investigator would search all the computers at HI to EXCLUDE employees there.
Given that people predicted HI would not call the FBI, what does their calling them tell you.
Re: Kenneth Fritsch (Feb 24 10:29),
And Gleick’s hubris is what, if this were a play, makes it a classic tragedy.
Re: Steven Mosher (Feb 24 10:51),
tinfoilhatmode
See, I told you Mosher did it. The FBI thinks he’s a suspect too!
/tinfoilhatmode
lucia,
So why did my reply to Kenneth go to the moderation queue but not my reply to Mosher? Weird.
Mosh–
Yeah. Obviously, HI is not afraid of calling the FBI
I also think it’s funny that Gleick’s lawyer is throwing around the word “Discovery” as if that’s going to make HI tremble in fear. I’m sure HI’s attorney’s are aware that Discovery exists. I learned about it in “The University of My Cousin Vinny”.
> See, I told you Mosher did it. The FBI thinks he’s a suspect too!
That’s the theory on the more lunatic green forums: Bast forged the memo, putting in a few errors and extra commas at Mosher’s suggestion. They then mailed it Gleick in a false-flag sting. And when Mosher fingered Gleick, he was simply identifying the clues he had himself inserted earlier.
There is little rhyme or reason. When traffic is high, lost of stuff goes to spam. I’m not sure exactly what triggers it.
Copner,
there’s an error in your chronology. The Forbes article that you’ve ascribed to Feb 12 was on Jan 12.
Also, in my chronology, I say that the diversion was sent by “email”. This is only an assumption on my part.
Also, my chronology should not specify whether the invitation refusal received at 9.33 am was before or after the diversion email/call. I am editing my post accordingly. This point of chronology is still at issue based on information released so far.
> The Forbes article that you’ve ascribed to Feb 12 was on Jan 12.
That’s the James Taylor article, where Gleick runs in as the first commentator and demands HI’s funding sources. – Yes you are absolutely right. Well spotted, I did make an error in earlier posts about the timeline for Feb 12 – Feb 14.
The Gleick article, about the WSJ letter, was 27th Jan. i.e. same day as pretexting appears to have started.
I assume you also know that Gleick was attending and speaking at a symposium at UCLA (or at least said he was, I don’t know how to verify this), on the afternoon of the 27th January.
I posted this at WUWT and the Bishop’s:
You can’t make this stuff up!
One of DeSmogBlog key funders is John Lefebvre, who has pleaded guilty to charges related to money laundering for gambling operations. Look it up!
Talk about an “own goal†on the “show me the list of your funders.â€
Lefebvre, the DeSmogBlog benefactor, (and confessed felon), also has served on the Suzuki foundation board, as has John Ehrlich (the man who holds the world record for being wrong on catastrophic predictions).
I tried to (above), imitate Gleick’s writing style, (but couldn’t, quite,) pull it off!!!
What’s happening to the consensus?
First 255 signatories, then 38, now down to 7.
@Steve McIntyre:
Gleick also made this comment on his own article on the 27th of January – go to page 13 of the comments on this page
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
First, the stakes are too high for any geophysicist or climate scientists to even consider doing bad science for money — the stakes to their reputations and to the planet. Alas, this isn’t true for the organizations paid to deny the science.
Second, none of my funding or my Institute’s funding is used to support our conclusions. In fact our guidelines prohibit it.
Finally, all of our funding information is completely transparent and publicly available, which you would know if you had bothered spending 2 minutes on the web before making unfounded insinuations. But try asking the Heartland Institute for a list of THEIR funders. They refuse to provide it.
Copner (Comment #91617), quoting Peter Gleick at Forbes on 27 January —
> But try asking the Heartland Institute for a list of THEIR funders. They refuse to provide it.
Well, now we have that list of HI’s funders ,),most of them,(, ex- Mr. Anonymous. Doesn’t seem to have helped or hindered Heartland’s credibility very much. Among warmists, coolists, or the general public.
Legal eagles: Is HR required to reply? PR guys: how about the PR side?
a letter
I have no idea on the legal question. If one is compelled to supply the documents, they will be supplied.
But if they are not required to reply, I assume the response is that these documents are important to their legal case and they will not supply the unless it is compelled. Discussion will ensue.
Either way, discussion will also include rhetoric about Markey using (or misusing) his power to interfere with a possible civil and legal action.
(FWIW: If keeping them out of public view was useful for a pending legal case, and I didn’t have to divulge them, I’d refuse to divulge and take any PR heat. I’d also be aware the PR heat would come. )
Markey is ranking member i.e., minority member. There will be no committee vote to subpoena anything so this letter has no teeth.
Markey is citing a bogus doc so he is in a poor position to argue it is grounds for Congressional curiosity. There is no issue of misuse of federal funds or of activities by a federal agency under the Committee’s purvey.
The goal here is to try to keep pressure on HI and deflect attention from bad behavior by a prominent Warmista.
Markey is extremely partisan and would have no qualms of conscience by (a) going for the Big Lie to try to foster (by repetition) the perception that the contents of the bogus doc are true and (b) that HI has the burden of proof to show they are not, which burden can never be met to his satisfaction even if they served up every doc in their possession.
I don’t think he will get very far.
George–
What I wanted to know is if it has teeth. I thought it might not– sounds like you are saying it doesn’t.
Of course the Congressman is partisan!! Heh.
lucia (Comment #91620)
Re: Rep. Markey’s letter to Heartland, requesting information on the documents Gleick winkled from them
> Legal eagles: Is [Heartland] required to reply?
IANAL(E), but Markey’s letter reads like… a letter. Not a subpoena or even a demand.
I recall from civics class that Congress has the power to issue subpoenas, and that refusal can be a big deal — e.g. charges of Contempt of Congress can follow.
But this isn’t that. Instead, it seems to be an effort to (1) redirect the conversation, (2) put the HI in an awkward position from a P.R. perspective, and (3) who knows, maybe they will cough up some helpful (= damaging) information.
Amac, #91581
Thank you – it wasn’t a personal complaint. I sought to contrast the complaint of “climate science” – an alleged lack of respect with anyone who disagrees – with the frequent disregard held here (and by this critic) for those who disagree with them. Or more particularly, refuse to agree. The words quoted express the problem rather starkly.
Nick Stokes (Comment #91634)
> it wasn’t a personal complaint.
Yes, I understand. And SteveF and you are both big boy pants wearers. I’m pointing out that when you put on your Attorney-for-the-defense hat — “Racehorsing,” I’ve called it — your comments can border on frustrating, to those of us who allow facts and logic to constrain our remarks. Plus, not everybody is as genial as you.
This would explain the seeming contradiction you highlighted upthread in Comment # 91567.
I had a thought on Gleick conducting discovery against Heartland – as his lawyer threatens.
There is no dispute over the authenticity of the HI documents. So discovery as to them is not relevant.
Gleick denies he wrote the confidential memo.
He only gets to argue truth as a defense to libel and/or defamation if he admits to having authored the confidential memo (I think).
Even if he admits to writing the memo, in order to do discovery, I don’t think the HI donors are relevant to the litigation issues.
“Here is what was important about that. Some people, like Tobis, made the argument that if HI had anything to do with making the memo HI would not call the FBI in to investigate. Why? because a good investigator would search all the computers at HI to EXCLUDE employees there.
Given that people predicted HI would not call the FBI, what does their calling them tell you.”
Mosher, I agree that by HI calling in the FBI to investigate it would be very doubtful that they are hiding the origins of the supposedly faked document. It points the finger directly at Gleick – with the circumstantial evidence almost overwhelming.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think that Gleick and his defenders will attempt to convince all that are willing to listen that HI is evil and that what he “discovered” points to that.
Scientific American offers up a tired rehash of the Warmist zeigeist in lieu of detailed examination of l’ Affaire Gleick.
You had to know it was going to be a fair and balanced interview with Gavin Schmidt when he is introduced thusly:
Good thing they picked a centrist to interview.
Spoiler alert: Turns out that everybody know that any and all misinformation is paid for by the fossil fuels industry–even though Gleick should not have done it.
@lucia: From what I can tell, Markey’s letter fails to invoke Congress’ subpoena power in serveral ways, including procedural defects.
Bonus trivia question: Who was the first (and only, I believe) person in American history to be found in contempt of Congress?
@RickA: I don’t understand why you would think that Gleick can argue truth as a defense only if he admits to writing it. In fact, it is the opposite. He can, at least theoretically, argue truth as a defense and also assert that he didn’t know it was a fake. On the other hand, admitting he faked it would prevent him from asserting truth as a defense. In fact, before NYT v. Sullivan (when “truth” was the defense, rather than “absence of malice”), a forgery like this would destroy the defense even if the forged document contained nothing but truthful statements. Ironically, the absence of malice standard renders this line of defense even more irrelevant. This is not Gleick’s escape hatch.
Also, libel IS defamation. Defamation is the general class that includes three species: libel, slander per se, and slander per quod.
AMac (Comment #91641),
Let me try to explain more clearly my motivation to not communicate with Nick. Over at Roy Spencer’s blog, Roy has had the temerity to make a couple of posts where he says that CO2 emits in the infrared (generates ‘back radiation’) which reduces loss of heat from the Earth’s surface. This brought a long series of raging idiotic comments from some people so lost (or disconnected from reality) that they can’t understand basic radiative transfer (“photons don’t exist”, “back radiation is impossible”, and the rest of the rubbish arguments). After trying (for probably the 20th time) to explain to these folks why Roy was perfectly correct, I realized (again!) that there are some people who can’t ever bring themselves to honestly and rationally examine the data. No matter how clearly explained, some folks will not (perhaps cannot) accept factual reality and accept that their view is mistaken.
.
Acceptance of factual reality is the issue, not political philospohy, personal views, morals, etc… just factual reality. In one of those threads, steveta_uk noted:
To which I replied:
And this is the reason (the only reason!) I choose to not interact with certain people. These are people that I have concluded either a) do not have the capability to accept factual reality, or b) make a conscious choice to say they do not accept factual reality in order to support their political positions. I can’t know which it is of course, but that makes no difference. The conversation is pointless in either case. It is not common for me to draw that conclusion: Claes Johnson, Robert (who hosts the Id*ot Tracker blog), Doug Cotton, a couple of others, and the newest addition to the list, Nick Stokes. These are folks who have shown over and over that they will only waste other people’s time, and will never (and I mean NEVER) budge from their position, independent of any obvious conflict with factual reality. When Nick suggested that FIOA had disclosed “lots of personal information” (factually false!), it was for me the last straw. IMO, he is either unhinged or willfully refusing to accept reality. It matters to me not at all which it is, but I will not waste time on him any more. Nick is, as they say, entitled to his opinions, but I will not accept that his bizarre version of factual reality is legitimate. It is not.
Rats, I’ve got to withdraw my trivia question. It turns out my guy’s claim to be the only man held in contempt of congress is not true. I think he may have been the only one held in civil contempt at the time, but there were a number of criminal convictions before, and it looks like Reagan’s EPA head was found in civil contempt after (I can’t verify, but the details I’ve found don’t seem to match the criminal contempt proceedure).
The guy I was thinking of was G. Gordon Liddy. He used to do the college campus circuit. He’d say “I’m the only man ever found in comtempt of congress, and boy am I guilty!”
#91701
I was surprised at that response to a simple factual proposition. The normal response would be to ask for evidence. I had already cited the correspondence about a student application.
But in fact there is a huge amount of personal information. Everyone who corresponded with these CRU people has their email address on the web. There are rejection letters from journals. Evaluations of grant applications.
But even more egregiously, you will find in CG2, for example, a series of emails (83, 93, 168, 2433, 4976) which are from Briffa’s personal financial adviser, discussing his family finances in some detail. No climate issues there.
One could argue about these facts. But they aren’t delusional. And no climate scientist could be more dismissive of the messenger than SF.
Nick Stokes (Comment #91712)
> But even more egregiously, you will find in CG2, for example, a series of emails (83, 93, 168, 2433, 4976) which are from Briffa’s personal financial adviser, discussing his family finances in some detail. No climate issues there.
That sounds pretty bad. I Googled my way to this site. Here are those emails.
83
93
168
2433
4976
I take it this is the entirety of the text that the FOIA thief/hacker/leaker has disclosed from these emails (but I could be mistaken; perhaps there is more).
#91720
Amac,
There’s a lot more in those emails. But yes, it’s fairly mundane. So why is it there?
My point is, it’s undeniably personal information, even if boring. That was my claim , which was said to be delusional.
It’s amusing that nothing generates so much activity and interest here as the scandal topics, (to do about pro-AGW personalities, of course), and the hard science comes in a distant second, probably distant third to guessing what the temperature will be tomorrow.
The science marches on, the science is fundamentally correct, the only real point of interest then is irrelevancies or petty scandals.
#91720
Amac,
I see your link has truncatred the emails. The full text was in the original release. Here:
83
93
168
2433
4976
Nick Stokes (Comment #91726)
Those FOIA2 emails that you link are undeniably full of personal financial details of Keith Briffa. They are in no way germane to public policy issues concerning climate science. Thus, to my satisfaction, you have established equivalence between the disclosure of private information by FOIA and by Gleick.
Thanks Amac,
In fact, I would say that those released emails are far more personally intrusive than anything in the Heartland release.
QBeamus (Comment #91689):
If Gleick maintains that he didn’t write the memo, then he has no relevant reason to investigate the truth of the allegations contained in the memo – they would not be discoverable.
If Gleick admits he wrote the memo – he would then argue he didn’t commit libel because what he said was true. He would then have a relevant reason to conduct discovery to try to prove that what he wrote was in fact true.
That is my reasoning.
bugs: “The science marches on, the science is fundamentally correct, the only real point of interest then is irrelevancies or petty scandals.”
I think it’s more accurate to say that “the science is fundamentally incomplete.”
Nick Stokes,
OK, the second tranche of email messages contained inappropriate information about Briffa’s communication with his financial adviser (and I admit also to being shocked that Briffa had investments, and that those investments sometimes involved buying and selling stocks of companies). I will assume, at least for now, that this inclusion in the second tranche was an oversight on the part of FOIA, since these messages between Briffa and his adviser seem to be the exception, not the rule. But the equivalency you attempt to draw with Gleick is still not sound. For example, FOIA seems to not have published personal messages between scientists and their family members. Virtually all of the thousands of messages were directly related to the scientists’ work.
.
Gelick (with 15 minutes of effort) could have redacted the information about the names and salaries of staffers at HI, but chose instead to include them. This shows malicious intent, nothing less.
Good catch Nick Stokes. In that way there is commonality, which I had never known. Drag netting a massive cache of e-mails runs the chance of catching such stuff–used on a work computer and so open to any of the IT staff to read. I’m glad no one ever attacked Briffa for such trivial things like is going on in this case; but that’s definitely stuff that should have been and be erased.
Agreed on all points, SteveF.
Also, I hope everyone now realizes they should never use a work e-mail address for personal stuff like that! None of it is ever private.
Ged (Comment #91737)
“Drag netting a massive cache of e-mails runs the chance of catching such stuff…”
But CG1 and CG2 were a selected subset, designed to cause maximum damage. I don’t think they cared how. And for CG2 they had two years to sort them through. Five stand-alone emails clearly labelled with stock-broker legal messages aren’t hard to spot.
Amac:
There were also passwords and account names, email addresses, phone numbers if I recollect, lots of other stuff that didn’t get redacted.
I doubt there was a particular motivation in leaving them in here, just dunderheadedness. Nothing particularly interesting was achieved or could have been achived by including it. Perhaps Nick could provide us a reason why including stockbroker information would cause irreparable harm.
In Gleick’s case, he’s as much as stated he wanted to expose all of the donators as well as board members to public reprimand and ridicule, so in this case there is a clear motive for leaving the info in. Does Nick think anybody called up the stock broker and complained that he was dealing with Briffa? What exactly is the mechanism by which harm to Briffa or his agent was incurred?
I don’t see how any moral equivalency exists here.
“But CG1 and CG2 were a selected subset, designed to cause maximum damage”
No Nick they were not. The number of housekeeping mails was rather high. You havent read them all obviously.
Late into the first night the method for selection became clear.
It was generated from a list of key terms. That filter also picks up a huge number of mails that say NOTHING OF INTEREST.
My bucket of boring mails was pretty damn big. I sorted all mails as I read them into folders based on the subject.
Interestingly, there were a bunch of mails centered on the term SRES
At one point stevemc asked me if I though I could reverse engineer a search filter that would pull those mails. I think I could, but didnt think anyone who read the mails would be stupid enough to think that the hacker carefully selected “out of office” replies to include.
SO, on night one I started with an assumption that the mails HAD been carefully selected. Late into the night that hypothesis ended up in the trash bin.
#91747
“Perhaps Nick could provide us a reason why including stockbroker information would cause irreparable harm.”
No, Carrick, if that’s the standard now, you can start by explaining why publishing director’s addresses will cause irreparable harm.
But including e-mail addresses is no small thing. People have very good reasons for not wanting their addresses plastered over the internet. Aside from spam, many of them will get some pretty unwelcome email too.
And there were thousands of people affected. It doesn’t just intimidate by telling people to stay away from climate science. It says, don’t even email a climate scientist.
And Carrick, would you care to have your stockbroker’s correspondence plastered on the web? There are seven separate email files. FOIA had two years to think about it. This was deliberate.
Which further supports the evidence the mails were hacked for vindictive purposes, not leaked by someone who was out to tell the world the truth.
So Briffa cannot be FOIA?
Did anyone else have such information exposed?
Nick, there is a clear reason why FOIA would choose to be vindictive. After all, the cache of emails shows “distinguished scientists” conspiring to evade FOIA requests, conspiring to rig peer review, conspiring to destroy the careers of fellow scientists, and presenting a united front for policy purposes while privately thinking that their work was junk – all of which activities have been described by you and others as perfectly normal behaviour.
Given that the authorities who investigated these matters decided that no punishment was due, it is a logical extension of such perfectly normal behaviour to try to take such anti-social activities into the public domain. Hence Gleick has extended the range of “perfectly normal scientific behaviour” into the realms of possible identity theft, possible computer misuse, possible defamation, etc.
Where will it go next? Blackmail, extortion, arson all excused as perfectly normal behaviour when perpetrated by climate scientists?
Diogenes,
I don’t of course agree with your characterisation of the UEA emails. But for this, that doesn’t matter. You’re saying that FOIA thought (some) scientists were doing bad things, and did what he did. Gleick thought Heartland was doing bad things, and did what he did. Their actions were similar, and wrong. Yet you folk hail FOIA as a hero, and propagate his works.
Nick
I’ve called neither Gleick nor FOIA heros. I quote bits from both the fake-gate leak and the cru leak.
Lucia,
Fine, but lots do. And FOIA procured a much greater trove of docs, and harmed a lot more people.
But FOIA did not create fake documents; the equivalency is still not there.
#91765
The complaint about Gleick is that he got real docs by subterfuge. That will be the legal issue. If he had simply faked a doc and not raided the Heartland system, there would probably be little consequence and no legal action.
A fake doc can be repudiated. Theft and release of real private information is what causes lasting damage.
Nick–
Sure– depending on what fraction of people are “lots”, then “lots” do.
But we could equally observe: lots also call Gleick a hero and complain FOIA are criminals. Lots complain endless about the criminality of FOI and are silent about the Gleick. Lots note there are differences in what the two did– which there are.
And some complain about those who criticize Gleick without criticizing FOIA, but don’t complain about those who criticize FOIA without criticizing Gleick. I don’t know why we should pay attention to those people.
Nick Stokes (Comment #91764)
> Fine, but lots do.
I’ve called neither Gleick nor FOIA heros.
Nick–
Let me fix this for you:
Another complaint is that he is faked one of the documents. He had admitted to subterfuge but has not admitted to faking. And there are additional complaints.
You don’t get to pretend or imply there is one and only one complaint by using the definite article “the”, writing “complaint” as singular and ignoring all the other complaints people have. Or, at least your pretending there is only one complaint will not magically disappear the differences between what people are criticizing FOIA for and what people are criticizing Gleick for.
BTW: Whether Gleick faked a memo will also be a legal issue. Libel and defamation are legal issues and those arise with regard to the fake.
#91767,
That is only part of the complaint. Yes fake documents can be claimed to not be true, but adding a damaging fake document to a bunch of innocuous real ones is not the same as releasing only real documents. We do not know the the exact circumstances under which FOIA acted, nor if he/she was an insider at UEA. We do know that Gleick was not an insider at HI. We do know that some scientists were acting in ways that they themselves understood was not ethical (multiple requests to each other to not discuss the interference with the peer review process, for example, and requests to destroy information subject to FOIA requests), while the real documents from HI are so innocuous as to be boring. The equivalency fails for many reasons.
#91617
Your opinions on the relative merits of the Heartland folk and the scientists do not justify misdeeds of this kind. And your assertions about the scientists are unsupported by numerous inquiries. Just imagine trying to mount that as a legal defence in court.
Nick–
Could you clarify who you are responding to in #91773 . All Copner does in #91617 is write
Then provide a link to Gleick’s comments and quotes Gleick’s words.
This states no opinion or assertion– so I have no idea who you are talking about nor what opinions or assertions you are responding to. I’m also having to figure out what you want us to exercise our imaginations over.
Sorry, it’s SF at #91772. It’s very late here.
#91773,
I point out again it is not my opinion. Those involved clearly understood that some of their actions were at best ethically dubious, and they made specific requests to each other to not pass information about these actions on to others.
“Just imagine trying to mount that as a legal defence in court.”
Should the identity of FOIA ever be discovered, and he/she is/was an insider at UEA, I am pretty sure that a whistle blower defense would be considered, in spite of the outside inquiries which have already taken place. A jury hearing testimony may not reach the same conclusion on the facts of the situation as the inquires you mention. Of course, if FOIA was not an insider, that defense could not be used.
“Just imagine trying to mount that as a legal defence in court.”
Honey, come here quick. Nick Stokes is on The Intranet arguing hypothetical legalisms.
Andrew
Nick–
Yes. It must be really late because I don’t see how statements like ” “We do not know the the exact circumstances under which FOIA acted, nor if he/she was an insider at UEA. We do know that Gleick was not an insider at HI” are opinions about the relative merits of HI vs the scientists.
I can connect this to SF’s statement– but I think SF handled it well. After all, it’s difficult to see the “numerous inquiries” as being performed by people who are not “Friends of the Accused”.
reminds Nick that he has always said that there is simply no evidence whatsoever of any malfeasance in any of the climategate emails. The behaviours exhibited therein, as far as Nick is concerned, are normal scientific behaviour- fraud, conspiracy, defamation etc. Please do not act shocked if the real world disagrees with you.
Nick
How many contrary positions can you hold at a single moment? have you ever counted? How many answers to the question 1+1 = ? are you prepared to tolerate?
Re: diogenes (Comment #91795)
Before any of us respond I think we ought to hear Nick’s agreement/disagreement with this characterization.
Nick?
Yes, my view of the UEA emails is pretty much as seen by the enquiries. In a stash of thousands of emails you will get the usual range of human foibles. But I do not see the contents of the mails as showing the malfeasances that diogenes describes. And they certainly do not justify the deed of actually stealing the mails and publishing their contents.
One of the things about that event is that there is simply nothing to compare it with. No similar dump of a groups emails, written with the expectation of privacy, has ever been made – of scientists or any other profession. Neither illegally nor under some kind of FOI. We do not know how they would fare. The nearest is Sarah Palin’s, but that was heavily redacted.
Of course, what else is unique is that there are people who want to read them.
lucia (Comment #91782)
“Yes. It must be really late because I don’t see how … are opinions about the relative merits of HI vs the scientists.”
I was referring to the following statement
“We do know that some scientists were acting in ways that they themselves understood was not ethical (multiple requests to each other to not discuss the interference with the peer review process, for example, and requests to destroy information subject to FOIA requests), while the real documents from HI are so innocuous as to be boring. “
which very clearly makes that comparison.
how do nyou respond, Oliver, to the “3 blind monkeys” defence that Nick Stokes is putting up? I simpluy cannotunderstand why he spends so much time defending the acts of deadbeats. Mybe he wants them to opt for assassination next time.
I was expecting the Gleick-FOIA moral/legal equivalence thesis much earlier. I guess it took Nick, bugs et al a couple of days to recover from the shock of the Gleick confession.
1) We do not know the mechanism by which FOIA got access. We know for a fact that Gleick’s means was fraudulent.
2) “FOIA” has a plausible (but not exactly ironclad) defense as a whistleblower because the emails released involved publicly funded the FOI refuseniks who were conspiring to politicize publicly funded climate science and to exclude and otherwise damage politically unfavored scientists.
in contrast, Gleick directed his attack against a privately funded group that was under no obligation to disclose any of the information that Gleick stole.
Note: Also, Nick should refrain from citing the “enquiry” as evidence of no FOI wrong-doing. That “investigation” was a joke that deliberately avoided looking at relevant material in order to arrive at a pre-conceived whitewash. You can’t expect to be taken seriously if you cite it as proof of anything other that the arrogance of some who hold the public in open contempt.
And speaking of contempt, at what point does it sink in that the arrogance, faux elitism and Oikophobia (and the kneejerk defense thereof) is what has crippled the AGW policy agenda and not a vast conspiracy funded by Big Oil.
Nick Stokes is capable of clear thinking, outstanding mathematical analysis but is oddly incapable of resisting some tribal impulse to try to keep the masses at bay when yet another unworthy warmist (Mann, Jones, Gleick) comes under fire. Gleick does not deserve the support of someone of Nick Stokes caliber.
hear hear George Tobin…I thought I was piping in the dark!
Nick
The alternate universe which you inhabit should not preclude you noticing that others entirely disagree with you, in particular Judith Curry has enunciated her direct comparison between Climategate & Fakegate
I suggest your failure to ‘see’ the comparison may have something to do with your wilful refusal to open your other eye
#91826
“Judith Curry has enunciated her direct comparison between Climategate & Fakegate”
Well, I don’t take Judith’s pronouncements seriously here. She was part of the cheer team for FOIA (“thank you, hacker/whistleblower”). Lambasting Gleick is typical hypocrisy.
I don’t want to get into yet another haggle about the spin put on the emails, and the way overheated interpretations. But let me just take up Diogenes
“presenting a united front for policy purposes while privately thinking that their work was junk”
Of course they don’t think their work is junk. But the expression of private doubts was covered in some blog posts, of which I’ll cite just two: WUWT and Air Vent. Both of those were about email discussions in which doubts were privately expressed.
But in both cases the email text was reflected almost exactly in a subsequent published paper. The irony is that the published papers passed unnoticed. But say it in a private email and we’re all ears.
That’s the way climategate has gone. Individually, each claim amounts to very little. But people jump from one to the next without review, until in their minds it amounts to a lot.
Nick:
The actual hypocrisy is on your part.
You have to turn the release of the emails into an unethical action, when none of us know the story behind how that leak occurred, otherwise you’d be forced to seriously deal with the contents of the leaked material. In the Heartland case, Gleick admits to stealing and releasing the documents and we have pretty much a full story of how he did it, so we have an open and shut case. Until the person or persons who released the emails comes forward, there is no way to make any direct correspondence between the two actions.
So the hypocrisy on your part is clear and it’s blatant, and I’ll leave it there.
If it makes your tummy feel better to think that, go for it.
Carrick #91829
I’ll quote it again
“Thank you, hacker/whistleblower”
She doesn’t care which.
Nick, while I agreed with your point regarding the Kaufman corrigendum I’m not sure how you figure the issue went un-noticed.
Nick, or she doesn’t know which, so she can’t make a value judgement, which is true.
“But in both cases the email text was reflected almost exactly in a subsequent published paper. The irony is that the published papers passed unnoticed. But say it in a private email and we’re all ears.
That’s the way climategate has gone. Individually, each claim amounts to very little. But people jump from one to the next without review, until in their minds it amounts to a lot.”
It’s the drama and emotion that is more important for the skeptics. Just look at all the activity here over this matter.
I found this http://julesandjames.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/another-climate-sensitivity-estimate.html for example, to be far more interesting.
LL,
Yes, I agree – not entirely unnoticed (and yes, Thompson got some discussion too). But unnoticed in the CG2 thread and discussion.
Carrick (Comment #91832)
“Nick, or she doesn’t know which, so she can’t make a value judgement, which is true.”
Nonsense. She is making a judgment. It’s thanks either way.
Whatever you say, Nick. You’re the one with the mind-reading cap not me, I should have known better than to point out that the sky is blue.
bugs:
Whatever are you talking about? Check out your activist friends on this thread.
They seem much more interested in ad hominem attacks on people they disagree with than they do the science. Your old buddy Steve Bloom makes an appearance there too. Funny he didn’t comment on the sensitivity analysis link.
.
*blinks*
.
I don’t know about the mind-reading cap, but I think you might want to recalibrate your just-reading one.
#91830
The issue is, and has always been, to what standard climate scientists will hold themselves. They have claimed (indeed, demanded) that quite extreme public action is needed to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, independent of the huge immediate costs and independent of the potential for human suffering that results form those huge costs. Such costly public expenditures demand both extraordinary certainty and extraordinary consequences to be justified. Those who claim vast expenditures are absolutely required must 1) present overwhelming evidence of the accuracy of their projections and 2) be more pure and honest than Ceasars wife. IMO, climate scientists fail on both requirements. There may come a day when factual evidence confirms extreme projections. I doubt it will happen, but I am open to new information.
#91845
“Those who claim vast expenditures are absolutely required must 1) present overwhelming evidence of the accuracy of their projections and 2) be more pure and honest than Ceasars wife.”
No scientists are saying that vast expenditures are required to please them. They are saying that doubling an important atmospheric component would have major consequences for all of us. People actually care about that, and want to know the truth. They are just as entitled to demand overwhelming evidence that it is safe to do it. They probably won’t get either, and will have to settle for the best estimate that can be made. And they are, hopefully, focussed on the way the physical world works than the purity of scientists.
Nick:
Speak for yourself, buddy!
I will only be appeased by vast expenditures. Cretin politicians, start now.
toto, I said one couldn’t tell. Unless she said herself, as opposed to letting you or Nick put words in her mouth, how can you tell what she thinks?
She hasn’t uttered any such words to that effects, so I guess I need one of those “read things in between the lines that aren’t there” caps that you have. Did you get yours on ebay? They’re kind of expensive retail.
# 91847,
“No scientists are saying that vast expenditures are required to please them.” For goodness sakes, read what they say. James Hansen, the awarded dean of climate science these days, claims that trains which carry coal to power plants are equivalent to trains carrying Jews to Auschwitz. He says coal use must stop. He demands it.
.
“And they are, hopefully, focussed on the way the physical world works than the purity of scientists.”
And I assure you I most certainly am (and have my whole life been) focused on understanding how the physical world works; I do not give a hoot if climate scientist are faithful to their spouses, nor what politicians they will vote for. I don’t care if they drink too much nor if they pay their taxes honestly; ‘purity’ is neither required, nor a concern, nor even an issue.
.
But when climate scientists act in ways which make people (quite rationally) doubt their honesty, combined with what appears to be a clear leftists political agenda they are trying to force upon the rest of us (eg. Peter Gleick), that is when I demand much more of them. Expert opinion is always welcomed, but of course subject to challenge. Expert dictates, based in doubtful science, are never welcomed, and will be most certainly rejected.
Nick,
I noted your suggestion at Dr. Curry’s that she not use information obtained in the CRU dumps and ask if blogs sympathetic to Dr. Gleick should operate under the same moral constraints?
Dr. Curry, like everyone else, does not know the answer to the question “FOI: hacker or leaker?” Her words clearly express this uncertainty. That she was grateful for information previously unavailable to her is clear; that she is grateful for criminals, encourages and supports criminal acts is not. Take a minute and carefully examine your answer to the question above and tell us if or why the hypocrisy charge against Dr. Curry is still the most appropriate.
As for Dr. Gleick there is no question, no uncertainty. We have precise legal, ethical, and moral terms to describe his actions. Why these should not be used in relation to Dr. Gleick yet allowable in the less-than-certain CRU case requires answers with more substance than name calling and other school-yard tactics.
“No scientists are saying that vast expenditures are required to please them.”
That’s true. Hansen makes the demands on the behalf of his grandchildren.
A carbon tax of $20 per tonne would be equivalent to about 1% of GDP. Incidentally, this is roughly the same amount of money as the damages caused by conventional pollution from coal and oil. For perspective, the payroll tax is 4 times larger.
cce,
“this is roughly the same amount of money as the damages caused by conventional pollution from coal and oil.”
And the proof of this is (not arm waves, proof)?
.
Let’s see, gasoline prices are expected to reach US$4.50/gallon within a few months. Humm. That seems more that $20 per metric ton for carbon. See, no carbon tax is needed!
There are multiple reasons for weaning ourselves from fossil fuels and developing alternative energies. Climate change is only one. Our reduced carbon supply is simply too valuable to burn up period, and certainly not with abandon. As as it is increasingly consumed by the awakening giants in the east, the cost will skyrocket. So quit complaining about all the billions that will need to be spent, blah, blah, blah. It is unavoidable. A nationwide commitment to alternative energy could be the tonic this disaffected, weary, and fragmented society of ours might actually need.
Re: Nick Stokes (Comment #91801)
I guess I just don’t see it quite the same way as you. I have never heard my academic colleagues speak (even over beers) about taking steps to influence peer review at a journal, or stalling on data requests because the requesting party is vexatious, etc., and I do find those types of exchanges in the leaked emails to be ethically troubling.
Joking about going to your (intellectual) opponent’s house and beating him up isn’t even in the ethics violation column, it’s more like… holy cr*p, is this what you expect from your professors?
Assuming they were actually stolen, then yes, I agree the stealing would not be justified.
Re: Nick Stokes (Comment #91828)
I thought her blogpost was inappropriate then, and I still think it so now.
So a honest question: shall we therefore pretend, out of sheer politeness or moral outrage, that we don’t know what is in some of those emails?
Re: diogenes (Comment #91816)
Not entirely sure what response to give … but I wanted to be sure I knew what I was responding to before trying to come up with one..
Oliver, the full comment that Nick got his **** bent over was this:
It’s a comment made in response to a comment, not the main above-the-fold post.
If I had written it I might have written “hacker/whistleblower” as a CYA, even though it’s my own opinion it was a whistleblower and if it were a hacker, my opinion would be very different of the person (and I wouldn’t actually be saying “thank you”).
Also, if it was done by a whistleblower, IMO there is nothing ethically wrong with what the person did.
Toto and Nick choose to pretend that they know that the emails were stolen and to pretend that they know what JC was thinking when she wrote the phrase “hacker/whistleblower”.
The whole thing is incredibly dishonest on both of their parts, neither of them will admit it, but that’s OK I can live with that.
Carrick (Comment #91863)
“It’s a comment made in response to a comment, not the main above-the-fold post.”
No so, they are the last words of the main post. Her posting style is that she gives a lot of quoted stuff, and then her own editorial comment at the end. You quoted it.
Waiting to see where Nick Stokes is going with his argument; ‘… and therefore *what?/something?* is true. QED’
Nick, I apologize for this comparison but you are starting to sound like Joshua. Sorry about that, but it is true.
Like I said Nick, that mind-reading helmet must come in handy.
All I got for Christmas was a BS meter.
[And thanks for the correction… that was unclear from her editing style. Do you have any place where she clarifies your interpretation, or is this it? Please don’t try and explain to me how not stating something specifically that confirms your interpretation unambiguously confirms your interpretation. It might break my meter, which is already overheated. Also there’s a fair amount to tue quo que going on tonight. Since we’re playing that game, where are the fake memos the “hacker/thief/russian spy” generated? I seem to have misplaced my copies. >.< ]
Carrick (Comment #91867)
“Do you have any place where she clarifies your interpretation, or is this it?”
No, in the second comment of the post, Bart remarked on it. She didn’t respond.
Nick,
sorry, I didn’t mean any disparagement in my comment above. I mean to say that you are making a very tenacious argument, but it doesn’t seem to have a point to it.
When I read Joshua, I always think of a pit bull terrier chewing up a rubber hose. I know he can’t help but do it, but there isn’t a useful purpose to the exercise.
#91870 jim,
That’s OK, I don’t feel disparaged. I envy Joshua’s typing capability.
“When I read Joshua, I always think of a pit bull terrier chewing up a rubber hose.”
That sounds like a Carrickachewer.
Nick, I know what you mean, I type slowly too. I get passed-by by the ‘fast cars’ on ClimateEtc, and get out-of-place in the comment nesting…
Nick,
“No similar dump of a groups emails, written with the expectation of privacy, has ever been made – of scientists or any other profession. Neither illegally nor under some kind of FOI. ”
I think the the dump of the U.S State Department documents meets this criteria. Some peoples lives were probably put at risk. You know, real life and death stuff.
I don’t remember hearing an opinion from you about it, but maybe you did not know.
Kan,
Has it been discussed here? Not really similar, but yes, very harmful.
Nick,
Kan quotes you:
“No similar dump of a groups emails, written with the expectation of privacy, has ever been made – of scientists or any other profession. Neither illegally nor under some kind of FOI. â€
I accept what you said there. But what conclusion should I infer from what you said? That is the point that I’m trying to understand.
“Carrick (Comment #91867)
February 25th, 2012 at 11:22 pm
Like I said Nick, that mind-reading helmet must come in handy.”
It’s a pretty clear either/or statement. She is happy for it to be either a hacker or whistleblower. No other option needs to be guessed at.
jim (Comment #91877)
“I accept what you said there. But what conclusion should I infer from what you said?”
My point there was that we have no base for comparison. If you had such a large dump of emails from any group of scientists or other professionals, and an army of people trawling through them to find bits that could be construed to put them in a bad light, what could be found? I suspect a lot.
But there’s another point. People sometimes thump the table and say that FOIA was only liberating what taxpayers were entitled to anyway, often invoking FOI law. But there have been no such indiscriminate dumps under FOI, anywhere. In fact, as in Governor Palin’s case, any such release would be highly constrained.
Nick,
Yes, you’re correct, there is no basis for comparison of the UEA hacking and the Heartland Institute phishing.
So now where are we?
There is an idea, is not my idea, it is prob from Popper or Hoffer, it is the idea that even the worst people are sometimes right about somethings, and even the best people are sometimes wrong about other things. So what makes some people better and what makes some people worse is a larger sum of their actions, not those exceptional errors.
In this frame, I hope that Peter Gleick will redeem himself. One mistake is either the first of many more, or the last of only one.
bugs:
Or it was a careless statement. No either or unless you have a special mind reading hat and the willingness to make wild accusations of “the enemy,” something you always accuse your enemy of.
Nick:
I saw that too.
Not exactly a confirmation of your Carnac abilities is it?
jim:
It was a lot more than one mistake. Each phishing email he sent was a mistake (and possibly one or more legal violations). If he faked the memo then lied about it, that’s several more, and probably fini for his career.
I’ll admit I’ve always thought he was an id*ot, then again I think that about most activists on both sides (ideology makes you stupid, I’ve heard, as well as personally observed), but I don’t find his fall particularly humorous, more tragic than anything.
Nick:
Based on the number of emails not released, I’d say “highly constrained” could apply here too.
I also think the idea that expecting any of your emails sent from a corporate or university account to be private—is a foolish and naive expectation. Then again I worked as a system admin when I was a grad student, and was quite aware that all emails were getting backed up (mostly for the protection of the faculty, but still).
Carrick (Comment #91882)
February 26th, 2012 at 2:49 am
How about we just assume a simple and direct statement, made with no ambiguity, and in full context, meant just what it said.
It wasn’t a simple unambiguous statement. A simple unambiguous statement would look more like “I don’t care whether or not he stole the emails, he’s a hero” or something like that. If what JC had said that there wouldn’t be any discussion.
My interpretation of this as ambiguous is extremely reasonable, especially in comparison to some of the completely hairball defenses you guys give to your own.
@Carrick
What is open to guesswork in this statement
“JC comment: To me, the emails argue that there is insufficient traceability of the CMIP model simulations for the the IPCC authors to conduct a confident attribution assessment and at least some of the CMIP3 20th century simulations are not suitable for attribution studies. The Uncertainty Monster rests its case (thank you, hacker/whistleblower).”
Bugs, she is grateful for the info in the mails.
She adresses her thankfulness to the leaker of the mails, the hacker/whistleblower or whatever.
My guess is that she did not consider that her words could be interpreted as thanking a criminal.
No, not your words, her words were “hacker/whistleblower “.
Owen 91859′
You are right about the economic value of reduced carbon. Combustion is the lowest value economic use, and it would wise to consider the long term economic cost of a shortage in reduced carbon. But where I disagree, I think, is the importance of ‘alternative’ energy sources versus the importance of nuclear power. Nuclear power is much more economically sensible than solar and wind power, and uses far less land area. Development of thorium based reactors may address many of the safety concerns that have held back nuclear power (at least outside of France). I remain very surprised that people concerned about GHG driven warming are usually not supportive of nuclear power.
Some of this discussion, while interesting from a debating prospective, appears a bit superficial to me. I would think we can all agree that you cannot put the genie back in the bottles. We have the Climategate emails and the Gleick obtained email information about the HI. The Climategate email source obviously remains a bit more vague than Gleick’s known actions. Whistle blower versus hacker status of the Climategate source would color our view of the originator. While that status remains very much up in the air, we are not going to ignore the information supplied by Gleick or the Climategate source.
In Gleick’s case he cannot be considered a whistleblower and therefore we can talk about the morality of what he did. It would appear that the UEA and HI information was probably not well secured and thus rather easy to obtain which in the end really makes one question whether those organizations thought the information’s confidentiality had any life or death, or even super critical, value. The information from both sources reveals nothing about the organizations and people involved that most reasonable people would not have already surmised. The value of the information is that it can give insights into how some of the groups and individuals involved in climate science and policy related issues operate and perhaps confirm previously held views.
What I find central to this whole Gleick escapade is that the document, Gleick claims to have received from an HI insider and HI states categorically was forged by someone outside of HI, is very much the critical part of the information campaign by Gleick and his defenders to discredit HI. If, and I think when, it is shown that Gleick composed that damaging document, the Gleick episode will take on a very different nature than the climate gate emails. I have not heard of any falsification of the climategate emails to “spice up” the email details. That would be the case with the Gleick document in question here.
The side issue of confidentiality of donors to an organization like that of HI has become a major issue within the general AGW debate. HI is a private organization that in my view of individual freedoms has every right to attempt to keep those donors confidential and for the reasons that HI gave, i.e. the threat of retaliation by those opposed to HI’s views. What I think should be discussed is whether some might hold inconsistent views on wanting a private organization to reveal confidential information while defending or ignoring the issue of keeping the IPCC drafting and review processes secret.
It’s perfectly legal to have anon. donors. The law was considered when written. The same rule applies to all 501c(3).
I find it rather amazing that Gleick’s mouthpieces seems to want to suggest that if Gleick broke in and stole something but failed to get everythign he wanted that creates some obligation on Heartland’s part to give Gleick the stuff he didn’t manage to steal!
SteveF (91901)
I didn’t intend to exclude nuclear from my alternative energy grouping. I am concerned about accidents (earthquakes, etc) and about nuclear plants being prime terrorist or wartime targets that could do considerable long-term damage to wide areas. We also need to overcome NIMBY objections to long-term waste storage. But we already have nuclear plants and I don’t know that adding more would substantially alter the magnitude of existing problems as the new plants would presumably be much safer. I still think it prudent to look at a broad mix of solutions. The market will eventually drive us in that direction as the high price of gasoline is already showing us, but the market will also encourage the complete combustion of all easily accessible fossil fuel reserves as long as they remain the lowest cost option.
The biggest difference between Heartland and Climategate isn’t how the documents were obtained, or even the fake document in Heartland used to spice things up (some warmist argue quote-mining climategate is more or less equivalent to faking), but what the post revelation of scandal is supposedly about.
In the case of Climategate, the post revelation scandal was supposedly about science (“the trick” and so on) or things close to the science (peer review process and so on).
In the case of Heartland, the post relevation scandal is all about funding, and some guy writing a proposed school curriculum.
I find it revealing that even with the “advantage” of a moustache-twirling Grimly Feendish (look it up if you don’t know) style forgery, it still focused on those things. Think about what could have been put in the forgery, e.g. “lets put together some fake science papers and sneak them into journals” – but none of that appears at all.
“In the case of Climategate, the post revelation scandal was supposedly about science (“the trick†and so on) or things close to the science (peer review process and so on).”
The science, or lack thereof, in some of the climate science papers and IPCC reviews was well known before the climategate emails, or at least by those critics and skeptics paying attention to the details. Climategate was not about the science but rather about how advocacy might interfere with the science and the IPCC review process.
Gleickgate is about the extent with which one extreme advocate and scientist would go in an attempt to discredit an opposing voice in the climate debate. What it revealed about HI was that it was partly funded by funders who wanted to remain anonymous. What the very likely forged document revealed was something very different than the legitimate documents and was obviously an integral part of a campaign to spin the legitimate documents into something nefarious and almost conspiratorial with regards to teaching/influencing school kids. Gleick’s compatriots have attempted to make the issues about teaching/influencing students using the likely forged document and if that does not stick about confidentiality of HI donors – and without a peep about the differences between a private organization, like HI, and a governmental one like, the IPCC and the inconsistency about the IPCC secret real time drafting and review process.
I suppose if one where committed to a big and all encompassing government and saw private organizations as something that were just tolerated, one might well consider making private organizations reveal such information in the name of what it takes to make a potential government program like mitigation of AGW viable, and, on the other hand, keep government proceedings secret if that is part of the viability equation for government.
Kenneth,
One dichotomy I see in human behavior is that of trusting enterprise and fearing government vs trusting government and fearing enterprise. Strange how our common-to-all trust and fear mechanisms can work to opposite conclusions.
jim (Comment #91934)
Strange how our common-to-all trust and fear mechanisms can work to opposite conclusions.
Simple species survival technique. Someone will point at a puppy and run away screaming wolf. Someone else will mistake a wolf for a puppy and end up being the wolf’s lunch.
If we all had ‘identical trust and fear’ mechanisms then the entire species would only have a 50/50 chance of not being eaten by the wolf.
From a species survival standpoint a 100% chance that 50% of us are going to being eaten by a wolf is preferable to a 50% chance that 100% of would be eaten by a wolf.
“One dichotomy I see in human behavior is that of trusting enterprise and fearing government vs trusting government and fearing enterprise. Strange how our common-to-all trust and fear mechanisms can work to opposite conclusions.”
In the end power derives from government to the extent that government has the absolute coercive power in order to operate. I think some confuse the power given to enterprise by government as originating with enterprise.
In my post above I was not talking about any confusion but rather those people and organizations who are very clear on knowing that power originates with government and have no compulsion about using that power in a rather unlimited manner to achieve those ends they seek.
SteveF,
For 2005, the National Research Council calculated the external cost of coal (PM, SO2, and NOx, but excluding other pollutants and some secondary effects) to be $62 billion, and $56 billion for transportation.
http://www.nap.edu/nap-cgi/report.cgi?record_id=12794&type=pdfxsum
In 2005, the US had net emissions of 6102.6 million tonnes CO2e.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads11/GHG-Fast-Facts-2009.pdf
In 2005 US GDP was $12.623 trillion.
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&910=X&911=0&903=5&904=2005&905=2011&906=A
1% of GDP for that year was $126 billion. 6.1 billion tonnes (net) CO2e @ $20 per tonne would collect $122 billion in revenue. The conservative estimate of economic damage from coal and transportation that year per NRC was $118 billion. A portion of that $118 billion is attributable to ethanol (and other lesser fuels), which is generally more environmentally damaging than oil, but I don’t see the numbers broken out from the total. Nevertheless, it would be a small portion.
More recent years would give smaller percentages because GDP is higher and emissions are down.
it is still a source of wonder that Nick Stokes and other apologists can regard the activities shown in the climategate emails to be normal scientific behaviour. But that is probably because I have never wanted to fly a plane into a tall building to make a political point.