The Gleick emails in which he perpetrated his identity fraud to obtain documents are online here. I’ll collate information in a few minutes.
Here’s my interpretation of this latest information on the chronology. All times shown in the Heartland jpg images of emails appear to be in Central Time. It looks to me like Gleick sent his first email to one staff person, who forwarded to a second person.
01-27 08:36 – Gleick’s first email to Heartland staffer A
Board mailing list update:
Could you please add (or have the appropriate staff member add) this personal email address to the Board mailing list for all future Board communications? Do not delete my …. address — just add this one as a duplicate. And send a reply here, confirming?
Thank you
( )
Heartland Institute Board Member
This was about an hour before Gleick sent his final refusal of Lakely’s invitation (at 9:33 AM).
At 10:07 AM, it appears to me that Gleick’s email was forwarded to a 2nd Heartland staffer, who at 10:25 AM replied “Thank you” to the first staffer. (I’m not sure of this but it doesn’t matter.)
At 12:10 PM, the second staffer sent an email to Gleick confirming that his eavesdropping had succeeded:
Both email addresses have been added to the Board directory.
At 12:09 PM the next day, Gleick sent a “Thank you” to the staffer, acknowledged by the staffer on Monday, Jan 30 at 08:47 AM “Welcome sir.”
On Feb 2 at 4:50 PM, Gleick asked for board materials for the most recent meeting. (The form of his request is pretty much what I’d postulated BTW):
Thank you.
Can you update me on the current Board schedule if there are any dates I should know about? Also, can you send me the most recent Board minutes and agenda materials, if they are available?
Thank you.
This appears to have been forwarded internally within Heartland at 5:42 PM. On Feb 3 at 10:38, two short documents, the minutes and the agenda, were sent to the “board member”:
Good morning Mr
…
Please let me know if you require any additional information or assistance. have a wonderful weekend sir.
On Feb 6 at 8:57 AM, the staffer forwarded the Jan 16 email to board members containing the Plan and Budget, adding:
Sending all the pdf’s that were sent to the Board. I apologize if there are duplicates.
At 8:59 AM, the minutes and another document were forwarded.
On Feb 8 at 11:59 PM, the “board member” asked for the most recent contact list, which was sent on Feb 10.
The first dated evidence of the fake memo is the date of its scan on Feb 13. The fake memo refers to information in the Plan and Budget, which Gleick had obtained on Feb 6. Gleick clearly had, as Mosher puts it, “means, motive and opportunity” to write the fake memo. It also is in his style.
In a sense, Gleick might as well have signed the fake document. Mosher identified him as the author almost instantly. The fake memo, unlike the actual documents, put Gleick in a position of prominence in the climate debate, whereas, in his actual encounters with skeptic blogs, Gleick has come across as an erratic and even comic figure. The style parallels came afterwards.
Climate Audit 
309 Comments
Cue the apology from The New York Times. Three, two, one …
Oh, sorry, start again: Three, two, one.
Oh, sorry, start again … Three, two, one.
Repeat.
I guess they won’t accede to any further requests to add secondary email addresses to distribution lists that don’t originate from the *original* email address, eh?
It is fairly easy to make somebody think they are sending it to the *original* when they are sending to someone different.
In the email header you can set the following fields
From: “Mr John Doe”
Reply-To: “Mr John Doe”
Most mail clients will not show the Reply-To field so when reading the email you see the address in the From field (the genuine one). When you reply it uses the Reply-To address as the address to send the reply to. Unless you are paying attention it is easy to miss.
So far one of the leading excuses as to why the allegedly forged or faked document is not taken down is because they have analyzed and determined it to be ‘in the likeness and kind’ of what Heartland “would be saying”, if not what they feel to be an actual collage of direct quotes from Heartland materials.
It’s an interesting shifting of the pea under the thimble, whereby if they can prove (at the very least to themselves) that the document contains artful themes that could conceivably be non-libelously associated with thoughts of anyone associated with Heartland— if they can do that, they they feel justified in declaring the allegedly fake letter as ‘authentic’ (in the court of law they would call it “free speech” perhaps, whereby the only liable person is the one who authored it, who can escape prosecution by remaining anonymous).
It wouldn’t be the first time that the words of a single individual who works for an outfit that’s hired by a group contracted by an organization get taken and manipulated so that it appears it’s the organization itself that has them as part of their mission statement.
Ugh. They use Microsoft Office. Now that is damaging.
Very funny indeed – LMAO!
As has been pointed out elsewhere, Heartland releases full screencaps at their own peril. There’s 5-6 different icon identifiers on those screencaps that would give an would-be hacker a leg up on trying to truly break into their systems. I take this to be evidence that Heartland wasn’t trying to set up Gleick, rather, they just don’t have any internal understanding of how to protect themselves or their systems from the perils of the internet.
Apologies for mentioning something non-Gleick, but one of the icons on a screen cap says “42 Best Ways To”
There are only 62 Google results for such a string, and they all say “42 Best Ways To Lose Stomach Fat Fast”
Does this mean that someone at Heartland opens spam emails?
I think it means that they’re not yet internet-saavy enough to replace internet explorer with nicely add-on-tricked-out Firefox or Chrome, and someone got a popup as a result.
None of it speaks well to in-house security at Heartland I’m afraid. 😦
What are you talking about? Internet Explorer 6 has had Pop-up Blocking with Windows XP SP2 on August 2, 2004 before Firefox 1.0 was even released on November 9, 2004 let alone Chrome in 2008.
For whatever it’s worth, I’ve cross checked several websites that have a lot of pop ups using Firefox (8 or 9) versus a friend using the latest Explorer version. Both with the browser pop up blocker on, but Firefox also with AdBlock Plus. He still gets pop ups that I don’t, on the exact same webpage. No question there are far fewer pop ups on either browser than there would be without the pop up blocker on, but whether its simply firefox pop up blocker vs. IE pop up blocker, or the addition of adblock plus that makes the difference, there is a clear difference.
You cannot do a browser to browser comparison with an extension like ad block plus installed on Firefox and attempt to isolate which one is better by default at pop-up blocking. You can add a Flash Blocking or NoScript extension and get none whatsoever but it will also break the functionality of many pages.
Browsers can only be compared in their default state with no extensions.
Jeremy clearly specified “add-on-tricked-out Firefox.” That’s what you replied to, as did I.
Besides, of course you can do a browser to browser comparison, when one browser has options that the other does not. Nothing wrong with that.
Also note, I’ve used adblock plus for years now with heavy surfing, and have found virtually no websites with ‘broken functionality’ from it. I’m sure there are bound to be some, but it sure seems they are few and far between.
Then it is not a browser to browser comparison. You can do the “comparison” but it does not tell you which browser blocks pop-ups better.
Ad blockers exist for IE as well, http://simple-adblock.com/
So why would you not compare IE with an Ad Blocker? If you want to do a one to one comparison do it right.
Certain websites do break. I know for a fact video on the WSJ and other news sites have broke because of Adblock plus. It also breaks Google Adsense.
Sure it’s a browser to browser comparison, when the add-ons are specified. I’ll grant you it’s not the base browser to base browser (e.g., add on free) comparison, but it does tell you what difference occurs between the two in the specified states. I also agree that the ideal comparison would be for both browsers to have comparable add-ons, if they are available. For some time, there wasn’t anything comparable to adblock plus for IE.
I’ve never had a problem with a WSJ video using firefox with adblock plus – and I’m quite regularly on WSJ and have watched any number of video’s there without problem. Nor have I encountered problems on other news sites – and I regularly use a very wide variety of news sites. I’ve no clue how it affects google adsense – the entire point of adblock plus is to block ads, so I would expect, actually hope, that it would block google adsense. That’s not ‘breaking’ anything, it’s functioning as designed, seems to me.
Adblock plus is not part of the browser so it cannot be in a browser to browser comparison. It is absurd to compare a browser + addons to another with none, especially when equivalent addons exist for the other browser.
There have been ad blockers available for IE since at least 2007.
I’ve had problems with video and adblock plus from various sites that include advertising embedded with the video not just the WSJ. Updates to adblock plus or changes to the sites video services sometime fixes these, sometimes they introduce new problems. Claiming you have never experienced any problems means either you don’t visit many websites or have not used adblock plus very long. I’ve used it since 2006.
Google Adsense is the site publishers use to manage their advertising revenue on their websites. It is real functional not to be able to manage your websites ad revenue, please. The point is it can break website functionality and it will have to be disabled on those websites. There are hundreds of bug reports dealing with these issues. You can find 176 for just the last 5 months here,
https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
Maybe they want to get trim.
I see one – VNC v4.6.3 supports session security with 256-bit AES encryption and with long enough passwords would be next to impossible to crack. Where do you get 5-6? Windows XP, Outlook and IE8 are all safe and secure to use so long as they are patched and you take basic security precautions.
‘just add this [email] as a duplicate…
I take this to mean Gleick intended to continuously eavesdrop on Heartland board materials, at least until this extra email address was discovered by the relevant board member and disclaimed.
As stings go this one of Gleick’s really is particularly daft. And now the chronology of emails undermines his ‘I got an anonymous doc in the post’ claim as well as showing up his actually upfront interactions with Heartland turning down a chance to debate.
Did Gleick claim he deleted the FAKE email account right after received the pdfs?
Interesting to see when that account was really deleted considering your suggestion that he was going to continue his CRIME.
No, he claimed to have deleted the e-mail account used to send on the documents to “The Fifteen”.
Do we know it was the same email account- the one he used to steal the documents and the one he used to distribute them?
No we don’t know.
But I would suspect that they would both be the same as there is no reason to think otherwise (yet).
Has there been any discussion as to whether Gleick did this from home vs at “work”?
Has there been any discussion as to whether Gleick did this from home vs at “work”?
PG said February 6, 2012, 8:59 a.m.
“I will get back to you on the schedule when I’m back in the office”
Where was he at 8:59 a.m?
I’m kind of curious if PI can be sued along with Gleik if he was at work.
I’m sure there is angst at PI in that regard.
Two things:
1. Joe Bast: “But the emails Heartland released today reveal Gleick never asked for either of the two documents that are specifically cited and summarized in the memo, suggesting the memo was written after, not before, he received the phished documents.”
Isn’t this the most important point?
It makes Gleick’s story about verifying a document he already had to be exceedingly unlikely – because he never asked for documents need to do the verification.
2. Also if my quick count is right (somebody please check), he didn’t forward 2 documents that he got by phishing in the set that he sent on Feb 14th (but he did add two others – the 990 and the scanned strategy memo)
When he sent out his email to the Feb 14th Dear Friends email, he said two things
(i) This was all he had
(ii) Gave no indication that the 2 documents had been obtained separately.
Great point on the 2010 From 990 – It doesn’t appear to have been sent by Heartland to Gleick.
So he lied about that too?
This is looking very much worst, very quickly for Gleick. He should have come clean completely in his confession, and now we know it’s a load of crock.
Gleik’s confession – http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/peter-gleick-admits-to-deception-in-obtaining-heartland-climate-files/
The confession says “In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget. I forwarded, anonymously, the documents I had received to a set of journalists and experts working on climate issues.”
But he didn’t get the form 990 by phishing. He obtained it separately (not hard – it’s a public document and even available on Heartland’s website).
And then he added to package he sent out on Feb 14th, maybe to fill it out?
What if form 990 was the anonymous document he was sent in Jan? Not realising it was a public document he then went fishing and as is the way with fishermen the size of his catch grew from being landed to the boasting of it.
Very unlikely – because Gleick had to prepare a similar 990 in his position as president and founder of the Pacific Institute – so he knew full well that this 990 form was public information.
I think that’s they key.
He reasons the “15” are unable to verify any of the real documents, or the faked document.
So he slips in the 990 as well. And draws attention to it in the body of the email.
He knows that one of the 15 will quickly find the real 990 from a public source (like Heartland’s website for example), they will be able to verify the one that the “leaker” emailed is the same as the real one – and thus will be tricked into believing the entire package is genuine.
– – – – –
There is a lot we do not yet know.
Yet, I think it is reasonable to say the ’15’ (?can we believe 15?) were entirely sympathetic to Gleick’s climate science persuasion and zealotry, so there would not need to be the seeding of the form 990 to trick recipients.
Also, we do not know if some of those ’15’ were aware of Gleick’s perpetration activities. If some or all of the ‘15’ were chosen because they were close to Gleick’s science beliefs then I think it is a reasonable expectation that they were alerted during the perpetration by Gleick. This would lead to a conclusion that trickery is not necessary cregarding the docs attached to the ’15’ email. If this was a criminal investigation and I was a police investigator, I would pursue that line of inquiry.
John
Gleick would have contacted one of the (15)
as HIMSELF. He could not stay away from this thing. If I were the FBI I’d be all over that list of people who got the mail.
That might explain the very abrupt switch from anonymous skullduggery to public confession.
If one of the 15 had a shred of conscience (or at least a healthy fear of being considered a co-conspirator) he may have given Gleick the “fess up or I do it for you” option.
Totally agree. That’s how you got him to begin with – he couldn’t keep himself out of it. However, everyone will forgive me if I don’t hold my breath waiting for the F B I
He also claimed it mentioned him. The strategy memo is the only document where he’s mentioned.
Correction: It is the only document *that we have seen* that mentions him. He didn’t forward all of the documents we know he had, there may be some we don’t know about.
It’s a public document, and Heartland even publish it on their website
But he included in the package sent on Feb 14th.
Why?
He mentions it in the body of his email, but he apparently doesn’t think the “Dear Friends” have enough brains to locate the public document themselves
OR
He feels the package of documents sent to the “Dear Friends” is a bit thin, and needs some filler to pad it out? But if this was the case, why leave out 2 real documents?
The 990 supplied by Heartland Insider is dated August 2011, with an eastern timezone timestamp. A Wash DC connection perhaps?
I think he got it from Heartland’s website. The copies at Desmog & Heartland web site are only 1 byte different in size when I last checked.
Time zone stamp – it’s been scanned by the IRS?
Timestamp from the DeSmog copy:
xmp:CreateDate>2011-07-13T12:13:52-04:00/xmp:CreateDate
xmp:ModifyDate>2011-08-02T20:36:57-05:00/xmp:ModifyDate
xmp:MetadataDate>2011-08-02T20:36:57-05:00/xmp:MetadataDate
Timestamp from Heartland website copy:
xmp:CreateDate>2011-07-13T12:13:52-04:00
2011-12-06T11:12:20-06:00</xmp:ModifyDate
2011-12-06T11:12:20-06:00/xmp:MetadataDate
Timestamp from 990 filed with IRS (available at Guidestar):
Creator (Image2PDF Command Line software)
/CreationDate (D:20110818103131)
/ModDate (D:20110818103131)
/Producer (www.verypdf.com Inc)
Yeah, both show a create date in the east coast time zone adjusted for daylight savings time. The August version could have very well been the version posted at Heartland.org when Gleick acquired it. Heartland, for whatever reason updated it on 12-6-2011.
I’ve done a byte by byte comparison of every page in DeSmog’s 2 versions and the version available from The Heartland Institute.
The meta data differs but the scanned pages are exactly the same, right down to every blemish, fold and smudge on each and every page.
“Yeah, both show a create date in the east coast time zone adjusted for daylight savings time. The August version could have very well been the version posted at Heartland.org when Gleick acquired it. Heartland, for whatever reason updated it on 12-6-2011.”
Gleick had the 990 form in January. Why should Heartland update the 990 form on their website *after* that, and with a version modified 7 month *prior* to that?
I rather think Gleick received the 990 form by another way and was unaware of the 990 form on the Heartland website. Either someone at Heartland send the older “version” to him directly, or the board package was not the first time Gleick impersonated someone else?
Re: Copner (Feb 24 14:51),
… possibly because he thought that the presence of those documents might identify him as the leaker?
But they wouldn’t any more than any others once the leak is published.
Remember when he phished, he didn’t do it in his own name.
Copner:
He didn’t forward the Charles Lange Resume. There is a duplicate of the Board Meeting package for 17 January (he only sent one copy when forwarding material to DeSmog, et. al.: that forwarding process is something that will undoubtedly bear further scrutiny in the future as well).
I take Bast’s point to mean that all Gleick asked for was Board materials: he did not seek specifically to obtain information which would back the details of the “fake memo”. He could not know in advance that this request would, in fact, provide any confirmation in the fake memo.
This provides further circumstantial evidence that Gleick is likely the author of that memo, cadging it with details from Board materials and embroidering with his own view of what they must actually be doing “in the secret villain lair” . Steve, is is cautious in these matters, certainly seems to think so.
It also starts to take apart his official “apology”. It amplifies the uncertainty about the meaning of the term “documents” since he did not forward everything he received, and one element of the materials he sent – the 990 – was something he pulled off the internet, rather than received from Heartland (or, the likely fictional “anonymous source”). Did anyone do a PDF analysis of the 990 form?
ooops. Typo:
“Steve, who is cautious…”
sigh.
And in looking more closely at “Binder 1”, the reason for not including the Lang resume as a separate document (even though received as such from HI), is that it is also contained within the larger Binder 1 document. It presumably would have duplicated what was in Binder 1.
Just to look at it from all angles, lets try assuming he did get the fake doc in the mail earlier.
On Thursday he asked for all the board minutes and agenda materials. On Friday morning he gets Board Minutes and Agenda Materials.
Then, without request, first thing Monday morning he gets a whole bunch of other documents.
Two things strike me as strange. One is why was there a delay there – there almost certainly had to be another request, no? Even the language is “sending all the PDF’s that were send to the board”. If there was a second request, even by phone, then the second strange thing – how would he have possibly known there were other documents in order to request them? One possibility is someone who had the board pdfs wrote the fake memo and sent it to him – before he had obtained the docs. Still, how would he have known those docs were distributed to the board at that meeting. Maybe the person that sent the email said all of this could be confirmed in the board docs from that meeting? It really would suggest another person is involved that knows what the board received.
It all comes down to, why were a second set of docs forwarded later, without a request.
1) The person realized over the weekend they had forgot to send the other docs. The tone of the message suggests it is in rely to a request for more imo – eg, doesn’t say ‘sorry, I forgot to add these’. Given the politeness in all other communication, that seems unlikey, but maybe.
2) He knew there were more documents distributed, and asked for them – maybe even by phone. That suggests he had inside info about the meeting (someone with inside info could send him the docs though). It does invalidate the Bast claim though, and would mean Heartland either doesn’t know about a phone request, or is holding an email back that shows him requesting the doc.
3) They knew it was a mole and wanted to tempt him with more docs? I doubt it.
4) ?
Maybe I’m just reading too much into the unsolicited second sending on the Monday morning.
Robin:
Gleick requested addtional materials on Saturday, 4 February. See: http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-6-2012-8-59-am.jpg
He asked for minutes etc. accompanying or relating to the meeting. That is why the material was sent on 6 Feb.
Ah, i see. Thank you Ian, makes sense now.
I have never seen a controversy of this nature move so quickly forward. It is breathtaking. I am still wondering why Gleick confessed so soon, when it seemed that he could play it for at least a week or so (with cover afforded by a sympathetic media) and see which way the chips were falling. Now, Heartland is trying the case in public with evidence that would normally be produced in a court trail , subject to discovery. There most be much more that we don’t know. Again, it’s just breathtaking.
Remember this?
Private nvestigators posing as HP board members.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BJK/is_15_17/ai_n26710675/
Yes.
Gleick may have found out about it three ways.
1. it was big news out here
2. HP foundation is a contributor
3. Gleick did not agree with Fiorini on the water issue and it would
be part of any opposition research material on her
Will he plead not guilty by reason of insanity?
The 990 doc is also scanned. It has been speculated that it was included in the “package” so that the “fake memo” didn’t stand out as the only scanned document.
Otherwise, it is hard to see the value of including the 990.
Some options I can think of:
1. It adds another 31 pages, to an otherwise fairly thin package.
2. In the “Dear Friends” email he mentions it by name. I thought maybe he thought the “Dear Friends” were too stupid to find it themselves. It’s possible, but I think it’s unlikely.
3. It adds credibility. In the “Dear Friends” email he mentions it by name. People will then go off and find a genuine 990. See the “leaked” 990 matches, and then assume the “leaked” package must be real.
Does anyone have a link to the “Dear Friends” email?
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2012/02/header-from-leakers-email.html
From: Heartland Insider
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 12:13 PM
Subject: Files from Heartland Institute
Dear Friends (15 of you):
In the interest of transparency, I think you should see these files from the Heartland Institute. Look especially at the 2012 fundraising and budget documents, the information about donors, and compare to the 2010 990 tax form. But other things might also interest or intrigue you. This is all I have. And this email account will be removed after I send.
From address was heartlandinsider @ gmail.com
hehe. I wonder what password he used. psst. dont try to guess.
I don’t think it’s sunk in yet, just how much damage he has done.
Quite amazing. Partial hangout indeed. After his AGU ethics and NCES resignations – is membership of the NAS something you can be stripped of?
Heartland should put the speech invitation correspondence on the same site, interlaced with the phishing correspondence. That would help fill out (for those who don’t follow CA) the “means, motive and opportunity” Mosher describes.
As an aside, “fake but true” is a common strategy of hard-core idealogues. I have had some very frustrating arguments on this topic over Rigoberta Menchu’s book, the supposed letter from a Viet Cong general musing on why the US didn’t fight harder after the Tet offensive and the fabricated CIA agent in JFK who spills the beans on every evil plot the CIA was ever accused of. Each of these and countless others ring true to believers, so much so that they can’t let go of them even after they are proven false, at which point they fall back on the argument that even though the actual document is fake, its core message is true, and to an idealogue that’s what matters.
Sean:
That’s a good idea. The contrast would be very effective. I passed your suggestion along using the contact form at the “Fakegate” website.
“Fake but true” is a central tool of Post-Modernism.
I depends how how integral the truth is to a persons ideology. I’m very ideological, but I won’t lie to convince people.
I think that there are two separate aspects to this occurrence.
The first being the deception Peter Gleick employed to obtain the genuine information.
Only after receipt of these documents does it turn out that there is no smoking gun.
Then and not before then, the need for a more incriminating document became apparent.
This led to the creation (by person or persons unknown) of the forged document.
These actions are not the actions which result from a momentary lapse in integrity. The process evolved over an absolute minimum period of Two weeks. More than enough time for someone to come to their senses and step back from the precipice.
Why then did Peter Glieck confess so quickly!
Surely he still feels that his position is defendable (able to be protected from attack, or able to be supported by argument).
This state of mind is consistant with one that is seriously disturbed.
The statement by his legal council suggest that the attack on the HI is going to continue apace.
Interesting times indeed.
He knew he was in the net, and consulted a lawyer, who advised the immediate confession.
Probably the lawyer didn’t/doesn’t know the extent of it.
> Probably the lawyer didn’t/doesn’t know the extent of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney%E2%80%93client_privilege#Disclosure_to_prevent_a_crime.2C_tort.2C_or_fraud
The prevailing assumption is that Gleick acted alone. Suppose there was another party? By quickly falling upon the sword and confessing, Gleick might be laying the groundwork for a guilty plea with bargaining and some form of restitution without the necessity for a detailed investigation … the latter posing a risk for disclosing the accomplice(s). If more than one person was involved, then the crime becomes magnified into a conspiracy which would be much worse.
Yes, good point. We are all ASSUMING tha Gleick acted alone.
Motive is emotional for this. It’s NOT about the “cause”
The “cause” is just his rationalization. He acted alone..
That doesnt rule out him getting advice from somebody on how to do
this
I agree that really base emotions are involved here and without them there’s no explanation for what Gleick did. And that he may have got advice.
I’ve been positing though that somneone Gleick would consider his senior was also furious in the immediate aftermath of the Woods-Betts-Edwards-Gleick email/twitter interaction and that made Gleick not just angry but fearful. A bad combination for good decision making.
Steve: I can’t why this small exchange would have set anyone off.
Richard, I beg to differ (again!) … Gleick has a well established pattern/record of poor choices (which presumably resulted from his “genius” decision making skills)
IMHO, the Woods-Betts-Edwards-Gleick interactions are virtual “outliers” in comparison to the damage he inflicted on himself via:
– his involvement in l’affaire Wagner
– his “review” of TDT on Amazon
– his posts in Judith Curry’s thread on TDT
– his Forbes-blog rants – particularly those against HI
– his I am holier than thou tone in his correspondence with Lakely
Not to mention that, considering his only role – that of expert reviewer – in IPCC’s AR4 (the holiest of climatological holies to date) was lower on the priestly totem pole than that of Betts.
Given Glieck’s high opinion of himself (and his views), I find it difficult to conceive of anyone Gleick might consider “his senior”. Except, perhaps, the late
SaintStephen Schneider, in whose intellectually dishonest footsteps Gleick seems quite content to follow, for the sake of “the cause”.“fearful” Richard? How so?
Steve: I can’t why this small exchange would have set anyone off.”
It wouldn’t set anyone off, unless that person was already carrying a huge chip on their shoulder, but this guy did.
Succinctly put. If one takes into account the peer pressure or worse the guy felt under by this point (a known unknown at this point) I think it could have done.
Mosh said: He acted alone.
Ah, but did others help along the way? And, if he did initially act alone, at what point did others join in?
Question: Did he end up letting the beans slip? If I had to guess, I would bet that he would have HAD to let someone else know that he duped Heartland into releasing the documents. As you’ve noted, his actions scream being emotional….responding and lashing out after being profoundly embarrassed and hurt. I’d bet the “triumph” of obtaining documents, seeing them released AND so widely cited and discussed initially, in just the way he was expecting and hoping, would have been too much for him to NOT let it slip.
Will be interesting to see who knew what and when.
Bruce
Re: Dave L. (Feb 24 17:17), Um, not so fast. In the US, if you enter a plea deal, the prosecution normally will go over all the details with you and expect you to provide evidence needed to facilitate investigation of other(s) involved in the allegations and to cooperate in the prosecution of said other(s). Failure to do so can and will void the terms of the plea agreement and subject you to further prosecution for perjury, obstruction of justice, and possibly criminal conspiracy. Plus you will swear to tell the truth to the judge that holds the hearing that will codify the agreement. Said hearing requires you to give details of your criminal action(s).
Probably because Steven “Sherlock” Mosher identified him so quickly that he realised it was inevitable he would be identified.
The speed caught them off guard, I’m sure. I use ‘them’ but I’m not wedded to it. Gleick almost certainly panicked, his lawyers may well have done. As for those gearing up for the major anti-Climategate PR push (and they sure seemed ready to go, as if the “Dear Friends” email was far from a total surprise) well, what a let down. And this is a trick I’m not at all sure they can pull twice.
Richard: I commented earlier in the week and still think it’s possible that those to whom he sent the documents, the Dear Friends, may have asked him directly when the thing started to smell up the place whether he was behind it and if he was, maybe it would be a good thing that he own up to it before too much heat came down on them. That assumes his identity was unknown to them.
But your theory is just as credible: the Dear Friends were willing co-conspirators in Gleick’s scheme but when it became clear it was only a matter of time before the thing blew up, they suggested he come clean.
Or maybe he misled them only about the forged document and they bought it. When they began to suspect that it wasn’t authentic, they opted out and forced him to confess. If they knew who he was, they definitely had leverage.
In other words, I can see them going all the way to the bitter end with him if the strategy document was authentic. When it turned out it wasn’t, they abandoned him.
I agree it’s possible but I wouldn’t call it my theory. I said the Dear Friends email may not have come as a total surprise to all fifteen recipients – not perhaps to someone at DeSmogBlog, for example. How ‘the grapevine’ worked prior to the email, if it did at all, I don’t know but it may have given them a route back to Gleick to apply the pressure you talk about. The rest of what you say stands. Watch this space.
Are all 15 discoverable? I would think so….
There’s a strategy here not discussed
Gleick’s confession had practical use
The fake document threatened to bust
But his words made that faking obtuse
It was taken as genuine, still
As in “Gleick confirms documents!” stuff
So they get many more days to shill
With a “now confirmed” document bluff
Had he kept zip, McArdle and Mosher
Had been showing the fake several ways
By Gleick’s post, though it’s very un-kosher
He could stretch the deception more days
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
One answer to the question of why Gleick ‘confessed’ so quickly might be that he thought that he needed to tell it to those that he has sent the documents to. That would give them the info to decide what courses to take vis. publishing the the documents and possible defamation actions against them. If he had told them privately or confidentially of his role as the document phisher, he would have put them in unconscionable positions.
Also, the sensationalism of his ‘confession’ has made the provenance of the documents a ‘news worthy story’. The ability of the Heartland Institute to pursue defamation actions against the web sites and people that they sent cease and desist demands to now has disappeared. Almost nothing that anyone could write or speculate would be actionable libel or defamation, at this point after the big news blow-up of his confession. He was going to be found out for the phishing of the Heartland Institute at some point, the confession extricates his friends to a large extent. And his story has played well on his side of the debate.
So much class, he was “Gone Phishing” even before he declined the debate invitation.
The settled science of how to decline a generous invitation: rob ’em on the way out, then use what you’ve taken to blacken their name throughout the world. But it takes a really senior climate scientist to know how to do that.
The mind boggles.
If one were to be charitable, one could pity Gleick for a momentary lapse.
However, the fact that he sustained this impersonation over period of time can only lead one to conclude that – far from a momentary lapse – this was an exercise in cold-blooded “murder” of the truth with malice aforethought.
Clearly, this is worse than one might have thought.
Another chronological detail.
On Feb 13, the same day that Gleick scanned the document that he (presumably) forged, he was also co-signer of the anti-Keystone pipeline letter together with Hansen and others. Jeff Id posted on this letter on Feb 14 here http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/industrial-destruction-advocates/
Has anyone done a chronology of Gleick’s online/web comment activity while this whole cluster… was going down?
Can we predict that the Pacific Institute will eventually commission an “independent” investigation — i.e., one of the Muir Russell variety — which will, in very short order, exonerate Glieck of authoring the fake document?
A sad prediction indeed…but probably a good one
Taking the repetition of past history as a real possibility here — albeit across the pond — can we also take a guess as to how the Pacific Institute might react if the FBI and/or the Oakland Police Department confiscated their e-mail server?
Well, the first part was definitely a spot on prediction, Scott:
Source
Funny that they don’t name this “independent firm” – nor the specific allegations that the “firm” will be reviewing.
As for the “distinguished career” of Ms. Schmid, she appears to have been recruited from outside. [See http://www.trustforconservationinnovation.org/about/leadership.php for a brief bio.]
Steve: I guess Muir Russell and Oxburgh were unavailable.
What kind of institution issues press releases, then deletes them and replaces them with new press releases saying something quite different? As I noted on the ‘Gleick and the NCSE thread’, the Pacific Institute issued a press release on Feb 21 saying
“Dr. Gleick has been and continues to be an integral part of our team”.
They then deleted that and put one up on Feb 22 saying
“Neither the board nor the staff of the Pacific Institute knew of, played any role in, or condones these events”.
They then deleted that one from their website and put up the one Hilary quotes above.
Elena Schmid seems to be the right man for the job, a consultant and board director for CRS:
“The Center for Resource Solutions is governed by a Board of Directors composed of leading experts and legislators dedicated to promoting renewable energy.”
A very strange kind of institution. Was thinking the same yesterday Paul.
Good question. Not entirely consistent with an organization that decides to preserve the memory of at least one deceased person by maintaining his name on its Advisory Board.
http://www.pacinst.org/about_us/staff_board/advisory.htm
(screen capture available on request – just in case they decide to bump him off the page)
This is another of those undated docs. So one does wonder when Schneider might have begun his term – or whether his participation in their deliberations has always been posthumous.
Ah well, just one of those mysteries of life in the transparency and ethical lane, I suppose!
Yes, I think we need to be careful about simply buying into the narrative that Gleick acted alone in a momentary lapse of judgement. Clearly this was not a “momentary” thing. To pull of this attack, research was needed. And we know that among a small circle of people, it was a long-standing goal to find a way to link climate skepticism to big oil.
So maybe Gleick did this on his own to try to curry favor with some of the Team, or maybe it was a planned adventure involving more than just Gleick. We have no evidence one way or the other, but I’m not willing to rule out the possibility that this was planned and that others were involved. The timing of the invitation might have been a simple coincidence.
I, for one, never did buy into the “lone wolf” narrative:-)
I think that when Gleick realized that the game was up (and that HI “had the goods” on his activities) he offered himself as a “sacrificial lamb”, hoping that this might limit the damage.
FWIW, My speculations can be found on my blog [http://hro001.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/from-the-ashes-of-gleickgate-a-new-mantra-is-born/]; I also further speculated on a possible “background” scenario in the AGU Resignation thread:
Yeah, I’m with you on this Hilary. But I suspect that there was a PR campaign in the works that was being orchestrated by a professional outfit, not just a rag-tag bunch of climate genii.
I think the PR campaign had been ready to go for a while – they just needed the goods from ‘heartlandinsider@gmail.com’. The PR gurus knew they needed an anti-Climategate, where they could paint all the badnesses of the worst forms of scepticism (as they want people to imagine them) and make all the false equivalences with the real Climategate that Ross and others have dispatched in recent days. They were ready to go, with Heartland agreed as the target (I would suggest). Gleick knew this and knew that they hadn’t been able to dig anything out that was incriminating at all. Then he saw this opportunity. But it was still a mad thing to do and I think that requires further explanation.
Stephen Hayward picks up this theme – what Lucy Skywalker neatly calls counter-Climategate, a bit like counter-insurgency – in this week’s Weekly Standard:
You might not like the Standard’s politics but why isn’t the better class of newspaper or magazine getting the basics right like that? Just askin’
“I, for one, never did buy into the “lone wolf” narrative”
Neither did I.
Too much PR language (not enough mgt) in the fake of which Hoggan and Littlemore at Smog are exponents (and they both cite the leaked Frank Luntz memo).
FWIW also, My speculations can be found here:-
There’s a lot of production value in this video for being so quickly made:
just FYI.
“Is the truth really for sale?”
They sure convinced me 🙂
Thanks, very good point.
I have never really recovered from a statement I overheard in a bar in birmingham UK
A group of students were debating (I can’t remember the subject) when one of them said quite loudly and clearly “Its trur, I rad it in the newspaper”
And that was 50 years ago.
Interesting. I agree with you that a video like this takes time to produce. Its not something you can whip together in a week. Do you know when this was released?
Uploaded on 23 Feb. I think it was sometime last evening.
Hmmm, for something like this, you need to line-up actors. And because they are minors, there’s a special process that takes a bit of time. Then you need a script. Then you need to line up a film crew. Then you shoot the video. Then you go to production and post production. A film of this quality would go through color correcting, dust busting — a whole host of post production steps. I guessing that if everything came together in remarkable time, you’re looking at 3 weeks.
I would imagine Gore has a little bit of experience with this sort of thing, and could likely accomplish it in less time. I still think it’s awfully suspect to have been produced, or at least planned to be produced prior to release.
Well, that just multiplied the quantum of damages likely to be claimed against Mr. Gleick…
Produced by ClimateRealityProject.org, founded and chaired by Al Gore…
Yes. And one would have thought that by now it would have sunk into their consciousness that Gore and his AIT may well have been the biggest PR albatross hovering over them – and from which they really needed to distance themselves.
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such an obdurate collective of slow learners – and believe me, I’ve encountered quite a few, in my time! – as those who inhabit the upper stratosphere of “climate science”.
With sincere apologies to Pete Seeger (unless my memory has failed me) …
Where have all the thinkers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the thinkers gone
Long time ago
Where have all the thinkers gone
Gone to sound-bites every one
When will they ever learn
When will they ever learn
This is incredible in its timing. As others have mentioned, this takes time to pull together (I think it could happen faster than 3 weeks, though, especially if they already have a bunch of folks in a wait list, which they probably do). The statement: “has a plan to change the science taught in our public schools” is pretty bold and suspiciously like what was in the memo, is it not? The statement could be supported on its own merit, based on particular views of Heartland’s activities, but the resemblance to what Gleick sent to his 15 friends is uncanny . . .
Maggie Fox, the director of ClimateReality, introduces the video with a post that focuses on Heartland’s funding and points to a copy of the document phished by Gleick and posted on AmericanProgress. Interestingly the document shows that very little of Heartland’s current funding comes from fossil fuels and other corporate interests that are inimical to climate change mitigation. I am reluctant to reveal my email address to these folks – but I would be interested in seeing how they respond to somebody calling them on their gross misrepresentation of Heartland’s funding.
Also I cannot find the funding information for ClimateReality except for some general notion that the funding is provided by Al Gore. Anyone know anything?
Prepare for a propaganda onslaught. All that CAGW funding is at stake — they will throw the kitchen sink into this.
I guess this is what happens when you assume your enemies are all idiots.
From Roger Pielke Jr’s twitter feed:
Rep. Ed Markey demands Heartland prove the one doc is a fake, thus raising chances the faker will be exposed http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/content/files/2012-02-24_LTR_EJMtoHeartland.pdf
It is the FBI’s job now to prove it is a fake, not Heartland’s.
This is pretty high-handed. A Congressional committee could perhaps subpoena a private individual to appear before the committee and testify about something relevant to legislation, but can an individual member of Congress just demand information?
He’s not demanding, he’s requesting. He has no right to any of the information. And in fact, he already has it. It’s just saber-rattling, and pretty crude at that. To me, it’s disgusting. But I guess in Washington this kind of crap is acceptable.
It’s impossible to prove a negative.
Not entirely: The forged document names Gleick as a noted scientist, that’s almost conclusive proof that it was forged because I can’t see any skepticc as viewing Gleick as noted scientist.
“If the document or draft is not an authentic Heartland Institute document or draft document, please identify and fully describe the inaccuracies the document or draft contains.”
I’m not even sure where to begin on that request. If someone is caught counter-fitting money, claiming it looks similar to real money isn’t much of a defense. This is suggesting the mint accept the parts that are closest, maybe 80 cents on the dollar.
I don’t know if it has already been suggested, but an audit of the email records on the server should provide a complete list of the documents sent to Gleick. An external audit should be sufficient. I’d be surprised if HI didn’t ask for one to be performed.
It would be extremely difficult for them to change the audit records internal to the system to erase any sign of the strategic document being sent. If it was supplied by them, it’ll show up in the audit trail. If it wasn’t, it won’t.
The point being, if it is not a fake, then Gleick should be asking for an audit. If it is, HI should be offering one.
Gleick never claimed that he got the climate strategy memo from the Heartland Institute by email. He claims that it came by mail from an unknown person.
A few days ago over at Lucia’s I wrote:
P.S. Wordperfect is not part of MS Office.
I considered commenting on that earlier: odd they use Wordperfect when Microsoft is on record donating subtantial (in dollar terms) amounts of software to them.
I also thought it careless of HI, given what should be heightened sensitivity to IT intrusions, to have so many things showing on the screenshots – such as open files, open IE, etc.
Ian,
I was recently in the employ of a 501C so I am somewhat familiar with the programs different vendors have with non-profits. When I started there we had a number of Dell computers that had the OEM version of Word Perfect. A few users used it in spite of the fact that they had the Office suite. OEM software is never a good long term investment for an organization as you cannot upgrade to a new version or move them to a different machine. As HI doesn’t appear to be IT savvy it doesn’t surprise me that they bought computers with OEM software and some people prefer to use it.
I didn’t find the desktop screen shots terribly troubling as to what it was showing (except for the existence of VNC). OTOH, it’s what appears to me missing from the Notification area that caught my eye. The lack of any anti-virus software which in my experience always appears there. Now it is possible that they chose to hide it but I doubt it.
While the OEM license usually does restrict moving the software to a different computer, it can be upgraded to a retail version. Outside of the movement restriction it will be a feature compatible version that is much cheaper than the $500 professional version of Microsoft Office. There are (not legal) ways to remove the OEM branding.
I don’t know who pays for Microsoft Office anymore (outside of businesses or corporations who need Outlook) when you can use Open/Libre Office for free?
VNC v4.6.3 supports session security with 256-bit AES encryption and with long enough passwords would be next to impossible to crack.
Windows XP auto-hides inactive icons in the system tray (blue arrow on right side) so an anti-virus program could be installed and you might not see the tray icon.
I’m beginning to wonder if the Guardian’s Goldenberg was one of the 15 “fences” to whom Gleick sent his package of stolen goods!
She’s still trying to sustain the “HI spreads misinformation” line – and spinning HI’s release of the emails in such a way that an Uninformed Layperson would be led to conclude that it was all HI’s “fault” ‘cuz it was so easy for Gleick to get the goods!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/24/heartland-emails-peter-gleick-climate-leak?
In a previous article Goldenberg and Rush said in the first sentence:-
“A libertarian thinktank devoted to discrediting climate change received funds and other support from major corporations including some publicly committed to social responsibility, leaked documents reveal.”
Then,
“The inner workings of the Heartland Institute were laid bare”
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Dominic Rushe in New York
# The Guardian, Thursday 16 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/heartland-institute-microsoft-gm-money
If the inner workings were laid bare, how could Goldenberg and Rushe have got the very first sentence of their article so wrong?
The NIPCC doesn’t come out of HI expenses and the Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Schools represents 1% of HI’s total expenses. Neither “discredits”, the former rebuts, the latter adds balance.
And “devoted” ? HI mission: “….to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems”
Suzanne Goldenburg just informed me that she was NOT one of the 15.. @suzyji (Twitter)
So who were they all, by their silence we only have Peter’s word on it.
Could it be just be DeSmogBlog, one or two others?
Ie Dear Friends (15 of you) – sounds like it is trying a bit too hard…
Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?! I’d be inclined to give this more credibility had she volunteered where/from whom she did receive the material for her article(s) as well – as an indication as to how she actually verified the provenance of her “HI spreads misinformation” line.
Her attempts to spin HI’s release of the emails as “its all HI’s fault” do not engender much confidence in her journalistic integrity. YMMV, but that’s the view from here, so to speak!
Steve: the documents were in the public domain via Desmog and thinkprogress about 6 hours before Goldenberg’s article. A Leo Hickman tweet shows that he was aware of Desmog well before her article. She linked to Desmog as recall. No mystery.
I agree Goldenburg’s journalism has been woeful from the moment the Heartland story broke. I would still assume she didn’t lie to Barry though – I can’t see any reason for her to do so. But on wilful journalistic missing the point, in the last 48 hours, Seth Borenstein of AP must get the prize. Peter Gleick completely painted out of history of the Heartland episode. I’d love to see others’ reaction on that.
I think the most strong reason to think this wasn’t just Gleick is the media first attack. It was an operation designed to create “shock and awe” and in that put Heartland Institute defenseless due to noise.
If Gleick had simply been patient and satisfied that he had tricked them into adding his address to the distribution list, he may at some point have been able to identify the anonymous donor or whatever it was he was looking for. Having received the first batch of board minutes etc. and finding nothing explosive in them, a smart person would have simply been patient and not exposed themselves. Instead, he got greedy and likely decided to just make up the evidence he sought.
Suggesting again that he felt he needed a big win and needed it fast.
Or he thought he’d been found out? Maybe…
Notice in the last email he asks for a copy of the board contact details.
So maybe: He sees that his phishing email is not on the list – but he realizes the board directory is circulated as a formal PDF document, complete with email addresses, and will eventually be regenerated in PDF, circulated, and the phishing address will be on it.
So he panics. He’s gone to all this trouble, but he doesn’t have the goods on Heartland…
Either way, he’s being driven by fear.
Sorry if this was mentioned already (I haven’t read all the comments), but I’m guessing that if they’ve published these emails that they’re not planning on pursuing prosecution of Dr. Gleick, since this would be detrimental to him getting a fair trial.
Not in the slightest. The defense would likely screen out all jurors that have read the e-mails if it was believed they would bias the jury, or likely even heard of the story in more than just passing. Publishing the e-mails increases the likelihood they are going to prosecute him as they’ve now already made a semi-case to the public and presented evidence to the authorities; and I have no doubt they already have begun the process (since HI got the FBI involved, which means they are exposing themselves fully as well, so they must believe they have a solid and compelling case against him).
And the biggest irony of ’em all (so far!) is Judith Curry’s observation on her blog:
Yeah, they should have contracted it out to Judy.
Yeah, Gleick probably was tempted to hire it out to her, but then he remembered the memo indicated she was untrustworthy — capable of being turned to the dark side!
I think the Heartland Institute is most likely not pursuing a civil or criminal suit. If they were, they wouldn’t be releasing evidence into the public forum. Doing so would lessen the likelihood of finding an impartial jury.
There does also seem to be some likelihood that it was planed to go to trial. Gleick’s lawyer has made statements to the effect that all the Heartland’s dirty laundry(all donor names and the like) will/would come out in the discovery phase of any trial.
How many rights to discovery does the defendent have?
In a criminal case, that is.
I wondered about that too. Wiki says this:-
“Under the law of the United States, civil discovery is wide-ranging and can involve any material which is “reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence.” This is a much broader standard than relevance, because it contemplates the exploration of evidence which might be relevant, rather than evidence which is actually relevant. (Issues of the scope of relevance are taken care of before trial in motions in limine and during trial with objections.) Certain types of information are generally protected from discovery; these include information which is privileged and the work product of the opposing party. Other types of information may be protected, depending on the type of case and the status of ther party. For instance, juvenile criminal records are generally not discoverable, peer review findings by hospitals in medical negligence cases are generally not discoverable and, depending on the case, other types of evidence may be non-discoverable for reasons of privacy, difficulty and/or expense in complying and for other reasons. (Criminal discovery rules may differ from those discussed here.) Electronic discovery or “e-discovery” refers to discovery of information stored in electronic format (often referred to as Electronically Stored Information, or ESI).”
Glieck’s lawyer John Keker says this:-
“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.”
He’s optimistic about the scope.
Somebody call a lawyer.
I see Keker’s statement as a tactical threat against Heartland, made to give them pause about the cost of proceeding to trial against Peter Gleick. Keker is threatening to publicize their donors, opening them to public attack in the media.
Keker’s threat to “… determine once and for all who is truly behind Heartland and why” has no connection whatever to Peter Gleick’s theft of Heartland documents, his use of a false identity, the interstate commerce violation, and the conscious forgery of a slanderous document for the intended purpose of malicious defamation. Keker’s threat is in the realm of totally irrelevant.
None of Heartland’s internal strategies and goals comprise a legal rationale for Peter Gleick’s actions. Therefore, it doesn’t seem likely that even a latitudinous discovery process could ever encompass Heartland’s strategy, goals, or donors.
Keker’s threat looks like a political ploy to me. He’s going afield in an attempt to intimidate Heartland into dropping prosecution with threats of a media attack and loss of donors, because he doesn’t have a legal case for defense.
Food for thought there Pat, thank you.
BTW, discovery might come into play here in NZ where the NZCSET v NIWA case will kick off soon. Update here:-
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2012/02/juducial-review-of-niwa-temperature-mischief/
And this is the way they treat ‘the most important threat mankind has ever faced.’
People are noticing, that would never have bothered to delve deeply into the science.
Is ‘shit or bust’ an American expression?
Steve, thanks for your illuminating analyses.
Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but I did a Google search for “peter” “gleick” “pdf” to find other documents he had authored.
Here is the first hit I found:
Click to access water_related_deaths_report.pdf
Note the style:
(1) No indentation at the start of each paragraph;
(2) Paragaphs single-spaced
(3) double-spacing between each paragraph; and
(4) Bold, left-justified headings.
Just like the “strategy memo.”
This seems rather suspicious to me.
Personally, I like to call the “strategy memo” the “Protocols of the Elders of Climate Science.”
This is the Pac Inst 2011 Funders List which, ironically, was posted this morning:
Click to access funders_2011.pdf
The heading, left hand margin, and line spacing/kerning are identical to the Strategy Memo.
However, the font is 14 pt, not 12 pt.
So if one were to load this PDF, then select/delete all text, change the font size to 12 pt., would the kerning be preserved?
(That being said, been at the ‘puter all day, my wife is p***ed. I’m out for awhile :))
Yes, and they “de – listed” the 2009 donor list (silly me: should have downloaded it)at the same time. There never was a 2010 list, so far as I could determine.
Strategy memo:-
Gleick paper:-
Linespacing on the originals is slightly different but the major differences stand out:-
1) White-space between header and paragraph.
2) Use of caps in the header,
Doesn’t look like Gleick’s style to me but I suppose he could style-shift for the occasion.
Gleick uses “given’ 7 times but it occurs only once in the fake.
But it is also the very first word.
And as with Duke C, I think I’ve overrun my time quota on this too,
Formatting could just be one of several “stock” styles selected as default by the word processor – Word or WP or whatever.
The extra spacing between line is an artifact of science paper writing. I used to do it a lot. It makes the paper longer and easy to read when presenting it at a forum/conference.
Steve,
How you can keep your sanity in this insane debate going on about climate change is amazing. Everyone owes you a great deal of respect for keeping your temper and following the facts to wherever they lead.
Thanks for the great work!
Previously, I have suggested he might have been drunk at the time, for making such a foolish gambit. But, maybe it was with ego, rather than alcohol, that he was drunk with.
He used the email address ‘Heartlandinsider’, yet he is not an insider.
So who was he trying to deceive, the 15 people/blogs he sent the email to?
How you know there were really 15?
Why did he say in the body of his email there 15, when anybody could read the To field and count themselves – unless he used BCC? In which case why hide it, then mention it?
And he did deceive the “15”:
1. He gave a misleading sender – He said he was “Heartland Insider” in his email.
2. He omitted key information – He gave no indication that 2 documents had been acquired separately from the rest – the form 990, and the fake strategy memo.
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY: For the fake strategy memo, in his confession, he said it came from an anonymous source – but in the email he says it is from the files of the Heartland Institute – which is it?
Good point. But surely one should give Gleick credit for being truthful about something.
My guess would be that the 15 included:
The Gang of 7 (to let them know that it was “safe” to release their “Open Letter to HI” with its very unsubtle and fallacious comparison to Climategate, in accordance with a previously agreed timeline/schedule … i.e. wait a few days for the MSM
stoogespartners to churn)Some key smoggrifiers (Hoggan, Littlemore, DeMelle, Mashey)
The most co-operative/gullible MSM promulgators (Goldenberg, Revkin, Hickman & Black)
Hey, that adds up to 15 … but I’m sure it must be coincidence 😉
As for the omissions … well, my guess is that the gang of 7 and the smoggrifiers already knew; and no point in giving the MSM churnalising cheerleaders any reason to “think” – or, Gaia forbid, question – eh?!
Steve: Revkin told me that he was not one of the 15; but one of the 15 sent it to him. I think that Revkin’s been very forthright about this. I’m sure that part of the reason for his very sharp initial response was that he was angry about being tricked by the forged document though one has to read between the lines to see this (and he did not say this in his short email to me.)
Thanks, Steve.
One wonders, though, which of the 15 might have sent it to him … and from whom he might have obtained the “confirmation” that the strategy doc was genuine!
And I still think he owes his readers an apology for failing to verify with HI before rushing to publish.
Nice of Gleick, though, to continue to protect his “fences” by not naming them, eh?!
Steve you say:-
“The fake memo refers to information in the Plan and Budget”
Not quite. Quoting the fake:-
“2012 Proposed Budget document and 2012 Fundraising Strategy memo”
The fake memo refers to the information in the STRATEGY and Budget.
The title of the budget is correct but not the title of the fundraising document. The correct title of that is:-
‘2012 FUNDRAISING PLAN’
And the ‘Plan’ is NOT a memo.
The fake is incredibly sloppy (and twisted) in all facets.
The fake GW Bush National Guard memo from 2004 that Dan Rather broke on national TV
was revealed to be a fake in about 2 nanoseconds. There are too many people out there
who are experts in computer and typewriter keyboard fonts, document formats of various
organizations, etc to try to fake anything anymore. Mosher pinned him almost before the whistle blew to start the match. The lessen is to conduct all business with people on the highest ethical plane, regardless of what other people do.
I’m reminded of Borderline Personality Disorder, from which Princess Diana is said to have suffered. I agree with suggestions that Gleick, pushed by humiliation from Richard Betts, Tamsin Edwards, and Barry Woods, which was built on last year’s humiliations at Judith Curry’s, was primed to misunderstand Heartland’s truly friendly invitation, and react with a knife in the back.
Then I get the feeling that Gleick takes breath… I’m reminded here of Macbeth, where the guilty parties are observed closely descending further and further into the nightmare aftermath of committed crime, trying to wash their hands of blood, even as events “dictate” they sink deeper and deeper into the mire by subsequent actions.
Gleick’s promised his “15 friends” the goods that will deliver counter-Climategate, hasn’t told them exactly what but they are waiting. For several days he “has” to continue the evil work he’s started. He looks at his hands, disconnecting further and further… decides he’s going down the plughole anyway, but might as well try to bring down Heartland with him… hence the hurried, stressed quality of the memo.
He’s listening to the blogs which he “knows” are going to bring him down… actually, start to reconnect him with reality… of which the first step is his lawyer-dictated “confession”.
Gleick seemed to take particular umbrage to the use of the term ‘entertainment’ to describe the dinner debate. Maybe he felt like they were setting him up to look like a clown.
Notice how offended Gleick got by being labeled “entertainment” in the email correspondences about the HI invitation. It is easy to see him taking that really wrong and believe they were laughing at him. Especially once you look at the HI through Gleick’s eyes as being “evil”.
The truth of all this is just how devastating Climategate and the NIPCC report(s) have been to their “cause”.
Lucy Skywalker:
Shakespeare’s a brilliant chap to apply to all this, because he’s all about power, but I’m not so sure about BPD and the rest. Gleick’s tragedy (and it has to be ‘eek’ at this point, which also exactly expresses his state of mind throughout this time for me!) is that he had been way overpromoted. He wasn’t actually very good. That can lead to psychological problems but better to put the blame where it really lies: on those that raised him up.
Gosh, I really hope Peter Gleick didn’t feel humiliated by interaction with me, Tamsin and Barry! Neither of the conversations were intended to be hurtful.
The first was a twitter discussion where Barry was trying to establish why Peter had said he (Barry) was offensive. I said I couldn’t remember anything he said to Peter that was offensive (he’s one of the nicest Tweeters I know, if rather prolific but hey that’s just his style!). This also carried on into email.
The second was the twitter discussion about Tamsin’s proposed blog names, in which Peter (rather heavy-handedly in my view) was very strongly advising Tamsin not to name her blog after the famous George Box quote “All models are wrong, but some are useful”. As it turned out the conversation gifted Tamsin the topic of her first blogpost. Although we disagreed with Peter, I thought we were just having a sensible, scientific conversation, with certainly no offence intended.
But I guess maybe the whole thing is just symptomatic of how this so-called “Climate Wars” businesses getting completely out of hand. The militants on both sides need to rein it in before someone actually gets hurt (I mean for real, not just their reputation).
We now need Radical Moderates to step forward and distance themselves from the extremists (at both ends). Let’s talk it all through like grownups instead of banging on about alarmists, deniers and conspiracy theories. It’s all very childish.
Richard, I can’t imagine that your interaction with Gleick precipitated his conduct. I think that Richard (Drake) is over-interpreting here, that the timing is merely coincidence.
I agree that the situation has gotten out of hand.
I think that the fatwa declared against Climate Audit (and extended to other critical blogs) by Mann, Jones and their associates was very unwise. In the past, when someone like Rob Wilson (who I was on cordial terms with) commented here, he would get poisonous communications from the Team and the community. He was then on hand-to-mouth funding and unprepared to take foolish risks. Two of the most important contributors here (Jean S, UC) have been unable to disclose their identities for fear of repercussions at their universities. The Climategate emails show that Jones was paying close attention to CLimate Audit, but refused to comment or allow his associates to comment. Makes no sense whatever.
The audience here has changed over time. Prior to Climategate, blog discussions were more technical, but for the last two years, I’ve been bogged down in the fake inquiries. (The failure of the inquiries to involve critics was a grave mistake and exacerbated problems, rather than reconciling or mitigating them. I’ve been far more critical of people like Muir Russell and Oxburgh than of the original scientists. The wider community should have insisted on better process.)
If I were the CAGW sales manager, I would view one of my key missions as focused marketing to the precise sort of people that make up the audience at Climate Audit, Lucia’s, Bishop Hill, Jeff Id and to a portion of Watts Up: highly educated professionals, including scientists from other fields, who are interested in the climate debate,
who are technically competent and who haven’t reached an opinion on whether climate is a big, medium or small problem (including me.)
The audience has to be treated more like investors than high school students i.e. if you’re pitching to investors and they don’t invest, you can’t “fail” them or tell them that they’re stupid or tools of the fossil fuel industry; you have to think about why your pitch failed and what you can do better, and leave on good terms with the investor and maybe you’ll have another chance later on. It’s madness to condemn this audience as “deniers” or “ground troops” of the fossil fuel industry – madness both on the part of the activists who do so and madness on the part of the broader climate “community” that tolerates and even honors such conduct from its activist wing.
Also too many of the self-appointed sales people for CAGW are too wrapped up in their own self-importance and are unlikable to an extended audience. Indeed, if I were CAGW sales manager, I could hardly imagine a sales force more unlikely to succeed. This is quite aside from whether the message is right or wrong. If it’s important to actually persuade someone on the fence that CAGW is an imminent danger, then it’s important to talk to people on the fence or even in opposition (to get them on the fence.) It’s also probably important to retire some of the self-appointed sales people – thank for their service politely but get spokesmen who can build trust with a wider community.
It’s not an easy job at present. It’s been made much worse by the botched reaction to Climategate, both the failed inquiries and the counterproductive Empire Strikes Back campaign.
What is important here – with all due respect to the great Barry Woods! – is the conversation between Steve and Richard Betts. As for me, I agree with everything that Steve writes except this:
I don’t think I am over-interpreting, because my conviction that Barry had something centrally to do with Gleick’s outrageous decision early on 27th January came to me around 1.30pm in London with no connection at all to any evidence! For one thing I had no idea at that point if the timing worked. Indeed, when I talked to Barry on the phone the following morning he said “Hmm, yes, it was only about two weeks before.” I didn’t disagree with that nor did I try and be more precise.
The timing is indeed a coincidence therefore – not just to Steve but even more to me! But what Richard Betts has said is extremely important:
I deeply agree. Thank you for saying it.
1.30pm on Wednesday 22nd February that should have been. In other words, well before I knew the timing of his fateful decision to impersonate a board member.
Richard:
This maybe simple a loose end, but do we know who that Board Member was?
It struck me in reading the Heartland emails with the phishy Gleick: The board member whom Gleick impersonated appeared to be a new Board Member judging from the very formal and deferential terms of address and the absence of any surprise on the part of the staffer or statement that the requested documents should already be to hand. My guess is that Heartland was being carefully monitored by Gleick and others.
The deferential would be appropriate for a former US Senator and astronaut like Harrison Schmitt. I’ve seen speculation elsewhere it might have been him being impersonated. It might also make phishing easier. I understand a violation for impersonating a senator falls in a special category.
Thanks Bob for interjecting – one job less for me. I’ll use this space for something else, if I may. Lucy Skywalker said above, yesterday evening CA time:
This phrasing obviously concerned Richard Betts, as well it might. I think I’m the first person on CA to suggest Betts-Edwards-Woods-Gleick (BEWG as in BEWGLE?) might have had a bearing on Gleick’s behaviour towards Heartland the next day but I would never have phrased it as Lucy did. I should have said that earlier. Allow me to explain a bit more.
Around lunchtime on Wednesday I had a hunch that Barry had triggered something really quite immense here. Since that time I’ve been looking at the available evidence to see if that makes any sense. I think it makes a lot more sense now than it did (based on evidence available) on Wednesday. But I accept we don’t have everything.
What I thought right away was that in defending Barry against Gleick’s rather extreme attacks Tamsin and Richard had distanced themselves from a significant power centre (English spelling but US referent). I don’t see Gleick as operating in isolation. He’d been lifted high but there were and are people he would look up to and indeed fear, should they finally turn their face away from him.
The effect of Hilary Ostrov‘s list of previous embarrassments was cumulative. Whoever was monitoring Gleick’s performance for The Cause (again I’m assuming such persons exist) may have told him he was near his last chance. And although triggered by a minor UK sceptic the interaction with Betts and Edwards was noteworthy in that Gleick knew from Barry it would be published and it showed someone from the US power centre being blithely ignored by real climate scientists, not just demonised bloggers. So without first-hand evidence but to fill out the story I’m assuming that others within the power centre were angered by this and made their feelings known to Gleick.
The emphasis on consensus in climate science has been strong and stupid. This kind of open disagreement between IPCC-accredited scientists is anathema to some of the old guard – exemplified by Stephen Schneider, for me and for Hilary. It shouldn’t be.
Gleick did something extraordinarily foolish early on 27th. The explanation I currently favour (but data is king, as in science itself) is that he came under pressure from those evaluating him because of the latest foulup, as they saw it. He feared for his future but he also envied Richard and Tamsin, Barry and Jim Llakely. He envied their freedom and with it their joy in what they were doing, for he knew he lacked both.
That’s how I think the unwise choices were made. I wouldn’t have used Lucy’s language but I appreciate much of what she wrote.
Sorry Richard, I agree with Steve, you really are over-interpreting here (“Barry triggering something immense” etc). Gleick’s motivation was just his ongoing battle with HI.
I again object to the term over-interpret. I had no evidence at all. I’d not been at my workstation or laptop for quite a while. It came to me in a flash. I had no idea at that point if Barry’s interaction with these guys was weeks later than Gleick’s misdemeanours with Heartland. Later it turned out the timing was pretty exact.
I didn’t mention it on CA for two days – in fact I said I had a thesis with no evidence for it, without giving details – but then I did. Before I knew about the timing.
But in the ‘flash’ around 1.30pm Wednesday it was simply Barry and the immense effects. No evidence. That I can say for sure 🙂
Re: Richard Drake (Feb 25 13:49), my apology to Richard Betts and Richard Drake for wording is upthread/downthread depending on current play of nested comments. My nesting had vanished completely for a while.
Thanks very much Lucy. It triggered an important interaction between Steve and Richard – perhaps a very important one. I wouldn’t worry 🙂
What I think is worth everyone noting is the way Tamsin Edwards and Richard Betts about Barry Woods talk to Peter Gleick 24-26 Jan (without having any idea what Peter was about to do, of course). Here’s Tamsin on 24th:
I admit that when I went back and re-read this, having had a completely unexpected prompt to do so lunchtime Wednesday, my admiration for what Barry had been up to (and had been quite severely criticised for on Bishop Hill, to boot) hit an all-time high. I’d misunderestimated this guy. Something about this radical niceness triggering the opposite in Gleick got me. Call me a romantic if you like 🙂
might have been better. More point and gleick problems.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your response, I completely agree with you that this audience needs to be engaged with in a more mature manner – your investors analogy is an excellent one.
While I have your attention, may I be so bold as to make a suggestion to you on what I perceive to be your own strategy (which you are completely free to ignore, especially if I have misunderstood).
One of your aims seems to be to encourage a greater openness in the IPCC during the report-writing process, with drafts being made available for completely open public scrutiny at the time they are written and not just at the end of the process.
There has actually been debate about this, and the main reason put forward for only making the drafts available to reviewers who agree to keep them confidential is that the drafts are at risk of being treated as if they are the “official” word of the IPCC and used to muddy the waters. (I’m not saying I agree that this is a big issue, I’m just giving you the argument).
The problem is, you do indeed seem to be citing the leaked AR5 Zero Order Drafts as if they were the final thing – you keep referring to “AR5” when AR5 does not actually exist yet. This merely proves right (at least in their minds) the people who make the above argument against full open access of drafts at an early stage.
If you want to help the cause for early open access to IPCC drafts, may I respectfully suggest that you are very clear about documents you are citing being “AR5 ZOD” or whatever, rather than just “AR5”. (This includes in blog headlines not just the text – we all know people often only read headlines so this kind of clarity is important. ) If there is to be an argument in favour of early access, there needs to be clear evidence that people will use this access responsibly and not confirm the IPCC’s worst fears of “misuse”.
Hope that’s helpful, but as I say, feel free to ignore if you wish!
Good talking with you,
Richard
I agree that I should clearly show the difference. I’ve amended the articles in question to be clear – the issues were more with the headlines than the articles. While I presumed that regular CA readers understand that we’re at draft IPCC reports, the lack of precision is against my practice and I apologize.
BTW my greater issue with the IPCC is that I don’t think that their mandate – 5-year literature reviews – really does the job that’s needed to provide the educated public (including policy-makers) with the most relevant information. I think that the report has become more a shout-out to all the climate scientists in the world wanting to be mentioned than an “engineering quality” report addressing the needs of the educated and concerned public. I made this point to Shapiro of the IAC who phoned me, but they didn’t address the large issue of what the objectives of IPCC reports should be, examining only the narrow question of how to implement their present mission more effectively. With their recommendations, as noted in other posts, somewhat subverted by IPCC functionaries.
Richard.
Great call. One of the points I’ve made in this goes like so:
The limited distribution almost insures that some will mistake Drafts for final
versions. If somebody posted a FAKE draft, then that would almost force the release of true drafts. The best path is openness. Lets add to that ‘traceability’ When I got the FODs ( by signing up) I expected watermarked
PDFs. If the SOD is still limited distribution, I’d suggest that the IPCC add
a simple watermark to mitigate ( not eliminate) confusion should they be released outside the official distribution process.
Steve,
I suggest posting your comment verbatim on the front page. It stands on its own, and is worth a lot more attention than it will get buried in the comments section.
I too would echo Dishman’s request. The interaction on this thread between Steve and Richard Betts is very important (and refreshing). More people should have it brought to their attention
I would echo the Dishman’s request
And suggest here at my own behest
That you repost these notes
They would get many votes
That agree that you’ve said it the best.
And moreover, it needs to be said
That “debate” should not be declared dead
It is science! Engage!
Their reacting with rage
Gets the audience turned off instead.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
“If I were the CAGW sales manager, I would view one of my key missions as focused marketing to the precise sort of people that make up the audience at Climate Audit, Lucia’s, Jeff Id and to a portion of Watts Up: highly educated professionals, including scientists from other fields, who are interested in the climate debate,
who are technically competent and who haven’t reached an opinion on whether climate is a big, medium or small problem (including me.)”
Steve
As a semi-regular at Bishop Hill, I would add a large part of them to that list 🙂
This is precisely the “target market” I am enjoying having discussions with over at allmodelsarewrong.com. While I disagree with the term marketing, of course – my disagreement with Peter and Bob Ward was about whether one should “spin” the science in a coherent, easy-to-understand (for which read patronising and misleadingly simplified) message – I agree with the point you are making.
Incidentally, while meeting Andrew Montford at the Met Office on Wednesday, and recommending about 3 times that those present read the HSI, I highlighted Rob Wilson as someone who was working very hard on (in my opinion, based on conversations with statisticians Buck, Haslett, Parnell and Rougier) the only approach to palaeoclimate reconstruction that can incorporate all the uncertainties (forward modelling).
Steve- Bishop Hill, obviously. One of my first reads every day. Amended the comment. I think that your concept of “marketing” is probably stereotyped – it implies a need to understand your market/audience. The term “communications” (as in “climate communications”) seems to lead academics all too often to treat audiences as students, rather than investors; as teenagers rather than adults and to blame the audience rather than understand it.
Update- also I was thinking of pre-Climategate reading though this isn’t said in the above. Judy Curry’s blog is post-Climategate.
The market climate science should be targetting should be treated as investors, not students. Only then does the marketing word work – otherwise it just leads to more condescending pabulum. One of the very best things to come out of a pretty awesome thread.
Tamsin, although the context wasn’t clear, now I that I think about it, I was thinking about pre-Climategate circumstances when the discussion here was mostly pretty technical, though focusing on proxies. Judy Curry’s blog is post-Climategate and Andrew’s blog has become much larger post-Climategate.
I am not unconvinced that Richards, Tamsins and other had no effect on his state of mind/ego.
Someone not used to being ‘challenegd’ publically by other scientist, even as something so superficially trivial as a blog name.
Peter thoughts about communication and Tamsin final reply to him, AFFTER my only email to him, may have bruise a little bit?
24 hours before he phished Heartland he received an email from Tamsin replied to Peter, ref his ideas about communicating science
(an extract below).
“I would personally be infuriated if I was dismissed on account of the behaviour of a group of people I talk with. Every single person I talk with has a different viewpoint, and I learn a lot about how better to communicate climate science by listening to them. If we dismiss swathes of people by association then our attempts at communication become futile: we end up only ‘preaching to the converted from an ‘ivory tower’, as it were”.
Of course, if communication of climate science is not your aim, then it is your choice if you prefer to communicate with nobody!
I keep hearing this stuff about
“oh yeah, both sides do it”
but I haven’t seen the militancy from the skeptic side. Perhaps in a few comments here or there, but generally no.
Richard I read that exchange between Gleick and Tamsin Edwards and I thought that he was being very heavy-handed towards her. Also, I read the Barry Woods conversation, and I do not think that Gleick enjoyed that exchange.
However, I am not so certain that any of these conversations triggered his actions against Heartland Institute.
In fairness one needs to consider the Harrison Schmitt factor – if it was Schmitt who was impersonated. Gleick had poured scorn on Schmitt’s thoughts on Arctic ice cover in Feb 11. If this ‘opportunity’ included the excitement of becoming Harrison Schmitt … well, I still don’t understand it but it’s another factor to be taken into account. I agree with Mosher that it was basest of emotions that kicked this off. I’ve floated fear and envy in addition to anger. I’m not offended in the least if people don’t think it’s anything to do with Barry. What’s also interesting is whether anyone else shared these destructive emotions with Gleick at the time, as they talked about the possibility of this action, or whether they triggered them in Gleick without feeling them in the same way. Pretty impossible to say. An inexplicable act at so many levels.
Steve: you’ve got the year wrong. Gleick’s fight with Schmitt was Feb 11, 2011.
I meant February 2011, Steve, I didn’t look up the day – coincidence once again 🙂
You know what’s interesting about your comment? I have puzzled for some time as to why the AGWs were so quiet about CG2. I thought that, following the outcry of CG1 and their failed attempts to discredit it, they had decided to say nothing about CG2 except the move along nothing to see mantra.
But, maybe they were hatching this plot to divert attention away from the real criminals.
Just a thought
The strategy memo has been thoroughly analyzed for signs of fakery , but here is one thing I haven’t seen commented upon. The memo states:
“I propose that at this point it be kept confidential and only be distributed to a subset of Institute Board and senior staff.”
Why in the world would the distribution be limited to a subset of directors. There is nothing in the memo that has not already been disclosed to the full board.
What is more it this strikes me as highly irregular. It is difficult for me to imagine that an officer of a corporation who reports to the entire board would propose to limit of a strategy memo to a subset of the board for no apparent reason and no explanation. That would be a good way to risk being fired, if excluded directors learned of their exclusion.
I also would find it difficult that a board member with fiduciary duties would consent to such a limited distrbution.
The language suggest that it was written by someone with little understanding of corporate governance and fiduciary duties.
Steve: Lucia commented on that – observing that it was very defamatory to Bast.
PaulD57:
I propose that at this point it be kept confidential and only be distributed to a subset of Institute Board and senior staff.
This document was not in the Heartland file system. Brother Glieck sent it only to 15 ‘friends.’ So who would distribute it to anybody at Heartland? PG (err, the real author) is just blowing smoke here to make it look like the document is authentic. Presumably Heartland has long since polled all their Board and senior staff members, and all have denied receiving it. So there should be testimony of a substantial group on one side, and a single ghost on the other.
pauld: it’s been discussed a few times. I look at it as Gleick or whomever saying, in effect, “Look,these people are so evil they will even plot villainous deeds behind the backs of other board members!”
The language suggests what you say it does, but that’s more the result of Gleick’s rage and fervor for the cause than his unfamiliarity with the fiduciary duties of board members. He was out of control.
The irony is that Gleick himself in committing these crimes was doing the same thing to his Pacific Institute board, i.e. plotting villainous deeds behind their backs. Or so it appears. I might be giving the board members more credit than they deserve. I sometimes inclined to believe that more people knew about this than we know at this time.
PaulD57:
I propose that at this point it be kept confidential and only be distributed to a subset of Institute Board and senior staff.
I laughed when I read that. It reminded me of the scene in ‘Back To School’ where Rodney Dangerfield is walking into a board meeting, turns to his secretary and says, “Hold SOME of my calls”.
A subset? Which subset? Without listing who was in the “approved” subset how was anyone going to know who NOT to send it to?
Who are the 15 ‘friends’ Gleick emailed the HI docs + 990 + fake to? Does anyone know this yet? I may have missed it but I don’t think their identities are known.
I’ll wager the 15 include 2 people from DeSmog + Suzanne Goldenberg from the Guardian, Joe Romm at ThinkProgress and Gavin Schmidt from Realclimate.
Dr.Gleick is in fact a very tragic figure, he risks his reputation and career to create a fake strategy document, while Dr.Curry got the whole strategy officially laid out in an email from the Heartland Institute and even the admission to publish it on her website.
Oh the irony, the agony, the pain…. He will tear out his hairs when he sees this: http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/24/why-target-heartland/#more-7356
“The psychological makeup of professional white-collar criminals such as forgers is characterized by a severe sense of inferiority and feelings that their skills are underappreciated, which prompts them to want to usurp the authority of those whose skills the criminal senses the world does appreciate. At the root of this is nothing more complicated than professional jealousy. The result of this jealousy is that forgers endeavor to borrow established experts’ reputation by trickery and consequently try to expand their own egos with this stolen expertise. Very often, the professional white-collar criminal does not need the money. Rather he or she seeks drama, whether public or private, in order to bolster a weakened sense of self.
The professional white-collar criminal is different from the corporate white-collar criminal by virtue of a sense of right and wrong. The first will admit to wrong-doing although add a mitigating circumstance as a justification; the second, however, always maintains innocence. In the case of forgers, a sense of superior but unjustly unrecognized expertise provides self-justification for taking advantage of inferior, more acclaimed experts or ignorant collectors. Such people, the forger thinks, will not miss the money and are too ignorant to appreciate the authentic documents they have, which the forger can truly appreciate but perhaps not afford.”
Interesting.
Steven M,
As the Ethics sub-committee Chairman for an Australian Society with a few thousand members, we have fortunately had only a few cases requiring action. However, the “justification” offered by offenders fits your quote like a glove.
It is also of concern that peers of the accused can be reluctant to act to prevent repetition; and that the elected management can be shy, quoting vague legal repercussions as a reason to do little to nothing.
It’s particulary disquieting to me that it took about 50 years to realise that there were people who would bare-faced scheme in manners similar to those insinuated in this event. If you grew up as the Internet developed, you might have been proud of the altruistic work ethic that was so essential for its early growth. The flip sign of this coin is the carptbaggers who help themselves – through premeditated deception.
Has there been a generational change of ethics, or was it ever such?
I sense that Learned Societies have let us down badly in the past 20 years or so.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0017.104?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Am I reading thid right? in the first e-mail sent by PG, he asks that his ….. e-mail be left on the list. I would take it that would be the real person’s e-mail? And if so, how did PG know what it was?
Maybe he really did recieve the fake document in the mail?
He was corresponding with HI, at the time, over the debate invitation.
From the email chain he had, at the very least, the email addresses of Jim Lakely and James Taylor. There might have been others included in the emails as CC entries.
Many organisations have standard formats for e:mail addresses such as first initial then surname without a full stop ahead of the @, or surname then initial ahead of the @. If you know that, then you can guess the e:mail address of other parties associated with the organisation if you know their names.
Mondo,
The 501C I worked for did exactly that for staff. The board members on the other hand almost always used a personal or business email address.
An inconsistency I noticed was that Heartland responded to the phishing email, affirming that they had added the phishing email address to the Board Directory. The Board Directory that Gleick sent out did not have the phishing email on it. So, either HI didn’t do what they said they did, or Gleick edited that file, or he already had a copy from an alternate source. The latter would explain him knowing a board member’s email address.
He may also have had prior correspondence of his own with a member of the board. Or, some of the board members’ email addresses may be public. Or, the redacted may not be an email address proper. The short length of the redacted portion suggests it is not. If Gleick were impersonating Jeff Madden for example, that may have read “Do not delete my Ironbridge address — just add this one as a duplicate.”
Steve; the directory was compiled slightly prior to the phishing and, as sent out later, had not incorporated the change.
The file sent to Gleick by HI was called:
BoardDirectory-01-18-12.pdf
Note the date in the title 18th January 2012. This pre-dates Gleick having his address addded.
The document is titled for its effective date. The most recent Board meeting, the business of which included the nomination and acceptance of Chuck Lang to the Board membership, was Jan 17. The Directory we have is of the Board as of the conclusion of that meeting, thus titled 01-18-12. The filename in the footer indicates the file itself was created on the 20th, and the PDF was created on the 25th.
This predates the start of Gleick’s phishing expedition. The question is, why? He requested the Directory two weeks after Heartland had stated that the Directory had been updated with the fake email address. If they had updated the Directory on the 27th, why did they send out an obsolete file from the 25th on Feb 10? Perhaps just clerical laxity at HI. Perhaps they did send an updated file, but that isnt the one Gleick forwarded …
Just covering the bases.
Steve – The Board Directory that we have from Gleick was created on the 20th and PDF’d on the 25th. We don’t know if that is the one sent to Gleick. It probably was, indicating that HI had been remiss in not updating either the original Directory document or the PDF.
Gleick asked for the directory on Feb. 6. Perhaps before he did his deeds he wanted to make sure that the two E-mail addresses did not appear in any official Board List that might be circulated. That would have given his game away, wouldn’t it?!
I think he got it from their website.
Some director’s email addresses are published there, including the one I think he impersonated.
Were those on the BOD page? They aren’t there now.
The one I think he impersonated was still up as of now. I’m not going to post a link here.
In any case, there is evidence that Gleick actually directly emailed, a year earlier (in February 2011), the person whom I think he impersonated. So he definitely seems to have known the person’s email address.
I was looking for the original Heartland 990 form (at Heartland) and the uploaded version at Desmogblog to compare them and found this 330 page rant with Google. http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/fake.pdf
It is dated 12 Feb 2012. Someone really does not like Heartland…
This document has been cited by many articles. Mashey apparently blew the whistle on HI by submitting this to the IRS. He claims it contains evidence that their non-profit status should be revoked.
When I got to page three I was reminded of the movie A Beautiful Mind. I couldn’t read any more.
Interesting coincidence that one of the 15 ‘friends’ should have this on their website only days before the HI documents were distributed.
I’ve seen mashey in real life. It brought to mind
” a waist is a terrible thing to mind”
For some reason this made me look up something I’ve long wondered about: the strength of connection between Mashey and Jim Clark, the Silicon Graphics founder who went on to be the initial investor in, and chairman of, Netscape, backing the vision of young (now venerable) Marc Andreesen. Clark denies these days ever saying “Nobody made money from the Internet” when a friend first described Andreesen’s browser to him. But it entered folklore and not without reason – until Clark and Andreesen nobody really had. And Tim Berners-Lee never did of course. We Brits remain sore on his behalf. (But Tim shares with Gleick a MacArthur Genius Fellowship. It’s a real shame the coinage has been devalued with the water man.)
Anyhow, after all that as background, Mashey was a key figure at MIPS who provided the chips for Silicon Graphics and joined SG himself in 1992. But Clark was about to leave, I now learn. So the connection is probably much less than I anticipated. I ask myself such questions because the Silicon Valley approach to the climate debate remains a mystery – but then much of Calfornia does and hopefully will remain so 🙂
@Thomas H
The document that you linked to is dated 2/14/12 and the metadata tells us that it was saved at 1:51:34 (PST?) only 3 minutes after the desmogblog tweet announcing the release of the documents. If there is a 12 Feb 2012 version out floating around it would be interesting to see what changes were made.
Should a timeline of these moving parts be developed at the fakegate website I would think that including all of desmogblog’s related posts would be wise and perhaps revealing. Mashey acknowledges that his report was accelerated to press in response to the release of the stolen and forged documents…
“This report was scheduled to be published in a few days, and by astonishing coincidence, just today we see Heartland Institute Exposed.”
Astonishing indeed.
Sorry, screwed up the date in my post. The file was indeed dated 2/14/12. Still, I find the whole document an amazing testament to being completely absorbed by a subject. Not sure its a sign of mental health but you have to admire the persistence.
The term “obsession” comes to mind.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Mashey and Gleick were in constant contact in the days before the documents were released.
Ain’t that the truth. But I don’t think PG and Mashey were in cahoots.
Mashey had been prolific at Hot Topic until PG’s confession but since then he’s very quiet. Blog comments dried up after andyS (should be familiar to BH regulars) posted the link to the email exchanges at fake.org (that was a thread killer).
In respect to his ‘Fake science’ being gazumped Mashey had this to say:-
John Mashey February 20, 2012 at 4:27 pm
mustakissa:
Well, It would have been nice if they;d waited a week or two (and the fact they didn’t pretty much rules out the people who knew mine was coming, since they wouldn’t have stepped on it.)
BUT, after all the leaked material and mine cross-corroborate, and mine has all the 501(c)(3) material, so I don’t feel at all bad.
And as I think you will see, serious people are reading mine, too.
It just takes a while.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/what-becomes-of-the-broken-heartland/#comment-29717
Prior to that he “really really” wanted everyone to read ‘Fake science’:-
John Mashey February 17, 2012 at 2:08 pm
I really, really urge people to read section 0.4 of Fakery [hotlinked].
[snip]
Private individuals can give money to others to do what they want, but 501(c)(3) public charities must follow certain rules. It ought be very clear from Fakery that no science was being produced, other than occasional work at CSCDGC that was then over-interpreted.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/the-real-climategate-heartlands-hypocrisy-on-display/
That post touts “a major new piece of research by John Mashey” and links to it.
BTW, I’ve recently been promoted to “waiting moderation” at Hot Topic after a period of penance in ‘Permanent Moderation’ for “simple trolling” whereby I had to comment via the spam trap (but at least I wasn’t sent to the ‘Twilight Zone’).
‘Bad Behaviour’ spam trap that was
I think his silence doesn’t disqualify him. Afterall, Gleick went silent after he was named as a suspect. I think the tax thing and Jeff Condon’s Jan 8th post that goes after Gleick and the P.I. for violating the tax code could have gotten Mashey involved back then.
He did post a few more times at that website Hot Topic, but he studiously avoided the issue of Gleick.
Like I said, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were cooperating together on this. The timing alone is suspicious. They two document drops were very close together and could be seen as re-inforcing eachother.
Agree, he’s not disqualified by his silence but his language and approach is different in ‘Fake science’ to that of the memo (although I’ll re-check that).
I’m more inclined to look at the PR language in the memo because Hoggan and Littlemore are exponents. Search this from the memo (sans quotes):-
cultivating more neutral voices with big audiences
Eventually you will find ‘Planning Written and Spoken Messages’
Click to access 0324587902_143597.pdf
This is PR stuff and I don’t think it came from the genuine HI docs. Gleick’s a hydrologist, I don’t think he put these words in the memo because he doesn’t use them. He uses “given” and “subset”. I do concede that “given” is the very first word in the memo so maybe it was a joint effort.
Joint and several liability may be relevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_and_several_liability
Agreed. It seems unlikely that Mashey was directly involved at an early, pre 2/14, stage. I was considering desmogblog’s involvement using Mashey’s comments and the release of his fakexperts expose for context.
I’m confused about February 6, 2012, 8:59 a.m. There’s attached Word Doc:-
Minutes of January 17 meeting,doc (55 KB)
But that’s not on the Smog list:-
(1-15-2012) 2012 Fundraising Plan.pdf 89.87 KB
(1-15-2012) 2012 Heartland Budget (2).pdf 124.62 KB
2 Agenda for January 17 Meeting.pdf 7.4 KB
2010_IRS_Form_990 (2).pdf 2.7 MB
2012 Climate Strategy (3).pdf 96.56 KB
Binder1 (2).pdf 55.36 KB
Board Meeting Package January 17.pdf 6.84 KB
The Agenda for January 17 Meeting is on the list and that states the relevant item whereupon “Climate Strategy” may have been discussed requiring “agenda materials” (as Gleick put it) to be sent to Board Members :-
[11] 2012 Proposed Budget and Fundraising Plan
It’s a simple matter to look at ‘Minutes of January 17 meeting,doc’ to see what was actually discussed and whether the “Climate Strategy” memo was picked over (obviously not but jus sayin).
Fact remains that ‘Minutes of January 17 meeting,doc’ (and CHARLES LANG’s resume etc) are still out there somewhere (unless I’m waay behind on this)
This Tab was prophetic => 42 Best Ways To Los…
Bingo!
Searched for:-
Minutes of January 17 meeting,doc
Found it at desmogblog.
All that is recorded relevant to a “Climate Strategy” memo was:-
“Mr. Bast presented a proposed budget and fundraising plan for 2012. After some discussion, the Board approved both documents without changes.”
I don’t think a “Climate Strategy” memo would have been required by Board members as “agenda materials” in order to discuss strategies and tactics already laid out in the 2 genuine documents that were subject to scrutiny and “Climate Strategy” was apparently not an issue of note anyway.
This, apart from style differences etc, confirms for me that the memo is fake and I’ll now join the rest of the informed world in trying to work out who (and possibly how many) actually scribed the fake (not necessarily the same as who scanned it and compiled the pdf).
I’m very interested in the question of whether Gleick forged the strategy memo, vs. his having received it anonymously via mail prior to the phishing attempt (as he said — or at least strongly implied — in his HuffPo confession). I realize that there are lots of fingerprints in the memo itself pointing to Gleick as the author. And I realize that there are enough similarities between the fake strategy memo and the legitimate documents to make it implausible that the strategy memo could have been forged without the forger having access to those documents.
Basically, I’m looking to list the evidence for and against the “honeypot” scenario, in which someone other than Gleick who had access to the internal Heartland documents forged the memo, intentionally inserting real information, fake information, and clues that would tend to implicate Gleick as the forger, then mailed it to Gleick hoping he’d publicize it, after which it could be used to discredit him.
I’m not trying to suggest that the honeypot scenario is more or less likely than the more straightforward explanation, that Gleick forged the document himself in an attempt to “sex up” the document release. But I’m interested in the arguments for and against both explanations.
I’ve got some commentary on my blog at lies.com that explains more of where I’m coming from. Disclosure: Anyone going there will quickly discover that I have a history as a warmist liberal who complains about people ignoring the “scientific consensus”. For which I actually want to express a certain amount (but only a certain amount) of sincere chagrin. This whole incident, and some of the actions by my fellow warmist travelers (including, but not limited to, Peter Gleick) have created what might be termed “a teachable moment”.
Anyway, I’m looking to be taught, and I’m impressed by the quality of analysis I’ve been finding in threads like this one on a bunch of blogs I never paid much attention to before. So feel free to cut me a new orifice if you feel the need. But if you’d also be willing to comment on the question I ask above, along with your reasons for thinking the way you do, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
I think “Honeypot” fails when inspected
But let’s see which one’s making more sense:
Seems to me Gleick is somewhat protected
By the “Even More Stupid” defense:
Let’s say he got this doc in the mail
And that honeypot source would deduce
That our boy’s ethics surely would fail
(As if “Ethics Head” had any use)
It would mean that Gleick launched his charade
Then found out that the story’s not true
He then Even More Stupidly stayed
On his “publish it!” course.
Now, would you?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
… “warmist” sympathizers
Look at the use of the word “subset” in Gleick’s writings. He loves that word.
As for the honeypot, I think the one thing that makes that less plausible is behavior is so over the top and unexpected. Even by people who have been at the wrong end of his pen are pretty shocked at how far he went, and how much he risked. So to think you could set all this in motion with ‘bait’ (that isn’t even really that shocking) would be a stretch. At best someone could hope for is he just publishes the fake and call him on it, which wouldn’t really be a story. Even at that, why send it to him and just him if you want someone to publish it?
Btw, I think you’ll feel welcome here. Not every blog from the ‘dark side’ is impartial to say the least, but Steve has over the years has made some really clear reasoned arguments that have never been addressed. The reaction of calling this ‘non science’ is what got me to reading the IPCC report and some of the papers, and eventually to reading and running code (I’m a programmer). While I’ve also not drawn drastic conclusions either way, it does seem obvious to me that at least with the IPCC, results and confidences are being overstated, and second opinions unwelcome. YMMV though, and as long as you stay on topic I’m sure your voice will be as welcome as everyone else’s : ).
Shortly after “FakeGate” came to light, the US EPA began to systematically remove any and all references to Peter Gleick and funding of the Pacific Institute from their website database.
Why on earth would the EPA do this? Who might have asked them to scrub their database of grant money related to Peter Gleick and/or the Pacific Institute (around $1.5M at last count)?
As they say, the cover-up is worse than the crime (WaterGate).
Follow the money!
Please follow the money!
Hmmm…
PI updated their Funders’ list yesterday morning.
Click to access funders_2011.pdf
Just happen to have a copy of the previous list, downloaded on 2/17/12:
Click to access Funders%202009.pdf
The EPA has been scrubbed.
Cover up, indeed.
“The EPA has been scrubbed.”
Well, not really. Towards the end of the 2011 list is “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
While it’s true that the 2009 list contains both “Environmental Protection Agency” and “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency”, I don’t think that the elimination of a redundant entry is significant.
While no longer overtly listed, the 2009 list of donors is still accessible (as at 12:05 PST 25 Feb 2012).
Click to access Funders%202009.pdf
The “update” undoubtedly occurred because Gleick, in the revealed email exchange with Heartland regarding his invitation to participate as a speaker, made such a big deal out of Heartland’s decision several years ago to stop publishing their list of donors. The Pacific Institute, of course, was remiss: they had not updated THEIR list since 2009. So, they’ve rushed to get the website updated. There does not appear to have been a 2010 list.
Now, this is certainly a bureaucratic oversight, but somewhat embarrassing nonetheless.
For those keeping score: it appears that the “public sector” (for much of PI’s grant money seems to come from government or quasi-government sources, such as the EPA, the California EPa and similar entities) pays better than (allegedly) Big Oil. Mr. Gleick’s salary (PI’s 2010 990 form) was $152,514, while Mr. Bast was paid $145,135. I wonder if any part of Gleick’s remuneration is performance based…?
Correct. (Note to self- When comparing a lists, thoroughly read them. Don’t stop at the “E”s.”)
Pac. Inst. must have someone monitoring the blog. On the 23rd about 8am I commented in the invitation thread that they were two years out of date.
A sure sign that Lisa Jackson wrote the fake memo. [guffaw]
Seriously, after all that’s happened this week, nothing would surprise me now.
>
> Why then did Peter Glieck confess so quickly!
>
Maybe he realized that, once sufficient suspicious was cast on him (as it had been already), there was a chance that an investigation could have resulted in a subpoena of his e-mail accounts from the Pacific Institute, among other places. This could have revealed many other things to the world about him and his thoughts that he did not wish others to know (ClimateGate all over again, only perhaps worse)?
Is that possible?
Maybe his lawyer advised him that what he did was illegal, and once the FBI / police got involved, they could have starting rooting around in his life & email accounts looking for evidence of his crime. At that point, what else might they find? I’m no lawyer, but is it possible that the lawyer advised him that admitting to the crime right off would divert / prematurely terminate a more all-encompassing investigation?
Nice thought, but sorry.
A person doesn’t confess to something they didn’t do. Futhermore, they will typically confess to something they did do to try to prevent them from being found out for more serious crimes that they also committed. That is just human nature…we’ve all seen it a hundred times.
Actually, false confessions are a rare, but measurable and problematic, phenomenon. See:
http://www.truthaboutfalseconfessions.com/
But granted, that almost certainly has little to do with Gleick. Well, his confession might be false in the sense of being incomplete and containing falsehoods about things he actually did (like forging the strategy memo). But the “false confessions” phenomenon I mentioned above refers to people confessing to having done bad things they did not, in fact, do. Harsh, lengthy, and unrecorded interrogation sessions are often involved. Basically, cops coerce the confession out of suspects by convincing them that it will make things go easier on them, or just by wearing them down.
snip – interesting but OT
Your example is not analogous to Gleick for several reasons, but the main one is that if he was pressured to confess, it was probably by people in his own camp who KNEW he was the perpetrator.
Nor is Gleick facing life in prison. He’s going to come out of this with a measure of fame and adulation, at least in some quarters.
I’m not suggesting that Gleick confessed to something he didn’t do.
I’m suggesting that Gleick might have confessed as early and as easily as he did, because he may have believed or may have been advised that confessing at this point (rather than waiting to see what investigators would come up with) would head off a full, more intrusive investigation, which could have included, among other thing, rooting through his correspondence — possibly uncovering other things, or creating public relations scandals for him and other organizations he may have worked for.
As much as I want the person responsible for this faked memo to be held accountable, as much do I hope that Gleick does not something stupid.
There are three kinds of false confessions.
Confessions from serial confessors. Confessions under torture. And “limited hangout”.
Judging by the existence of not just one, but a whole series of emails with malice aforethought, the suggestion of 15 co-conspirators, and the timing with Heartland’s warm invitation, in the middle of which the emails were started, there is good a priori reason to suspect a “limited hangout” “confession”.
As usual Steve’s first guess is the right answer – at least that’s the way I’ve seen it from the moment the confession occurred. But that reminds me of another remarkable timing issue. Climate Audit was silent on the Heartland affair from when it broke in the afternoon of 14th till 20th February at 6:05 PM CA time. Gleick publishes his limited hangout 7:45pm Huffington Post time. Steve’s back with the surprise news (even to him) at 8:37 PM CA time.
I take nothing away for Lucia and Sherlock M – but how about that for knowing when a story is bubbling up to a nice climax? Gleick may not be a journalist – or not know how to be one – but this guy certainly does.
Steve: I had a bit of writer’s block; was busy on other things, including our club squash pro-am. I was talking to Mosher quite a bit and made a few comments at Lucia’s.
I agree. I love it when steve’s blog is bubbling hot!!
It was more than that today: it was the vehicle for an important encounter between two different worlds and viewpoints. Glad a strange idea of mine may have played a small part 🙂
As usual, I don’t have a substantial point but the self-promotional aspect of the fake memo coupled with PDF scrubbing on Valentine’s day piques my interest. Was this guy dumped recently in favor of a more prominent member of the movement?
I am not surprised that he spilled the beans so quickly. Messages sent from GMail have the custom header
X-Google-Sender-Auth:which presumably would have revealed very specific details about the sender (assuming Google would have responded to a request in the context of an identity theft/phishing investigation). Once focus turns to the perpetrator, there are myriad ways to find out he indeed was responsible. Given that PDFs seem to have been scrubbed during his lunch break, it is reasonable to assume that he was sitting at a computer with either a static or long-lived DHCP assigned address.A very wet ‘lunchbreak’, I assume! Is he know for being a slosh? I only ask!
Sinan, there is a lot of chronological information on Gleick’s activities in January and February. It would be nice to have a wiki with a structured format to insert information in a fixed location, in addition to blog comments.
Mann’s book was released only a few days (~Feb 8) before Gleick wrote the fake memo. Not only is Gleick not a prominent figure in the book, he isn’t even mentioned. Nor is he acknowledged despite Mann’s acknowledgements extending to even the unexpected Chip Knappenburger.
Steve:
Speaking of Acknowledgements, are you acknowledged? 😉
Are you going to review it?
I think he’d be wasting his time.
@Steve Mann’s book was released … Gleick … isn’t even mentioned. Ouch! That must have hurt someone who thought he mattered.
He was almost famous 😉
Producer Elise Pearlstein, Erin Brockovich, Peter Gleick and writer Jessica Yu arrive at ‘Last Call At The Oasis’ Premiere at AMC Yonge & Dundas 24 theater during the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2011 in Toronto, Canada.
Steve McIntyre: You might want to remove this image from the site, because getty may come after it with a copyright claim. They are notorious for that kind of thing.
Pity. Strangely I only saw the film Erin Brockovich for the first time two weeks ago. If that’s the real person Julia Roberts played, I think I can see why her leaning over the counter in a low cut top made such an impact to the young bureaucrat in the records office. Can’t say Peter Gleick improves the line-up for me but it’s great to see where a MacArthur Genius label can get you.
I’ve often thought that there are discussions of events and exchanges blogged about here that would benefit from being presented as a timeline.
I’m thinking, in particular, of the likes of Phil Jones’ claim that his own behaviour was in part attributable to being dunned with “vexatious” FOI requests, despite the fact that the timing shows this is a total fabrication.
There are free-to-use online timeline generators that also allow for collaboration to various degrees that may fit the bill.
I started playing with a few different ones a while back, such as:
http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/mann-08
do a facebook account for the heartland insider
sorry if someone has already said this but I don’t think much of Heartlands’ security – I mean this was classic, clumsily classic phishing!
Also wasn’t Gleiks last tweet on the 15th saying “What have I done, now?” to someone.
One can see the brainstorm happening in real time as he was offered to debate with Heartland! When was the invite sent?
O, I see you’ve already posted on the latter question – the invite. My slow!
Steve, I wrote this on Ben Pile’s blog (climate resistance) and I’ll say it again but if you think it too strong please scrub it. It’s actually inclusive of a quote from Nietzsche’s Twilight Of The Idols, a must read for anyone interested in the logics of ‘causation’:
Can I give a coda to this rediculous Sturm und Strang, especially after the ‘documents” have now become suspect :
Error is not stupidity, error is cowardice!
Was it Barry Wood he tweeted to on the 15th of Feb the above quoted “What have I done, now?” or am I mistaken?
yeah, but I think it was a reply tweet to Barry’s complaint that PG had been abusive to him.
No, that tweet was much later.. (Long after, he tweeted a correction)
He replied to something unconnected, was a bit odd I thought he joined in, with that comment.
sensitive,boastful, nothing to do with it? (on the 15th Feb day after the theft)
…and I think it was the 14th.
I’m not sure of the date – Barry can tell us – but that ‘debate’ he had is very telling! Of course the tweet is ambiguous and can be read in anyway one wishes! But interesting.
I was trying to find that particular ‘debate’ but I can’t seem to find it. Remind me who was PG and could you reference the ‘debate’? I remember seeing it – wasn’t she a Met Office gal? My memory ain’t so good! But it is ‘context’ and, because, very recent. What I remember is his ‘superior’ and condescending attitude! Those that the Gods want to destroy…!
Here’s where I found it, but i don’t tweet so am not confident how to interpret. But if you click on PG’s (Peter Gleick) reply tweet on the 14th (actually around midnite, so the 15th BW time zone) you’ll see what i mean. Of course Barry’s comment above seems odd but he’s obviously the authority here.
http://twitter.com/#!/petergleick
no – 14th BW time, too. Sorry.
I believe the “debate” you’re referring to is here:
http://allmodelsarewrong.com/all-blog-names-are-wrong/
I think the ‘time zone’ is my problem, here! In his ‘time’, what was his ‘time’?
If I cross reference the same tweet on Barry’s page and Gleick’s page they both read the same time. I assume that means the time shown is MY time zone. Like I said, I don’t tweet so I’m not sure. You’ll need to figure it out quick as we have daylight savings kicking in soon.
Nothing new in this, but it’s nicley written:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/why-climate-skeptics-are-winning_631915.html?page=1
Mosher gets a mention . . .
Thanks for the link. I agree that it is a well written summary of what has transpired to date. It still assumes that Gleick’s confession includes a direct reference to the strategy document as the trigger for the event. I do not read it that way.
I don’t know if anyone else has commented on this here at CA, but GregO posted this link to Jeff Condon’s Jan. 8th column over at WUWT. Maybe Jeff had some influence on PG’s state of mind and subsequent behavior?
Just something else to think about. Climate Reality Project released a video yesterday dealing with Heartland and teaching climate denialism in schools. It seems to be very convenient timing for a new relatively sophisticated hit piece. Could there have been a co-ordinated plan involving Gleick, CRP and others that was in danger of falling apart when the material from Heartland was not as incriminating as hoped, causing Gleick try desperate measures.
http://climaterealityproject.org/2012/02/24/heartland-institute-keep-climate-denial-out-of-our-schools/
There is also the matter of the Mashey “report” on Heartland being released at roughly the same time. Mashey is acting as if it wasn’t planned, but as I said earlier, nothing would surprise me now.
I must say I love watching the crowd work on this.
so many different talents and perpectives.
“Heartland, a rightwing thinktank with a core mission of spreading disinformation about climate change”
– Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/25/peter-gleick-leave-pacific-institute-heartland-leak?newsfeed=true
“The mission of The Heartland Institute is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.”
– Heartland Institute
http://heartland.org/mission
For the record.
Lewis Deane and others have commented that HI seems rather dim to fall for this repeated phishing – a board member apparently changing his email address, and apparently mislaying documents he’d been sent previously.
Is it not possible that they were perfectly aware what was going on (with the request coming at exactly the same time Gleick refused to attend their dinner on grounds of non-disclosure of financial details) and kept the correspondence going on for long enough to identify him with certainty, figuring that the damage to Gleick would be worse than the damage to HI?
Just floating a possibility to be shot down…
Not plausible. Because their most valuable info is their donors, and they already knew their donors had been targeted before.
It’s routine in an office, for to ask for papers to be re-issued if you don’t have them handy. An admin assistant wouldn’t even question that.
As someone who has been the victim of such a phishing attack before, I’d say unlikely. There’s plenty of sophisticated encryption technologies, to guard against hacking, but when it comes to this type of attack, you’re just dealing with human nature, which is basically trusting.
I work at a bank, and we used to have headhunters calling repeatedly, impersonating everyone you could imagine, fishing for the names and job descriptions of people in the bank. When they impersonate someone you are supposed to be deferential toward (a client, or in this case a board member) it’s tricky because you don’t want to be rude, just in case it really is a client.
The best defense is to be very friendly, and ask for a number to call them back and discuss.
Richard Betts and Richard Drake
My apologies for bad wording indeed. What I intended to convey is this: “Gleick felt humiliated (by Betts, etc), not because he was actually being humiliated, but because he was already primed to take offence even when none was intended – as can be seen from his response to Lakely’s invitation to the Heartland event”. Indeed, Richard Betts, Barry Woods and Jim Lakely were all clearly striving to be courteous at all times.
Pat Michaels wrote at WUWT
All – there is one thing that is bothering me. On Feb 20 Crikey.com came out with an interesting announcement:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/02/20/heartland-launches-legal-action-against-climate-change-bloggers-journos/
Frozen version
The page says (in the code) it’s been published 2012-02-20T13:11:12+1100
Now as we know, the NYT has published nothing of the sort, actually, Gleick confessed sometimes around midnight GMT between Feb 20 and Feb 21, a little less than 24 hours later.
I wonder if this missed announcement has anything to do with Gleick being forced to reveal himself as the Gleickgate perp.
I have a comment in moderation now because it has two links…oops!!
Woo hoo! Congratulations for winning the Best Canadian site award in the Bloggies!
And congrats also to Jo Nova, Anthony Watts and Tallbloke, who won their respective categories. A great victory for integrity all round.
You are going to have to start a thread on this, or well-wishers will mess up all your other threads 😉
If he used GMail to send the files out and “deleted” the account, the account will still exist at Google. Maybe someone needs to ask them to keep that account and its contents if there is likely to be legal events ?
I imagine/hope that the FBI are on the case and have asked Google not to delete anything relevant. I assume anyway that Google does not automatically delete everything just because someone ‘deletes’ an account.
have you noticed how the tribes have retreated from direct engagement
The tribes (who live under bridges) have disappeared from CA, WUWT and Judith Curry’s blog that I know of. I guess that the Gleick debacle and the Bloggies awards have temporarily taken the wind from their sails.
BTW it may be a coincidence, but last week one of Australia’s most rabid CAGW advocates, Clive Hamilton, launched an attack on a privately funded policy institute demanding to know the sources of their funding. Clive, for those who understandably have not heard of him, is a ‘public intellectual’ who once called for the suspension of democracy to implement CAGW policies that were being rejected by the dumb oxen called the voters.
Sadly, the Gleick confession happened just as he was building up a head of high blood pressure on the topic. He has been silent since.
I notice that that the UK’s Global Warming Policy Foundation has also been targeted to publicise its donors recently. Fancy that! Perhaps, like the Arab Spring, it can all be put down to Twitter.
Brilliant. It has nipped a lot of such things in the bud in my book.
It’s been organised – and not all on Twitter. But they felt they needed their ‘counter-Climategate’ as well as these specious attacks. I’m convinced Gleick knew that part. It’s still remains a mystery why he thought this desperate gambit would provide it.
Re Twitter: as we say in Australia, ‘it was a joke, Joyce’. Of course it’s not a coincidence. Mandia, who described Gleick as a hero, is quite likely at the heart of this so far spectacularly unsuccessful strategy.
Steve McIntyre, Tamsin, Richard Betts,
A very constructive series of comments. Perhaps there is hope for a reasoned discussion.
I would add only that both sides would do well to stay away from the political. When those in support of restricting GHG emissions start the discussion with demands for “economic justice”, you can be certain that a large portion of the audience has already made up their minds… they will automatically reject, and may not even listen to, anything that follows that kind of comment. Anybody who honestly cares about reducing GHG emission needs to understand that any proposed reduction in GHG emissions has to be politically realistic; it is a huge and costly change which will require a lot of convincing, admission of uncertainty, willingness to change course based on evolving understanding, and acceptance of quite unpleasant compromises.
Whatever happens (or doesn’t happen!), it will never be a “died-and-gone-to-heaven” left wing fantasy come true. The rhetoric and actions of Peter Gleick (and not just in recent weeks) are perfect examples of why the “marketing effort” has utterly failed so far. The message to those who want to reduce GHG emissions is clear: don’t behave this way if you truly believe that what you are advocating is needed.
This paragraph in the latest on the Gleick affair on WUWT links well with traditional CA concerns:
David Ross’s overview repays study.
2 Trackbacks
[…] acquired confidential documents by impersonating a board member of the Heartland Institute. That was falsehood […]
[…] being forced to reveal himself as the Gleickgate perp. BTW make sure you don’t miss out this thread at Climate Audit. Share this:MoreLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. Categories: AGW, Catastrophism, […]