Gleick and America’s Dumbest Criminals

Feb 25, 2012 – 1:07 PM

Some years ago, Daniel Butler hosted a television show called “America’s Dumbest Criminals” (trailer), entry to which Peter Gleick richly deserves.
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Heartland Publishes Gleick Emails

Feb 24, 2012 – 1:18 PM

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.

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Heartland’s Invitation to Gleick – Details

Feb 23, 2012 – 1:08 PM

Jim Lakely of Heartland had said on twitter that Heartland had invited Gleick to speak and that Gleick had refused. I asked Lakely if they would provide me with copies of this correspondence (both to confirm their story and to pin down details of the chronology). Lakely has just provided me with this correspondence together with permission to publish.

I am examining further details of this chronology and plan a post summarizing my present interpretation of events, either later today or tomorrow.
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Gleick and the NCSE

Feb 22, 2012 – 10:36 PM

On January 13, 2012, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland CA announced that it was adding climate change as a new product line. Gleick’s Climate Rapid Response team-mate Scott Mandia praised this diversification:

“The cavalry has arrived. NCSE, with its passion and experience defending science in our schools, will ensure that teachers can educate students about climate change without fear of reprisal.”

The NCSE proudly announced the appointment of “leading-climate-change-expert” Peter Gleick to their board of directors in unambiguous terms:

Dr. Peter Gleick, president and co-founder of The Pacific Institute, has joined NCSE’s board of directors. Gleick, a world-renowned water expert, will advise NCSE on its new climate change education initiative.

ALthough the announcement was unambiguous, on Feb 20, the NCSE announced , not that Gleick had resigned, but that, despite their previous announcement, Gleick had never joined their board:

On the same day as he posted his statement, however, he apologized to NCSE for his behavior with regard to the Heartland Institute documents and offered to withdraw from the board, on which he was scheduled to begin serving as of February 25, 2012. His offer was accepted.

The NCSE also had a cameo in early discussions of the affair. It was quoted in the first New York Times article here.

As part of their new product line, the NCSE planned to develop a K-12 curriculum and took note of Heartland’s plan for a rival product line almost immediately. Late in the afternoon of Feb 14, John Timmer of Ars Technica tweeted (@j_timmer).

Note the Heartland docs indicate they’re working on a school curriculum. Should sound familiar to the @NCSE.

This was re-tweeted by NCSE program director Josh Rosenau who commented(@JoshRosenau) at 6:14 PM Eastern:

Saw it, and am intrigued. I guess someone’s worried about @NCSE’s climate change efforts!

The next day (Feb 15) at 11:47 AM, mem_somerville @mem_somerville that they should turn the festivities into a fundraiser for NCSE:

I’m thinking we should turn #deniergate into a fundraiser for NCSE, just like we did with PP. bit. bit.ly/xXWtC0

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Gleick’s AGU Resignation

Feb 22, 2012 – 6:40 PM

On Tuesday (after much amusement at Anthony’s), the AGU announced that, on Feb 16, Peter Gleick had resigned as Chairman of the AGU Committee on Scientific Ethics for “personal, private reasons”.

David Appell has an excellent interview with Michael McFadren, President of AGU, at his blog here. Appell asked why they didn’t announce it at the time; McFadren said that they were waiting to arrange a replacement. Reasonable people can disagree on whether AGU was hoping to make the change without drawing attention to the change.

Appell, a long-time green reporter, asked some interesting questions about the appropriateness of McFadren’s appointment of Chris Mooney as an AGU director, given Mooney’s partisanship, with Appell colorfully characterizing Mooney as someone who seemed to want to be the “Ann Coulter of the left”. (No discussion of Ann Coulter please or whether this comparison is apt.) McFadren appeared totally blind to the insensitivity of appointing Mooney and reiterated that Mooney was appointed merely for his communications skills.

Check it out here As an extra inducement, Mosher’s first (extant) identification of Peter Gleick as the author of the fake memo is at Appell’s blog, but you’ll have to look. (Mosher’s first online identification of Gleick was elsewhere, but the comment was deleted by the blog proprietor.)

If the 16th is the actual day of Gleick’s resignation (and I don’t see why AGU would err on this point), it raises an interesting question of why Gleick resigned on that day? And why did he only resign his chairmanship of the AGU Scientific Ethics committee and not other appointments (e.g. his directorship of NCSE).

Gleick’s identification as the probable author of the fake memo was firmly in play at Lucia’s here, with Mosher’s 1:52 pm (blog time; 2:52 pm EST) laying out the basis of Gleick’s identification (though Mosher let Lucia fill in the blanks.) During the rest of the afternoon, other commentators filled in other blanks, consolidating the identification of Gleick as the author of the fake memo.

Even with the accumulating evidence, it was still almost impossible to believe that someone of Gleick’s age and position would author the fake memo or commit identity fraud. The instinct of many, if not most, commentators was a low-level CAGW activist connected somehow to Gleick, perhaps one connected with the NCSE, given the anomaly of “dissuading teachers from teaching science”. Gleick was a “person of interest”.

On Feb 17, Pielke Jr asked Gleick, but, unknown to everyone, Gleick had already resigned as
Chair of the AGU Scientific Ethics committee.

Thus, it wasn’t Pielke’s question that caused the resignation. Lucia and I chatted today. She thinks that someone from AGU must have confronted Gleick in the late afternoon or evening of the 16th, pointed to him being mentioned as connected with the Heartland memo and asked him in indirect terms whether there was anything that would interfere with him performing his duties as chair of the ethics committee. Perhaps they promised to make a change quietly without drawing attention and, on that basis, Gleick resigned.

Lots of things that don’t make sense right now.

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Peter Gleick Confesses

Feb 20, 2012 – 8:37 PM

See Andy Revkin here and Gleick’s blog here.

Since the release in mid-February of a series of documents related to the internal strategy of the Heartland Institute to cast doubt on climate science, there has been extensive speculation about the origin of the documents and intense discussion about what they reveal. Given the need for reliance on facts in the public climate debate, I am issuing the following statement.

At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute’s climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute’s apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it.

Given the potential impact however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. 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. I can explicitly confirm, as can the Heartland Institute, that the documents they emailed to me are identical to the documents that have been made public. I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication.

I will not comment on the substance or implications of the materials; others have and are doing so. I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved. Nevertheless I deeply regret my own actions in this case. I offer my personal apologies to all those affected.

Peter Gleick

No one should feel any satisfaction in these events, which have been highly damaging to everyone touched by them, including both Heartland and Gleick.

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Heartland

Feb 20, 2012 – 6:05 PM

Obviously there’s been lots of discussion in the past few days about the Heartland documents and, in particular, the fake Heartland 2012 Strategy memo. I presume that CA readers are familiar with the discussion at climate blogs and elsewhere. I’ve been busy on other matters this week, but have followed the discussions and commented a few times at Lucia’s. Having not posted thus far, it’s hard to know where to begin. Continue reading →

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Gifford Miller vs AR5 (FOD) Reconstructions

Feb 11, 2012 – 3:14 PM

Miller et al (GRL 2012) url has attracted much recent attention for its argument that volcanism can account for the MWP-LIA transition. In my opinion, it is important for another reason, a reason not mentioned and apparently not noticed by the authors themselves. It offers a highly plausible re-interpretation of Arctic varve series, an interpretation that, in effect, stands the temperature interpretation of the important Big Round Lake, Baffin Island varve series on its head. Arctic varve series, including Big Round Lake, have become a mainstay of temperature reconstructions used in AR5 (FOD) and likely to be used in AR5 (e.g. Kaufman et al 2009) and Miller’s interpretation of varve data impacts multiple “new” AR5 studies. CA readers are familiar with climate scientists having trouble with the orientation of varve data e.g. the use of Tiljander’s varve data in Mann et al 2008-2009 (the latter frequently cited in AR5).
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Andrew Montford on the Transformation of the Royal Society

Feb 9, 2012 – 12:31 PM

Andrew Montford’s lucid account of the transformation of the UK Royal Society (here) starts with the 1753 “advertisement” to their journal, Philosophical Transactions:

…it is an established rule of the Society, to which they will always adhere, never to give their opinion as a Body upon any subject either of Nature or Art, that comes before them.”

It ends with the rueful worry of one of its fellows that an institution with such an eminent tradition has now become merely “another policy-driven quango”.

The role of recent presidents Robert May, Martin Rees and Paul Nurse comes in for special scrutiny. The latter two have been mentioned at CA on a couple of occasions. Rees acquiesced acquiesced in the University of East Anglia’s false claims that the papers examined by the Oxburgh panel had been selected by the Royal Society as representative of the issues in dispute – when in fact they were highly unrepresentative of CRU papers actually criticized at Climate Audit and had been selected by Trevor Davies of the University of East Anglia in a submission putting CRU in the best possible face.) Paul Nurse (as discussed in Montford’s paper) massively misrepresented the character and impact of FOI requests to East Anglia and has failed to respond to any requests for evidence supporting his untrue claims.

The report is written in Andrew Montford’s usual lucid style.

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Acton “Tricks” the ICO

Feb 6, 2012 – 2:14 AM

On Friday, the UK Information Commissioner ruled against my request for (1) the attachments to the Wahl-Briffa email that contained Wahl’s surreptitious changes to the AR4 Report from the language sent to reviewers to language much more favorable to Mann and Wahl; (2) Wahl and Ammann (2004, submitted), cited in the AR4 First Draft, the archive to which has been destroyed by IPCC.

The ICO accepted the university’s argument that they were not in possession of documents on the back-up server in police possession, a ruling apparently at odds with the Tribunal’s recent overrule in the Keiller case, which was noted up and, in my opinion, implausibly distinguished.

I’ll discuss this aspect of the ruling in another post. In today’s post, I’m going to discuss an important obiter in the ICO decision, an obiter in which the university unsuccessfully attempted to reconcile unequivocal declarations by both Acton and Muir Russell to the Parliamentary Committee that “all” the emails were available with the contradictory statements in their FOI refusals that the university no longer possessed key emails. Unfortunately, the university’s attempt was based on more untrue and unsupported assertions, this time to the ICO.
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