“Left’s Attempt At Their Own ClimateGate Based on Forged Document?”, as pondered by Ace of Spades:
Megan McArdle was, to my knowledge, the first to raise red flags over the authenticity of documents from the Heartland Institute, supposedly showing them acting all evil and stuff about the climate.
Most of the documents are real and are fairly bland. But one memo is in dispute. This memo, by McArdle’s reading, seems written not from the point of view of a climate change skeptic — who would naturally see himself as the good guy — but from the point of view of a climate change zealot impersonating a climate change skeptic — and is thus written, oddly, as if the person doing the writing believes himself to be a bad guy.
Advertisement(My own take: I skipped this because I think the Likely Forged Document itself is pretty bland, too. If this is an attempt at a takedown, it seems pretty subtle to me. But subsequent events seem to show that Megan McArdle was likely right and my lack of interest was likely wrong.)
5. The worldview is different. In my experience, climate skeptics see themselves as a beleaguered minority fighting for truth and justice against the powerful, and nearly monolithic, forces of the establishment. They are David, to the climate scientists’ Goliaths. This is basically what the authenticated documents sound like.The memo, by contrast, uses more negative language about the efforts it’s describing, while trying to sound like they think it’s positive. It’s like the opposition political manifestos found in novels written by stolid ideologues; they can never quite bear (or lack the imagination) to let the villains have a good argument. Switch the names, and the memo could have been a page ripped out of State of Fear or Atlas Shrugged.
Basically, it reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern.
McArdle’s theory is that the real information (bland stuff about donors) was in fact obtained by some lefty, but it wasn’t juicy enough. So someone faked up a Memo, basically a digest of the information in the other documents (or through Google), but wrote about that information in the most negative way possible, in order to juice up a pretty weak leak.
Stacy McCain adds, “In Apologizing for Global Warming Hoax, Peter Gleick Blames His Victims”:
The Heartland Institute was victimized by global warming fanatics who published stolen documents and at least one forged document in their attempts to portray the Institute as dishonest.
One of the central figures in this criminal hoax was Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, who uses the Huffington Post to offer an excuse:
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.
“It’s not my fault!” The end justify the means: The alleged evil of their opponents excuses any shoddy smear Gleick and his allies may perpetrate against them. And despite their admitted amorality, they wonder why we doubt their claims to “science”?
If it turns out that Gleick had a 2012 RatherGate moment, it wouldn’t be the first time that radical environmentalism has cooked the books, as we’ll discuss on the following page.
Well,like anAL GOREtentive told his pack of pit chihuahuas…”By any means necessary”
It does not take a subtle appreciation of English prose to read the fake memo and see that the author is writing as though he is conspiring to do something “wrong”. The real problem here is the large number of young adults with college credentials who want to believe obviously dodgy information just because it gives them a chance to act out their beliefs. I wonder whether these childish individuals desperately searching for some sort of pseudo-religious motivation to yell, scream, and hurt can grow up quickly enough to avoid destroying the wealth and interpersonal trust inherited from previous generations. While it may be true that “If the fool persists in his folly, he will become wise.”, there is no promise that this wisdom will occur before, instead of after, the foolish behavior results in widespread destruction.
It’s not a Science; it’s a religion
No matter how much proof their “isn’t” the loons only scream louder
Taxing animal for farting is already alive and well in the EU
Carbom taxes on all planes in and out of Great Britain
The EPA shutting down 65,000 farmers for a smelt ?
And now Obama wants a Global Minimum Tax ??
The list is getting longer.
EPA regulation is choking the economy to the tune of $1 Trillion and climbing
We need a vote that gets this guy and his administration back to Chicago !!
“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.”
So the skeptics are the ones trying to “prevent this debate” by disagreeing???? It sounds like the only “debate” this jackass wants to have is the one about how many billions of dollars we’re going to give him and his pals to “fix” the problem they otherwise don’t want to discuss. Someone please free us from “scientists” like this fraudulent scumbag.
“Here’s the thing. Whichever side of the global warming debate you’re on …”
Here’s the thing: *they don’t think it’s a debate*. Really. Look at the comparisons Gore and Pelley draw: the civil rights movement, the Holocaust. Now why would they conflate (alleged) science with historical fact? Simply because the latter is ironclad, irrefutable, “settled”.
This sleight of hand gives away the game. Of course history has its debates too — but note the cheerleaders conveniently choose examples with clear-cut “good and bad guys”. This is about power, not debates. Whatever works to muzzle the “enemies” is fair game; this Heartland memo is merely the latest example.
It’s not science: it’s politics.
islam is not a religion: it’s politics too.
This is how it works in socialist/totalitarian regimes. The first casualty is truth.
This story has more to come–one the most inflammatory documents Peter Gleick sent has been revealed as a forgery by Peter Gleick
1-metadata show that it came from the West Coast – Gleicks
2-the style of writing and poor punctuation in the forged document is consistent with Peter Gleick other writings.
Peter Gleick is in very deep trouble
1-he has already admitted to theft and fraud
2-he has now been revealed as a forger
Any even tenured academic would be fired for such behavior and would be employed in academia
-or any position of trust-ever again
Are you serious?
Trouble?
He will be rewarded, handsomely so, with (another) make-work job on the taxpayers dole, smug and condescendingly proud of his “martyrdom” in the fight against his enemies.
Think Bill Ayres
I taught a course called “Environmental Ethics.” Five students in it were in a program called “Environment Science,” which required no science – no biology (except one course in Field Ecology), no geology, no physics, etc. What they learned was to engage in politics. So I am not surprised that the self-styled “environmentalists” are ignoramuses.
The mystery solved on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkf9yhDx7RQ
Hey, just when I get skeptical about warming, we have the warmest or second warmest winter in the history of taking temperatures around here. On the other hand, Anchorage…
….and the coldest in europe in many years. The more things change the more they stay the same. The US specifially the lower 48 are the only warm places this winter. But since last winter was colder and more snow in the north east than any in over 10 years, I would guess it equils out.
Yes, I couldn’t believe it when my brother in Berlin emailed me that it was -10F. It hasn’t been -10 in my neck of the woods, Eastern Massachusetts, for thirty years. But that’s what makes global warming or cooling very difficult to figure out, which does not, though, prove that it is not happening.
As I have said before, every glacier that I have seen in North America and Iceland, has been receding for many years. That and the newly opening NW passage is pretty conclusive evidence of cumulative warming. But my approach is more about how to take advantage of warming, rather than stopping it. Greenlanders can grow a lot more veggies now, maybe the way they could in the MWP. My growing season is certainly longer.
They used to call this type of fake journalism “agitprop” when it was published in Pravda and the Daily Worker.
No.
She was the first one in the MSM, but give credit to Steve Mosher. He is one of the behind-the-scenes guys active on the climate blogs. He spotted the linguistic idiosyncrasies. McArdle actually credited him.