Global Warming on Free Republic
Posted on 01/21/2013 5:50:38 AM PST by Kaslin
A prominent global warming scientist, Peter Gleick, who was chairman of the ethics committee at the American Geophysical Union, admitted last year that he stole some documents- and he may have forged others- from the conservative think-tank the Heartland Institute. But that’s all in a day’s work for a work-a-day climate warrior. The important thing isn’t the quest for the truth in global climate research, but, as Charlie Sheen would say, winning. With winning comes cash.
Because for some time it’s been clear, that in the climate debate, instead of actually accomplishing something worthwhile, all the attention will be on the winners and losers. And some losers in the debate are much bigger than others.
For example:
“In the field of climate science, when someone — especially skeptics — did something ethically questionable or misrepresented facts,” writes MSNBC, “scientist Peter Gleick was usually among the first and loudest to cry foul. He chaired a prominent scientific society's ethics committee. He created an award for what he considered lies about global warming.”
No word yet whether Gleick will create an award for forgery. I hear the pool of candidates isn’t deep this year since all of the forged data from Climategate has already gone pro.
The authentic documents stolen from Heartland were released by Gleick, along with some documents the Heartland folks say are forgeries.
The real documents were prepared by the think-tank to counter the global warming bunk that is being taught in US schools.
I know about the global warming hysteria that is taught at the elementary and secondary level, because my kids come home everyday and instead of telling me about how they’ve learned to read and write and how great George Washington was, they instead tell me that “transfer calculations indicate that strong gradients in both ozone and water vapor near the tropopause contribute to the inversion.” Ah, huh. I think neither they, nor their teachers, nor the authors, nor myself, knows what that means.
Still I hope the question is on the ACT. But I doubt it.
This is a very serious issue.
How serious?
“Heartland has not said whether any of the documents it unwittingly released were altered,” reports the LA Times, “and Gleick said he did not change any of the material he got. But several of the key points the purported strategy document makes are backed up in the material Gleick obtained from Heartland. Most notably, in a fundraising document, Heartland identifies one of its priorities as reshaping the discussion of climate change in K-12 classrooms.” Ohmygosh!
Well let’s just say that the Heartland Institute is in BIG trouble now.
How dare these right-wing troglodytes have a scientific position contrary to the United Nations Interplanetary Council on Wealth Transfer and Class Envy.
No, no. no. You can’t do that. Not under an Obama administration.
Yeah sure: The UN misspends our money on their sex scandals, mismanagement of programs designed to secure peace and prosperity and engage in habitual human rights abuses by a majority of the members states who make up the one-world-government to-be. But clearly, those problems aside, they have the skill to put together a group of scientists who can report objectively on the science behind global warming; especially the part where the remedies include:
1) You footing the bill; and
2) They get your money. Don’t we mere mortals know that our puny powers of reason and deduction are impervious to the powers granted to the Society of Ethical Geophysicists by the government of the United Nations?
That’s why the scientist, Geophysicist Ethicist Mr. Gleick, is now being hailed by the director of research for Greenpeace, Kert Davies, as a “hero,” says the LA Times.
Most other commentary declaims Gleick's methods, while not-so subtly applauding his aims.
The Atlantic's Megan McArdle has had about the only rational response, concluding that Gleick is crazy:
And ethics aside, what Gleick did is insane for someone in his position--so crazy that I confess to wondering whether he doesn't have some sort of underlying medical condition that requires urgent treatment. The reason he did it was even crazier. I would probably have thrown that memo away. I might have spent a few hours idly checking it out. I would definitely not have risked jail or personal ruin over something so questionable, and which provided evidence of . . . what? That Heartland exists? That it has a budget? That it spends that budget promoting views which Gleick finds reprehensible?
When conservatives question global warming, we are lying, apparently. When liberals steal in the name of global warming, it can't be a sign of desperation, poor science or character. No; they must be crazy, with due respect to Ms. McArdle, who I believe is sincere .
I guess since liberals haven't yet embraced retroactive abortions, the next, best thing they can do is label someone crazy when they want to cut them from the herd, as they did recently with Media Matter's David Brock.
Skeptics- or rather, deniers, as we’d much rather be called- will point out that increasingly the public is distrustful of global warming science.
Despite a little bounce in the polls, 60 percent of US respondents to a Rasmussen survey don’t think that global warming is man made. “In a January survey of the top 22 policy priorities for the US,” writes Our World 2.0 “the public ranked climate change dead last, according to the Pew Research Center.”
“When government muzzles scientists for political reasons, it cuts at the fundamental principals of good science,” Stephen Hwang, professor of general internal medicine at the University of Toronto told Our World.
But when the doctors and scientists seek to muzzle the rest of us it’s all A.O.K.
And for some weird reason the public just doesn’t trust those scientists who are fully sponsored and funded by the UN, US, UK and other government grants, which in turn were funded by you.
By talking about it, you troglodytes just emit more carbon. Good going.
Your proper role is to just shut your big, fat mouth and fork over a carbon credit or cash equivalent so the truth-seeking can continue unimpeded.
Editor's note: Peter Gleick, after spending time in liberal purgatory, was reinstated in his job as president of the Pacific Institute not withstanding the theft. The New York Times approves:
After an internal investigation, Peter Gleick has been reinstated as president of the Pacific Institute, the environmental group largely focused on water and climate that he founded in 1987. The career of this seasoned and lauded scientist and policy analyst ran off the rails when Gleick masqueraded as a member of the board of the anti-regulatory Heartland Institute to obtain internal documents on budgets and strategies. (He undertook this deception even as he was heading a task force on scientific ethics for the American Geophysical Union.)
Peter Gleick was actually honored at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference last month!
Missing the main point.
Those who do such things are more likely driven primarily by ideological motives, not financial ones.
So where is the Heartland Institute’s big law suit against this guy?
So where is the Heartland Institute’s big law suit against this guy?
Precisely. The "climate change/global warming" hysteria is not about climate change, global warming or (certainly) science ... it's about power and control.
I'm afraid I don't entirely agree.
According to you, and the original author, those on the other side of the issue always and by definition have ulterior motives, money and/or power.
The problem is that a lot more people will do really bad things for a cause in which they truly believe than will do so for their personal benefit. See the number of people killed by true believers in the 20th century vs. those killed for money or solely to gain personal power. As Orwell pointed out, nobody in the world is more dangerous than an idealist with a machine gun.
Also, you can always find people to kill for money, but finding those willing to die for it is a lot tougher. See suicide bombers.
Though money/power/belief are generally intertwined, and I suspect those at the top of any ideological movement are less likely to be true believers.
Posted before finishing my thought.
It should be fairly obvious that one cannot effectively oppose the true believer with the same methods that work for those driven solely by what they see as personal advantage.
It should be pointed out that we cannot consistently applaud the Climategate whistleblower and denounce this gentleman.
At least insofar as the issue is theft, not forgery.
Ahhh... to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel...
Of COURSE we can applaud the Climategate whistleblower and condemn Gleick! One was exposing academic and scientific fraud in public-funded supposedly-transparent researchers. The other stole documents of a private corporation that neither he nor the public had any right to, and which showed absolutely NO crime, wrongdoing, or other evidence of chicanery.
Sorry, but the context is everything. Is police wiretapping with a warrant the same as you recording your neighbor in the shower with a telephoto lens? This moronic wavering on matters of principle based on a desire to seem "fair" (especially when it has nothing to do with actual fairness) is the reason the GOP-e is constantly selling us out. It sure as heck shouldn't be the basis of argument on Free Republic...
True, many who are motivated by good intentions (that is, the "true believers") end up doing "bad things", but it's those in power -- those who are motivated by a need to control and impose their will on others -- who do "bad things" to tens of millions of people. Those are the ones that must be defeated.
My career was as a meteorologist, working for the Department of Defence. I interacted with a number of peers. With those who supported the hypothesis of AGW, I would tell them that the science was not even close to proving the case.
Their response was generally of this sort: Well, the science is not there, but if we wait for the science to be proved, it will be too late! Besides, look at what is required to respond to AGW. It requires more conservation of resources, less dependence on petroleum, and generally more control over society by experts. These are all very good things, so if we are wrong about AGW, it does not really matter, no harm comes from it, only good things.
This is a subset of the case that people are much less sceptical of “facts” that lead to actions which they want done. Anyone can fall to that sort of bias. It would not make a difference if the ability to reinforce or refute those views was pretty much the same across the political spectrum.
But, it is not. The MSM is in lockstep with the “more government is good” position, so it overpowers the opposition a hundred to one.
This has all of the hallmarks of a cult-religion. The danger is that they're forcing all of us into their congregation.
The sacrament of this religion is that all aspects of energy use are allocated by the state.
This must be resisted, with force.
That is where they are completely wrong. Humans can always make any situation worse. Just this winter people have been freezing to death in their flats in Ireland because of these feel good morons. The price of energy in Ireland required to stay alive in winter time, has risen dramatically because of inefficient green policies. These feel good greenies could be responsible for the deaths of millions if we enter the next Ice Age with retarded energy production capabilities.
Both of you are correct. They are statists. They see more government as always more beneficial if they get to tell the government what to do. They have generally been employed by the State all of their lives, and see themselves as the agents of the State, the “experts” who are much better at telling everyone else how to live.
They actually believe this.
Global Warming on Free Republic
Not at all true, at least insofar as I understand the facts of the two cases. In Climategate, unethical and dishonest behavior was exposed, while here, as even his fellow traveler wrote he proved what? That heartland had a budget and planned to use it to advance the debate on the issue, while advocating for the position of the donors? Onoz! Hardly apples and oranges, even before considering the difference in how the "incriminating" material was obtained in the two cases.
Oops! Meant to say that it was hardly apples to apples, or else that it WAS apples and oranges.
Well, except that "more control over society by experts" thingy. Any control over any aspect of my life by anyone other than me, especially some self-righteous self-important tool who's convinced he's smarter than I, is NOT a good thing.
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