Scientist Peter Gleick authenticated the documents revealing Heartland Institute's plans to propagandize American school children with corporate-funded lies on climate change, admitting he leaked the documents which he had received directly from them.
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.
Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute, explained that an anonymous tip led him to act as investigative journalist. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Gleick apologizes for making the selfless decision to expose Heartland's illegal lobbying disguised as educational activities. Heartland fraudulently claims non-profit status, in my opinion, using taxpayer subsidies to promote positions that protect profits of its corporate sponsors. Ironically, Heartland poses as libertarian while it depends on non-profit status subsidies from taxpayers. Gleick lied to Heartland to expose their involvement in a conspiracy to teach lies to children and defraud taxpayers. In my opinion that was a difficult decision to make, but not an unethical one. Journalists and police commonly use deceptive means to expose criminal wrong doing and society rewards them for it. IMO, Gleick should not apologize for revealing apparent illegal lobbying by an organization with non-profit status. The public has a right to know.
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.
Update including RL Miller's comment
The document that was "leaked" to Peter Gleick may have been a fake. That raises the questions "who sent it to him & why?" Like Dan Rather, he may have been set up. Gleick, who writes for the business-oriented magazine, Forbes, may have been set up to get him removed from Forbes.
Better question to ask: was the memo a setup? (3+ / 0-)
Gleick received a memo from an anonymous source that had his name featured prominently. He's one of the few sane writers who has a well established platform in a very conservative business magazine (Forbes). We need to be asking: who sent him that memo, and why?
The world is on pace for 11 degrees F warming. Nothing else in politics matters. @RL_Miller
...end update...
"Libertarian" Heartland is attempting to use legal threats to stifle free speech about denialgate. That's beyond ironic for an organization that smeared climate scientists for months after receiving and publishing their stolen e-mails.
"We are consulting with legal counsel to determine our next steps and plan to release a more complete statement about the situation tomorrow. In the meantime, we ask again that publishers, bloggers, and Web site hosts take the stolen and fraudulent documents off their sites, remove defamatory commentary based on them, and issue retractions."
Leading independent climate bloggers have not been intimidated.
Richard Littlemore of DeSmogBlog doesn't give an inch.
So, while admitting that he impersonated a third party in order to induce Heartland to confirm its own ongoing questionable conduct, Gleick has effectively caught Heartland squarely in the headlights, proving that the Institute has dissembled and lied.
Whistleblowers - and that's the role Gleick has played in this instance - deserve respect for having the courage to make important truths known to the public at large. Without condoning or promoting an act of dishonesty, it's fair to say that Gleick took a significant personal risk - and by standing and taking responsibility for his actions, he has shown himself willing to pay the price. For his courage, his honor, and for performing a selfless act of public service, he deserves our gratitude and applause.
Heartland, in the meantime, deserves to be stripped of its charitable status and laughed out of the professional "think tank" fraternity for its amateurishness and the far-less-than-credible position that it has taken in the last week, denying its own responsibility in this "leak," dissembling about the origin of the material and going out of its way to "fail" to authenticate documents that it knew all along were legitimate.
The New York Times' Andy Revkin, however, clutches his pearls.
One way or the other, Gleick’s use of deception in pursuit of his cause after years of calling out climate deception has destroyed his credibility and harmed others. (Some of the released documents contain information about Heartland employees that has no bearing on the climate fight.) That is his personal tragedy and shame (and I’m sure devastating for his colleagues, friends and family).
The broader tragedy is that his decision to go to such extremes in his fight with Heartland has greatly set back any prospects of the country having the “rational public debate” that he wrote — correctly — is so desperately needed.
Andy, you can't have a rational debate with a liar. And you can't have a rational debate when the science is settled. There is no debate.
Heartland worked for tobacco companies for years sowing uncertainty and doubt about the fact that smoking causes cancer. Their is no debate that smoking causes cancer. And their is no scientific debate that humans are causing climate change by increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
Here's my message to the bullies at Heartland and their corporate sponsors:
On your belly you will go,
And dust you will eat
All the days of your life.