Gleick admits his guilt – deception used to get documents in FakeGate – apologizes

BREAKING: Peter Gleick admits admits he’s the one who assumed a false identity and emailed Heartland so he could steal their private documents. His apology marks, finally, a small turning point in the PR scandal and ethical vacuum.

UPDATE: So when will DeSmog retract it’s false claim the documents came from “an insider”? When will they admit they were fooled, didn’t bother to check the veracity, and don’t care about putting out accurate information?

His answer doesn’t quite put all the pieces together. The fake document has a timestamp just prior to DeSmog and others releasing it, so it is not the “anonymous document” he refers too.

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 […]

February 21st, 2012 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Heartland sends out first legal notice about stolen and faked documents

Let the games begin. As promised, Heartland want justice, starting with the removal of all the fake and alleged documents. DeSmog have overplayed their hand.

–Jo

Support The Heartland Institute today

(Go on, fake smears like the DeSmog one, are designed to intimidate donors, we can rise above!)

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UPDATE: Joseph Bast explains why Heartland are doing this:

“We realize this will be portrayed by some as a heavy-handed threat to free speech. But the First Amendment doesn’t protect Internet fraud, and there is no right to defamatory speech.

“For 28 years, The Heartland Institute has engaged in fierce debates over a wide range of public policies – school reform, health care, telecommunications policy, corporate subsidies, and government waste and fraud, as well as environmental policy. We frequently and happily engage in vigorous, robust debate with those who disagree with our views.

“We have resorted in the past to legal means only in a very few cases involving outright fraud and defamation. The current situation clearly fits that description, and our legal counsel has advised that the first step in defending ourselves should be to […]

February 20th, 2012 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

UPDATE: Heartland documents stolen and key one is fake. No insider leak. FakeGate!

Major embarrassment for Joe Romm, and DeSmog and their unthinking fans.

In the hours after the ClimateGate emails were released, skeptics asked about their authenticity (as we are wont to do). In the hours after the Heartland Documents (including at least one complete fake) were released, the commentators on the other side did not even ask (just as they uncritically accept any weak report in favour of their pet theory).

They leapt to their defamatory conclusions in a smear-fest. At least one person out there has probably committed a criminal act. The rest are guilty of small brained unskeptical blind hatred, defamation, and ignorance. And will any of them apologize? I’ll be shocked if even one has the decency or manners.

We should not allow them to forget it. DeSmog=DeSmear. They are a group happy to promote lies with no compunction. They are not interested in the truth, just in the PR. Oh the fool journalists who think the paid hacks at DeSmog ever had anything to say on science that was not biased or deceitful. Richard Littlemore, where is your apology? Instead, knowing the document is faked, he continues to promote it. So does Brad Johnson, and Joe Romm.

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February 16th, 2012 | Tags: , , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Fakegate: the smog blog exposes irrational rage, innumeracy, and heartland’s efficient success.

The Climate Change Scare Machine Chart

The believers of man-made-weather-disasters are wetting themselves with excitement. It painful to watch grown men drool.

Poor things, they were really wounded by Climategate, and they’ve been waiting, praying that some day someone would level the playing field and show that skeptics were just as petty, shameless, and money-grubbing as their team turned out to be (not to mention hypocritical, deceptive and incompetent). In their dreams.

Instead the hyped non-denier-gate shows just how incredibly successful the Heartland Institute is. Look at the numbers. The skeptics have managed to turn the propaganda around against a tide of money, and it is really some achievement.

…

Entity USD Greenpeace $300m 2010 Annual Report WWF $700m ” ($524m Euro) Pew Charitable Trust $360m 2010 Annual Report Sierra Club $56m 2010 Annual Report NSW climate change fund (just one random govt example) $750m NSW Gov (A$700m) UK university climate fund (just another random govt example) $360m UK Gov (£234 m) Heartland Institute $7m (actually $6.4m) US government funding for climate science and technology $7,000m “Climate Money” 2009 US government funding for “climate related appropriations” $1,300m USAID 2010 Annual turnover in global carbon markets $120,000m 2010 Point Carbon […]

February 16th, 2012 | Tags: , , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |