Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Recently, the Wall Street Journal refused to publish a letter on the subject of climate change that was signed by 255 scientists—all of whom are members of the United States National Academy of Sciences. The WSJ chose instead to publish an opinion piece titled No Need to Panic about Global Warming that was written by 16 “other scientists.” It has been reported that the 16 “other scientists” include engineers, a physician, a retired airplane designer, a retired electrical engineer, and astrophysicists. Also included among the “No Need to Panic” authors are two men—one who questions whether smoking causes cancer (Richard Lindzen) and another who does not believe that asbestos is a health hazard (Claude Allegre).
According to Media Matters, most of the scientists who signed the WSJ op-ed do not publish peer-reviewed papers on climate research. In addition, more than a third of them have links to fossil fuel interests.
Peter Gleick, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a MacArthur Fellow, wrote an article for Forbes descrying the WSJ’s actions.
Gleick wrote:
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.”
Serious doubt has been cast on the actual expertise on climate science of the signers and on the accuracy of the content, here and elsewhere, and the strawman arguments and technical flaws of their opinion piece are evident to anyone actually versed in the scientific debate. For example, their op-ed has fundamental errors about recent actual temperatures, they use false/strawman arguments that climate scientists are saying climate change “will destroy civilization,” they launch ad hominem attack on particular climate scientists using out-of-context quotes, and so on. Formal responses are in the works, and will be available from a variety of groups in the next day or so. [Just as an example, as pointed out here previously, and at the Union of Concerned Scientists: the authors claim there has been a “lack of warming” for 10 years. The reality? 2011 was the 35th year in a row in which global temperatures were above the historical average and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record.]
But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down. The National Academy of Sciences is the nation’s pre-eminent independent scientific organizations. Its members are among the most respected in the world in their fields. Yet the Journal wouldn’t publish this letter, from more than 15 times as many top scientists. Instead they chose to publish an error-filled and misleading piece on climate because some so-called experts aligned with their bias signed it. This may be good politics for them, but it is bad science and it is bad for the nation.
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science, the letter that was signed by the 255 scientists, spoke of their concern about the recent escalation in assaults on scientists—especially climate scientists. They said that the assaults on both climate science and scientists came from climate change deniers who “are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence.” The scientists called “for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them.”
Not long ago, I was disheartened to learn that climate scientists in the United States and in other countries have become victims of cyber-bullying. In 2010, Douglas Fisher wrote an article for Scientific American titled Cyber Bullying Intensifies as Climate Data Questioned. Fisher spoke of how climate researchers have to purge crude and crass emails that they find in their inboxes every day. Some consider purging such correspondence as a task they must deal with as part of the job of being a climate scientist. Others, however, “see the messages as threats and intimidation—cyber-bullying meant to shut down debate and cow scientists into limiting their participation in the public discourse.”
Clive Hamilton, an Australian author and academic said, “The purpose of this new form of cyber-bullying seems clear; it is to upset and intimidate the targets, making them reluctant to participate further in the climate change debate.” Gavin Schmidt, a scientist who works for NASA, said that “organized, ‘McCarthyite’ tactics aimed at specific scientists by various groups can be stressful.” He added “‘Frivolous’ Freedom of Information Act requests can tie up considerable quantities of researchers’ time.” Schmidt claims that the worst things of all are the “‘intimidating letters’ from congressional members threatening dire consequences to scientists working on climate change.”
Last month, MIT scientist Kerry Emanuel, a Republican and the director of MIT’s Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate program, received a “frenzy of hate male” after a video that featured an interview with him was published by Climate Desk.
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VIDEO LINK: Not all Republicans are climate deniers (In the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, former Rep. Bob Inglis, MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel, and other Republicans talk about why climate action is a conservative value)
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Mother Jones reported that the emails contained “veiled threats’ against Emanuel’s wife—as well as other “tangible threats.” Emanuel said, “They were vile, these emails. They were the kind of emails nobody would like to receive.” He added, “What was a little bit new about it was dragging family members into it and feeling that my family might be under threat, so naturally I didn’t feel very good about that at all. I thought it was low to drag somebody’s spouse into arguments like this.”
The Guardian reported last June that Australian climate scientists had been receiving death threats. As a response to the large number of threatening emails and telephone calls, the Australia National University (ANU) in Canberra moved some of its “leading climate scientists to a secure facility…”
Ian Young, ANU’s vice-chancellor, said, “Obviously climate research is an emotive issue at the present time. These are issues where we should have a logical public debate and it’s completely intolerable that people be subjected to this sort of abuse and to threats like this.” Young added that “scientists had been threatened with assault if they were identified in the street.”
Canberra Times reported last year that more than 30 researchers in Australia—including ecologists, environmental policy experts, meteorologists, and atmospheric physicists—told the paper that they had been receiving a “stream of abusive emails threatening violence, sexual assault, public smear campaigns and attacks on family members.” Some of the scientists installed upgraded home security systems and switched to unlisted phone numbers because they were fearful that their homes and cars might be damaged.
One researcher even spoke of “receiving threats of sexual assault and violence against her children after her photograph appeared in a newspaper article promoting a community tree-planting day as a local action to mitigate climate change.”
One climate scientist, who did not want to be identified, told ABC News that a dead animal was once left on his doorstep. He said he now travels with bodyguards at times. David Koroly, a professor at the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Science, told ABC that he receives threats whenever he is interviewed by the media. He said, “It is clear that there is a campaign in terms of either organised or disorganised threats to discourage scientists from presenting the best available climate science on television or radio.”
Addendum: An Excerpt from Cowards in Our Democracy: Part 1, Written by James Hansen, Climatologist and Head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Today most media, even publicly-supported media, are pressured to balance every climate story with opinions of contrarians, climate change deniers, as if they had equal scientific credibility. Media are dependent on advertising revenue of the fossil fuel industry, and in some cases are owned by people with an interest in continuing business as usual. Fossil fuel profiteers can readily find a few percent of the scientific community to serve as mouthpieces — all scientists practice skepticism, and it is not hard to find some who are out of their area of expertise, who may enjoy being in the public eye, and who are limited in scientific insight and analytic ability.
Distinguished scientific bodies such as national science academies, using the scientific method, can readily separate charlatans and false interpretations from well-reasoned science. Yet it seems that our governments and the public are not making much use of their authoritative scientific bodies. Why is that?
I believe that the answer, and the difficulty in communicating science to the public, is related to the corrosive influence of money in politics and to increased corporate influence on the media.
SOURCES
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science (Science Magazine)
WSJ Publishes Op-Ed From 16 Climate Deniers, Refused Letter From 255 Top Scientists (ThinkProgress)
Climate Scientists Rebuke Rupert Murdoch: WSJ Denier Op-Ed Like ‘Dentists Practicing Cardiology’ (ThinkProgress)
The rise of anti-science cyber bullying (ThinkProgress)
MIT Climate Scientist’s Wife Threatened in a “Frenzy of Hate” and Cyberbullying Fomented by Deniers (ThinkProgress)
Price Of Truth: Limbaugh Operatives Encourage Abusive Hate Mail At Female, Evangelical Climate Scientist (ThinkProgress)
Climatologist James Hansen on “Cowards in Our Democracies” (ThinkProgress)
Cowards in Our Democracies: Part 1 (Columbia)
The Journal Hires Dentists To Do Heart Surgery (Media Matters)
Remarkable Editorial Bias on Climate Science at the Wall Street Journal (Forbes)
Cyber Bullying Intensifies as Climate Data Questioned: Researchers must purge e-mail in-boxes daily of threatening correspondence, simply part of the job of being a climate scientist (Scientific American)
While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower (Discover Magazine)
WSJ War on Climate Science continues with 16 prominent (but not in climate science) Scientists (Firedoglake)
Australian climate scientists targeted by death threats (Climate Science Watch)
ABC World News: Climate Scientists Claim ‘McCarthy-Like Threats’ (Climate Science Watch)
Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers: ExxonMobil cash supported concerted campaign to undermine case for man-made warming (The Independent)
Otteray,
My guess is that Heartland’s experts are the Inspector Clouseaus of climate scientists.
One more thing. Their “scientists” would be subjected to a Daubert scrutiny, and that is about the last thing they want. One of the ways I get my jollies is to assist an attorney in preparing for a Daubert voir dire.
Well, when you get to be my age, you have to find alternate ways to have fun.
If the “victims” are so damaged, they have recourse. A friend of mine, now deceased, was an Assistant State Attorney General for the State of Mississippi. His favorite refrain when somebody would lament about a real or perceived wrong, was, “That’s why they build courthouses.”
Let ’em sue. They won’t of course, because they fear the discovery process. To say discovery would be “interesting” is an understatement.
Spy vs. spy: The Heartland Institute’s head-spinning hypocrisy
by Greg Hanscom
2/22/12
http://grist.org/climate-energy/spy-vs-spy-the-heartland-institutes-head-spinning-hypocrisy/
When someone grabbed emails and documents from the computers of climate scientists and leaked them to the media in 2009, few organizations were as mirthful as the Heartland Institute, an outfit that has worked for years to spread the gospel of climate-change denial. Although multiple investigations into the scientists’ emails debunked accusations that the researchers had subverted science and distorted data, Heartland and its allies used the so-called “Climategate” memos to tar climate science and bully the media into covering their dubious claims.
Last Monday, when an anonymous source (we now know it to be MacArthur-award-winning scientist and climate activist Peter Gleick) released internal Heartland memos to the press, the group had something else to say entirely.
The Heartland documents included details about a plan to introduce climate denial into grade school curricula and a list of major donors that includes a rogues’ gallery of corporate interests. One document contained a summary of Heartland’s work promoting fracking. Surprising? Hardly. Embarrassing? Apparently.
Here’s what Heartland President Joseph Bast had to say back in 2009 about the scientists’ emails, in an op-ed at Investors.com that you can download from the institute’s website:
The release of these documents creates an opportunity for reporters, academics, politicians and others who relied on the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] to form their opinion about global warming to stop and reconsider their position …
Looking at how past disclosures of fraud in the global warming debate have been dismissed or ignored by the mainstream media leads me to suspect that they’ll try to sweep this, too, under the rug. But thanks to the Internet, millions of people will be able to read the e-mails and make up their own minds.
This incident, then, won’t be forgotten. Journalists who attempt to spin it away and politicians who try to ignore it will further damage their own credibility, and perhaps see their careers shortened as a result.
When more emails were leaked to the press in November 2011, Heartland Senior Fellow James Taylor happily piled on with an op-ed in Forbes — this, despite the fact that three separate inquiries had already vindicated the scientists. (The second round of emails did nothing to advance the institute’s cause.)
But last week, when it was their own skivvies waving in the breeze, Heartland staffers weren’t exactly cheering the public’s “opportunity” to form its own opinions or thanking the internet for its openness. Instead, the institute took the offensive, claiming that one of the documents was a fake (although much of its contents simply summarize what is spelled out in great detail in the other documents, which the institute says “were obviously stolen”) and sending legal notices to publications (including Grist) demanding that the documents — and all commentary on, links to, and references regarding them — be taken down.
“We realize this will be portrayed by some as a heavy-handed threat to free speech,” Bast said in a statement on Feb. 19. “But the First Amendment doesn’t protect Internet fraud, and there is no right to defamatory speech.”
In a media advisory issued Feb. 20, Bast called the leak of the Heartland memos “an outrageous violation of ethics and law,” and called on DeSmogBlog and other publications that had reported on the memos to reveal the identity of their source:
It was likely either someone on their staffs or someone well known to them. It is unconscionable and illegal for them to conceal the identity of a person who has broken the law and who has damaged the reputations of many people and organizations, not only The Heartland Institute. At a minimum, they should share what information they do have with Heartland and the FBI …
The Heartland Institute wants to know who in the global warming movement conspired to steal and forge documents. What do the leaders of DesmogBlog and other organizations know? When did they know it? Why are they leaving forged documents on their Web sites?
Gleick came forward the next day. He admitted he had tricked the institute into sending him the documents. He said he’d anonymously received the summary memo (the one Heartland says is fake). The rest of the documents, he said, came directly from Heartland — something the institute has yet to confirm or deny. He sought them, he said, because he wanted some corroboration of the material in the anonymous memo he’d received.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press and New York Times have confirmed many of the details in the memos.
No matter. Heartland has already packaged up its outrage under a name and a new website: Fakegate. In his Feb. 20 media advisory, Bast declares: “Fakegate may be as damaging to the global warming movement as Climategate was.”
Elaine, after all, I did say “more” than a little.
Otteray,
I’m old enough to remember.
A little disingenuous?
OS,
It is a bit like watching Margaret DuMont get flustered at Groucho and say, “Why I never!”
People, please do not forget that purloined documents helped bring an end to the Vietnam war. I know there are a few of us around here old enough to remember Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Whistleblowing and publishing records of wrongdoing may sometimes be the noble thing to do. When one sees a crime or immoral act being committed……..
Pearl-clutching and hand-wringing over someone publishing records of chicanery comes across as more than a little disingenuous.
Bdaman,
If you had read carefully, you would have noticed that it was the title of an article that I posted. I chose not to change the title of the article.
There you go again…casting aspersions on the motives of climate scientists!
Bdaman,
Go ahead and sue or prosecute the gentlemen if Heartland has a cause of action, but the documents disclosed are still accurate and damning. You are trying to hide the facts behind your fervent disgust at his methods. I think he must have learned these methods from Mr. Murdoch and his crowd.
Bdaman,
No evidence of forged Hearland documents. They are still a bought and paid shill for energy companies and these documents prove it. Once again, demand for gas is down and it is speculation that is causing this spike in gas prices. Why should Exxon or Shell reduce it when they can get away with it. Besides, I thought you would want the market to solve all pricing problems?
“Ms. Elaine Heartland Institute Documents Leaked ? Seriously ?”
What’s your point?
It should read
Heartland Forged Documents Leaked Even Though They Were Stolen Under False Pretenses.
There, that’s better
Q: When is it okay to work to pervert scientific findings, cherry-pick data, obscure the truth, cast aspersions on scientists’ characters and motives, spread disinformation,
Ha ha thats what we say about the climate scientist who hide the decline, try and evade FOIA request and slander their critics and claim they lost the original data. Oh and commit identity fraud and forge documents.
Thats the whole Gleick argument we’ve been saying that the warmist/alarmist make stuff up. Gleick is proof of what we’ve been saying all along. He’s a lier, a thief and an illegal impersonator.
According to GasBuddy.com, motorists are shelling out $5.89 for a gallon of regular gas at a Shell station in Lake Buena Vista, topping out at $5.99 a gallon for premium. It doesn’t get better at a Suncoast Energy station in Orlando, where drivers are paying $5.79 for a gallon of regular.
“Prices over in the Disney World area are much higher than any other place in Florida,” Jessica Brady, AAA spokeswoman, told CBS Tampa, adding that people regularly complain about gas prices in that area.
The Sunshine State is opening up its wallet, paying an average of $3.67 a gallon of unleaded gas, 12 cents more than the national average. And it’s only expected to go up.
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/02/22/florida-drivers-shelling-out-nearly-6-a-gallon-at-some-gas-stations/
Bdaman,
“Ms. Elaine Heartland Institute Documents Leaked ? Seriously ?”
What’s your point?
“When is it o.k. to bully scientist, answer, when it’s for the greater good.”
You’re the one who said that.
*****
Q: When is it okay to work to pervert scientific findings, cherry-pick data, obscure the truth, cast aspersions on scientists’ characters and motives, spread disinformation, prostitute yourself for corporate overlords?
A: When you work for a climate denial front group like Heartland Institute.
“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,” Gleick wrote, adding “I deeply regret my own actions.”
However in the confession
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.
So we have identical documents that have been made public that he obtained from Heartland.
In the confession he states that he received documents via regular mail.
Now if he posted the Heartland Documents that are Identical from what he illegally obtained from Heartland where does the one CONFIRMED forged document come in. Is he still in possession of the envelope with the post mark. Probably
So lets see you receive an anonymous memo in the mail purporting to be the secret climate strategy of the Heartland Institute. It is not printed on Heartland Institute letterhead, has no information identifying the supposed author.
Do you:
A. Throw it in the trash
B. Reach out to like-minded friends to see how you might go about confirming its provenance
C. Tell no one, but risk a wire-fraud conviction, the destruction of your career, and a serious PR blow to your movement by impersonating a Heartland board member in order to obtain confidential documents.
Ms. Elaine Heartland Institute Documents Leaked ? Seriously ?
Raff He shouldn’t have lied and received the smoking gun, but I am sure glad that he did.
Two peas in a pod you an Gene. Go ahead and say it, it was for the greater good.
Lets start a list taking a lead from O.S.
When is it o.k. to bully scientist, answer, when it’s for the greater good.
When is it o.k. to torture prisoners, answer, when it’s for the greater good.
When is it o.k. to forge documents and commit identity theft, answer when it’s for the greater good.
When is it o.k. to beat your wife, answer when it’s for the greater good.
I wonder if someone will you it as a defense in a criminal trail. I did it because it was for the greater good. Isn’t that basically what the abortion doctor killers believe by killing abortion doctors? It’s for the greater good.
Bdaman,
what makes you think I was thinking of you???
If I understand it correctly, Mr. Gleick is apologizing for stealing the documents that finger Heartland as a bought and sold climate denier. He shouldn’t have lied and received the smoking gun, but I am sure glad that he did.
Berkeley-based scientist causes ethics storm over climate change documents
By Dana Hull and Paul Rogers
2/22/12
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20011749
Excerpt:
For the past two decades, Peter Gleick has earned a reputation as a nationally known expert on water and climate issues, winning a MacArthur “genius award,” penning a long list of scientific articles and testifying before Congress.
But over the past two days, the 55-year-old Berkeley resident has found himself at the center of a national maelstrom of his own making: using a false name to obtain confidential documents from a pro-industry think tank known for minimizing the risks of global warming.
The issue has riveted the environmental community and the energy industry, raising questions about whether the damage will extend past Gleick’s reputation and harm scientists’ efforts to convince the public that climate change is real and largely caused by humans.
Gleick, president of the nonprofit Pacific Institute, in Oakland, wasn’t talking Tuesday.
But Monday, he stunned the scientific community when he admitted — via his blog in the Huffington Post — that he obtained confidential fundraising and strategy documents from the libertarian Heartland Institute in Chicago by using someone else’s name, and distributed them on the Internet.
Crossing lines
The Heartland Institute has cried foul, arguing Gleick stole electronic documents and should be jailed for identity theft and computer fraud. It said Gleick obtained the documents by contacting a Heartland staff member and claiming to be a Heartland board member.
Over the past 20 years the institute has received funding from Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute and others with ties to the fossil fuel industry, and has clashed with scientists and environmental groups.
“Gleick’s crime was a serious one,” Heartland said in a statement. “The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety.”
The institute also said one of the documents — which mapped out a strategy for trying to change the way climate science is taught in schools — is a fake.
Legal experts said Tuesday that while Gleick may have crossed an ethical line it could be difficult to prove he crossed a legal one. “The idea of a local district attorney or attorney general stepping in seems unlikely,” said Stephen Ryan, an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery in Washington, D.C., who has litigated technology privacy cases.
“Private parties who are very well-heeled have recourse — they can have at each other. It’s hard to imagine a government prosecutor getting involved.”
One industry expert said it could backfire for the Heartland Institute to file a civil lawsuit against Gleick because the group’s leaders would be put under oath and more of their documents released in open court.
“Right now, Heartland has the higher ground,” said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for Bracewell & Giuliani, a Houston law firm that lobbies on behalf of oil refineries, electric utilities and other industries. “If they choose to be overly aggressive and make this guy a martyr, it could come back to haunt them in court, or in the court of public opinion.”
Many questions remained Tuesday. In his Huffington Post statement, Gleick said he had been sent the documents earlier this year by an anonymous leaker, and was trying to verify their accuracy by asking for copies from Heartland.
“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,” Gleick wrote, adding “I deeply regret my own actions.”
Heartland Institute leak exposes strategies of climate attack machine
The documents show how groups play up controversy to undermine confidence in well-established scientific findings
Bob Ward
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/21/heartland-institute-leak-climate-attack
Excerpt:
After the leak from the Chicago-based thinkthank the Heartland Institute, much attention is now being focused on the alleged deception used by the water scientist Peter Gleick to obtain the sensitive internal documents.
And while acts of deception cannot be condoned, it is also important to note that the documents obtained by Gleick provide an insight into how some of those groups that are fundamentally opposed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases attempt to convey the impression that their arguments are founded on science rather than on ideology.
The Heartland Institute states on its website that its mission is “to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems”, and that the aim of its work on climate change is to promote “market-based, rather than government-based, solutions to environmental problems”. The Institute has been one of the most active lobbyists against policies in the United States to curb emissions, primarily by attempting to undermine confidence in the findings of scientific research that climate change is driven mainly by human activities.