Robert Murphy on Peter Gleick’s faked Heartland memo: “oozing absurdities.”

I am deeply envious of that phrase.

I rather badly want to have been the person who first came up with that phrase, in fact.  I feel that I need to get this on the record.

Anyway, if you were looking for a recap on the entire didn’t-turn-out-as-intended climate alarmist attack on the Heartland Institute by – well, I suppose that it has not been proven in a court of law that Peter Gleick was responsible for the forged memo, so we’ll go with “person or persons unknown who could conceivably have the initials ‘P.G.'” and be done with it.  Anyway, this is a pretty good recap: it describes the initial ‘data’ dump, identifies the central trouble with it (essentially, the central document is a farrago of nonsense and lies, and absent it the ‘supporting’ documents are thoroughly innocuous), notes the ghoulish zeal with which alarmist blogs treated the original ‘revelation’… and ruthlessly spotlights the petulant refusal of most of said alarmists to admit that the whole thing exploded in their face. Continue reading Robert Murphy on Peter Gleick’s faked Heartland memo: “oozing absurdities.”

More on the Peter Gleick Fakegate Memo.

This is pretty good stuff of Megan McArdle, re Peter Gleick’s own-goal sabotage of climate change advocates by disseminating/allegedly creating a fake Heartland memo on its global warming strategies (not to mention his confessed identity theft):

When skeptics complain that global warming activists are apparently willing to go to any lengths–including lying–to advance their worldview, I’d say one of the movement’s top priorities should be not proving them right.

…but it must be said: Gleick really doesn’t deserve much benefit of the doubt at this point with regard to his probable authorship of the original, blatantly fake, Heartland memo.  There is a credible case to be made at this point that Gleick stole the original documents, then created the memo himself; and, given that he’s a self-confessed liar, it’s going to take more than I’m not lying about this for Gleick to get out of it. Continue reading More on the Peter Gleick Fakegate Memo.

What are the depths of Peter Gleick’s depravity in the Heartland global warming smear attack? [UPDATED]

[UPDATE: The preliminary steps of removing Peter Gleick from positions of authority and respect have begun: he’s ‘resigned’ from his position with the National Center for Science Education, and his scientific ethics task force chairmanship(!) for the American Geophysical Union.  One wonders whether groups like the MacArthur Fellows Program and NAS will insist that Gleick cut all ties from them, as well.  Nobody’s really expecting the Pacific Institute to join in, of course: it’s a well-known reliable quote machine for the American Left.]

OK, quick background: last week there was a bit of fuss when a variety of documents appeared that purported to show that there was some sort of nefarious global warming ‘denialist’ (that’s what a Lefty calls somebody who has noticed that, hey, the temperature’s not actually rising the way that people told us it would) conspiracy centered around the Heartland Institute.  The Heartland Institute was not amused by this, and has been making it clear that at least one document was a pathetic forgery.  This latter point has generally been conceded by all the players, if tacitly, and the great walkback is beginning.  I recommend Watts Up With That for those looking to monitor further developments: that site has been all over this story.

But let’s go back to what got revealed, for a moment.  The documents can be grouped into two categories: a variety of materials that global warming advocate (and lecturer on ethics*) Peter Gleick admitted stealing from Heartland**; and the aforementioned pathetically faked document.  Since we now know that not even Gleick is standing by the provenance of said document, let us ignore it completely.  What it says is irrelevant.  It has no bearing.  I did not even read it before my summary below of the documents that Gleick stole, solely to keep it from contaminating my assessment. Continue reading What are the depths of Peter Gleick’s depravity in the Heartland global warming smear attack? [UPDATED]