Bishop Hill RP Jr on Fakegate
Feb 17, 2012 Climate: fakegate Roger Pielke Jr has posted reflections the continuing rumpus over the Heartland emails. As ever, his thoughts are well worth a read:
If the faked document happened to be produced by a climate activist or scientist (as some are already suggesting), then the leaked Heartland documents will go down in history as one of the more spectacular own goals in the history of the climate debate (with the consequences proportional to the stature of the faker). The faking is likely to overshadow whatever legitimate questions may have been raised by the release of the documents. Imagine what would have happened if the UEA hacker/leaker had made up a few emails to spice up the dossier.
This also struck me as wise:
This sort of thing feeds into the worst imaginings of skeptics and blinds them to the fact that there are real issues here despite the frequent over-egging of the pudding.
Meanwhile, Roger has also asked Gleick direct if he was the faker:
I emailed @PeterGleick to ask if he faked the Heartland document, no reply yet. I offered to publish his confirmation or denial on my blog.
Reader Comments (64)
"Fakegate"
hhmmm.
Perhaps "Backfiregate" may be a better title
Black said:
"For anyone who doesn't spend every week up to their waists in the ordure of climate politics"
An Augean task? Stablegate? The horse has well and truly bolted away from those that went big on a fake story. Koch funding disproved, no big money involved but a serious and organised PR campaign against poor Heartland.
@Dreadnought
The Team have written an open letter to Heartland:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2012/02/17/heartland.pdf
Filename: heartland.pdf
Author: Aaron Huertas
PDF producer: Mac OS X 10.5.8 Quartz PDF Context
[snip]
So the guardian is having another "Syrian Lesbian Blogger" moment.
YamalDodgyData
Not only that, but Aaron is [snip - manners] using PDF 1.3.
One would expect that all these scientific geniuses who claim that they can predict the temperature of the world to the nearest 100th of a degree for the next century would know about XMP/XML.
This is what his forgery looks like inside the PDF
The XMP used in PDF 1.4, which is what most of us use by default, gives more information.
For those of you who never heard of Aaron Huertas, he's a press secretary (or was until now!)
Aaron Huertas
So exposing blatant forgery, willful and knowing fraud, "blinds skeptics [realists] to issues"? Speak for yourself, sirrah.
So the activist agitprop group known as the "Union of Concerned Scientists" acts as press secretary for "The Team"..... why am I not surprised?
In the Guardian article with the link to that open letter, Suzanne Goldenberg describes Heartland Institute as "a thinktank that has a core mission of discrediting climate science."
In an op-ed, I'd expect such a characterisation. But it has no place in a news article. For the record, from Heartland itself: "The mission of The Heartland Institute is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies."
[Frankly, I'm not quite sure how that mission statement encompasses their current activities in the climate arena. But anyway...] It's clear that climate change is only one of several areas they're interested in. As to "discrediting" climate science, well, this sounds like something from a forged strategy document.
I haven't read Heartland's NIPCC report, but here's what they say in a preface: "We donated much of our time and best efforts to produce this report out of concern that the IPCC was provoking an irrational fear of anthropogenic global warming based on incomplete and faulty science. … While there is nothing wrong with initiatives to increase energy efficiency or diversify energy sources, they cannot be justified as a realistic means to control climate." Doesn't sound like "discrediting" to me. There *are* those who would discredit all of climate science -- some posters here believe that -- but Heartland doesn't seem like one of them.
Why all this speculation ? Even if you learn who faked the document what would that prove ? Answer: it would speak to the reliability of the individual concerned. So your speculation is really a proxy for an ad hom.
@Hengist
Once again you display your capacity for ludicrous non-sequiturs.
Assuming the faked doc is the work of one individual, this affair speaks to much more than the unreliability of one person. A huge CAGWarmist propaganda effort sprang up far and wide to instantly capitalize upon this egregious malfeasance. Numerous CAGW bloggers and so-called "journalists" sprang into action without performing even slight due diligence and critical analysis.
Your pretense that this affair is about only one lone miscreant is risible.
Sometimes I think you might be an intelligent person lurking behind your farcical posts, which makes me wonder more about your motives and sincerity than your evident failures of elementary reasoning.
Hengist McStone
Tortured logic, Hengist. Very tortured logic. In fact, I can hear the screaming all the way back to California.
You are not doing your cause any good with this sort of sophomoric rhetoric.
Surely, you can do better?
Don Pablo de la Sierra
Excellent detective work. Given what the Orwellian named 'Union of Concerned Scientists' actually is, that would not surprise me, though it is difficult to imagine them being that stupid. Misplaced hubris?
This just keeps getting better. I am reminded of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, when the Indians led the arrogant Custer into their fatal trap.
And now we have the funding FOR the Climate Crisis Industry more under scrutiny than ever before as a bonus.
What next? No warming?
Don P
Well spotted.
I knew the name Aaron Huertas was familiar. He was (one of?) the first to review the Michael Mann book on Amazon. I hasten to add that he disclosed his connection to UCS.
@Mique
I finally left a reply to a comment of yours (Feb 16, 2012 at 7:38 AM) in a previous thread. Hope to see you around more often. :)