Sunday
May202012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Gleick "cleared"
May 20, 2012 Climate: fakegate The Guardian is reporting that Peter Gleick has been cleared of forging the Heartland documents.
A review has cleared the scientist Peter Gleick of forging any documents in his exposé of the rightwing Heartland Institute's strategy and finances, the Guardian has learned.
Which is odd, because they then say this...
Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute and a well-regarded water expert, admitted and apologised for using deception to obtain internal Heartland documents last February.
Reader Comments (85)
the ecoloon fascists have taken away the referred page
probably up-libtarding it..
The link no longer works. I think it was removed... http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/suzannegoldenberg
Yes. The Guardian have pulled it.
May 20, 2012 at 9:17 PM pointman
Eh up Pointman! Trust all is well, but, but, but:-
“Post-modern journalism at its finest.”
Post – The Guardian? Almost certainly
Modern – The Guardian? Nay lad!
Journalism – The Guardian? You’ve lost me!
Pointman, at your finest!
But this twisted shabby apologistic 'justification' remains
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/27/peter-gleick-heartland-institute-lie#start-of-comments
Not sure about whether they've pulled it. Possibly moved it to page 1 of the printed edition or reprinting it in full in Der Stürmer. Julius Streicher would have been proud of it.
Pointman
@GreenSand. Eh up Lad, as Albert Tatlock used to say. Tbf, not sure exactly what sort of journalism it is. Nowadays, when I see summat as bizarre as that, I just label it as post-modern ...
Pointman
When they pull this type of stuff, it usually comes back with more 'news'.
@Pointman
"not sure exactly what sort of journalism it is"
It's journalism Jim, but not as we know it!
Suppose "post-normal" will do. Just that I expect history to be heavy on the "post" and less understanding of the "norm"
You are all making the same mistake in think this article was written to inform people of whats going on. This couldnt be further from the truth. The reality is this article was written for the converted masses. It was not written for you, or me or anyone else that harbours doubts about mans involvement in global warming. It was written solely for the catastrophiliacs who belong to the religion of Mann Made Global Warming (tm).
Regards
Mailman
Thus Gleick is cleared by the very same standards of evidence, investigation and deduction on which the wildly self-interested and self-aggrandising claims of CAGW are themselves founded.
Except for substituting a wholly corrupt caricature of investigative journalism for the usual pretence of scientific investigation, the Gleick case is rather typical, all things considered.
Guardian take aside, the clear take-home message of the Gleick affair, for CAGW proponents, is that they should concentrate their efforts on fake science, where they have at least enjoyed some success, and steer clear of old-fashioned document forgery, which is too easily found out.
The article appears to have been scrubbed. Can't find it anymore.
Well I wonder are we watching history?
Could it possibly be that The Grunraid has pulled a Jackanory?
I mean The Garudian!
Cleared of Forgery? Like acquitting Al Capone of tax avoidance?
You have to read carefully what the Guardian wrote:
"A review has cleared the scientist Peter Gleick of forging ***any*** documents "
The review didn't just clear him of forging the strategy memo - it also cleared of writing ***any*** forgery!
He didn't forge multiple emails to Heartland's staff, getting them to send him confidential documents. And he didn't forge emails to "15" friends, pretending to be a Heartland Insider. He's not guilty of pretexting. And he's not guilty of disseminating Heartland's confidential materials. (according to the review).
In fact, it's now clear that Peter Gleick is a completely innocent man, hounded by Heartland for no reason whatsoever. (according to the review)
I'm sure the Guardian would love to tell us more about the review, who was involved, what procedures were followed and so, on, but I suspect that all they have is a scanned, unsigned PDF, created on an Epson scanner, and sent to them from an anonymous email address. And when the review "leaker" is eventually found, it may well turn out that he can not testify as to the details of the review either - since it was slipped to him anonymously, possibly because he was mentioned by name as a prominent climate scientist in the review.
I wonder whether some evil denier tried to set Goldenberg up. It wouldn't be too hard; Black too is wont to jump the gun when some juicy news supporting his worldview pops up.
Oops, perhaps we should have looked into the source of the reporting. Suzanne Goldenberg has quite a history of questionable reporting. Though not related to climate correspondence. More related to war and ambulance hoax reporting.
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/gleick-seemingly-now-un-cleared-of-forgery/#comment-10901
The page has gone much like their global warming
tits up ?
'A bit OT, but does anyone else think that photo looks like Sergie from the compare the market (meercat) adverts?
You wash mouth out with soap. I am handsome debonair clever cove good with computermabob and great linguist. Guy in photo is clearly crazed green loon.
No comparison.
Simples!
Bish,
OT but I think most of your readers will enjoy Andrew Ferguson's article on the bizarre and foolish "science" which underlies the Republican Brain and other idiocies of the academic left. The 'science' is eerily similar in quality to the infamous polar bear study.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/new-phrenology_644420.html
"the Guardian has learned" about as much as "the BBC understands".
In other breaking news:
An independent panel established by Swiss banks has found that they do not have any funds from Holocaust victims.
An outside investigation has proven that, contrary to earlier reports, Phillip Morris had no idea that smoking was bad for you until very recently.
The page is still AWOL hours later, so this is not some quick tweak or update. Searching the Guardian site I can't find anything similar, so it's not as though they seem to have posted a new article with a different link.
Perhaps someone at the Guardian with editorial scruples (is there such a person) took a look after the article went up, and was aghast at the lack of sourcing and lack of intelligence that went into publishing this screed??? .... and/or are they simply preparing to double-down with a revised article that has not yet appeared???
This is a fascinating incident in journalistic something-or-other, what exactly will it turn out to be? It does appear to be some kind of journalistic malpractice judging from the initial output which was posted.
Further proof of the ethical and intellectual bankruptcy of the pseudo-liberal press.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/15954/Update-Peter-Gleick-Seemingly-Now-UnCleared-Of-Forgery-It-now-seems-the-article-has-been-withdrawn-from-UK-Guardian-website
Goodness me, an artcle that I have not even got to read has been deleted, but 1720 sites have cited it already including Wikipedia!
http://i47.tinypic.com/oayr1i.jpg
May 20, 2012 at 10:44 PM | johanna
Not entirely, Johanna ... on the page you cited, one can (well, at least this one could!) still find a rather innocuous entry:
which links to:
http://www.pacinst.org/press_center/press_releases/statement.html in which one finds (for the record, in case they decide to "disappear" it):
Also for the record, while Gleick is still listed as "President" on http://www.pacinst.org/about_us/staff_board/, Elena Schmid is listed as "Acting Executive Director".
There is no indication that I was able to find which would suggest that the oh-so-ethical Gleick has recused himself from any of the Board deliberations since Feb. 27. For all we know, he might even have "recommended" the above noted "independent firm to review the allegations".
My experience has been that typically, in the non-profit world, the "Chair" of a Board of Directors is usually the "President"; and the Executive Director (or in some instances the Acting ED) is listed as an ex officio member of the Board. Gleick is still listed as "President" (and presumably, Chair) while "Acting ED" Schmid's name is conspicuous by its absence.
OTOH, "Dr. Stephen H. Schneider (In Memoriam)" is still listed as a member of their "Advisory Board"
Considering Schneider's record - and perhaps influence from beyond the grave - one might be forgiven for concluding that: Transparency, thy name is not Pacific Institute (or Penn State or University of East Anglia).
You are right of course, Hilary, sorry for overlooking that one - but as the WUWT link I cited demonstrates, things have been disappeared and rewritten re Gleick. Also, there was definitely an announcement about appointing the consultants to review internal processes or somesuch at about the same time, but if it was ever posted on the website, it is now gone.
Kudos for spotting the advisory board input from beyond the grave! Perhaps they use an ouija board - it might explain some of the odd things that happen there.
And (after revisiting your WUWT link) I see that you are also right, Johanna :-) PI obviously used the same URL for two "statements" almost one week (the first Feb. 21, and the second Feb. 27) apart.
Such "integrity", accountability and traceability, eh?!
Perhaps this is a "trick" they
picked upmodified from UEA in their hour of need. As I had documented - but not hghlighted - in Of Climategate, constabularies and Copenhagen: coincidences worth considering (Part 1) UEA had two press releases: one named "CRU Update 1" - which is linked to:http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/CRU-update
the other was named "CRU Update 2" - which is linked to:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/CRUupdate
Some might suggest that CRU was playing silly-buggers in posting - as was PI. But I couldn't possibly comment ;-)
Perhaps PI did "appoint independent consultants" who had no relationship to the un-named "independent firm" ... but colour me somewhat skeptical about this!
When this first came out I blogged about here http://goo.gl/YMvQi. My feeling at the time was that the document was unlikely to have been written by someone who understands how "corporate America" writes such things. Since Peter Gleick is himself the head of an American corporation, I felt it was therefore unlikely to be him.
Nvertheless, my guess is that when the truth finally emerges, someone pretty close to him will be found to be the author. Perhaps and intern or student. After all, he needed the document to say specific things and so probably defined its scope and content, though not the format and every word, so he could legitimately claim not to be the author and that it was mailed to him. Well, wouldn't you do something similar in the same position?
Here's another story Goldenberg was involved in some time ago:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/oct/03/israel6
Hilary -
While the earlier statements of the Pacific Institute on l'affaire Gleick do not appear on their main page of press releases, they are still published here. I don't think there is any link to the page; I discovered it by a search.
Thanks, Harold ... I've posted some observations on this "metamorphosis" of the PI statements in the "uncleared" thread [May 22, 2012 at 12:06 AM]
What's so "odd" about the claim of the first statement in the light of the 'admission' in the second,Bishop? It just confirms Gleick's claim: he admitted to deception in obtaining the documents but denied manufacturing any.