Another Global Warming Advocate Caught Falsifying The Truth
Climate Change: There are no laws that say that the global warming alarmists can't feel strongly about their beliefs. There are, however, ethical lines. And they keep crossing them.
The history of the Great Global Warming Scare is filled with exaggerations, deceit, unnecessary hype and cover-up.
It's all OK, say the alarmists, because they are concerned with the greater good, and if they have to cheat a bit, well, then the ends justify their means.
This attitude was evident in the climate-gate e-mails.
Rather than deal with the truth that man-made global warming is a scam, or simply unproven scientific speculation, researchers discussed hiding "the (temperature) decline" and using a "trick" that would help them make their point that human activity is harming the planet.
There was also the attempt "to make the MWP (medieval warm period) go away in Greenland" in the researchers' data because they contradicted the swindle they are trying to pull off.
Things were so bad that one researcher expressed concern that "the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it." It apparently went unheeded by the alarmist community.
The alarmists' inclination to cheat was also made clear in the screeching defense of the discredited "hockey stick," the celebrated chart that supposedly shows global temperatures sharply increasing in sync with the industrial age.
Those are but a few of many examples of their duplicitous, at times deceitful, behavior.
And now comes one Peter Gleick, a climate scientist who misrepresented himself — lied — in an effort to trap the Heartland Institute, a think tank on the record as a strong skeptic of the climate change claim.
Gleick, who heads the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, Calif., has admitted that he lied to get what he thought would be incriminating Heartland Institute documents because his "judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved."
After anonymously receiving a Heartland document that he says described "what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute's climate program strategy" and its internal methods "to cast doubt on climate science," Gleick said he couldn't help himself. He had to have more, and he crossed an ethical line to get it.
"In a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else's name," he said in his apology.
It's possible that at least one document in Gleick's possession is a fake that was never published by the Heartland Institute.
While that recalls memories of Rather-gate and the media's attempt to smear President Bush with a phony document during the 2004 campaign, the questions over the authenticity of a document shouldn't push what Gleick did into the background.
His actions were not only dirty, they might be criminal.
Though he has tried to appear remorseful, Gleick's "lapse" nevertheless has harmed the Heartland Institute. It has been smeared. Its character has taken a hit. Its day-to-day operations have been altered and its core mission sidetracked so the organization can deal with a problem it did not create.
Gleick's conduct has also hurt Heartland's ability to raise funds. The organization has every right to haul him into civil court and seek damages after a full criminal investigation has been completed and the case adjudicated.
Gleick's transgression shouldn't be allowed to fade away in the public's memory.
It should never be forgotten that the climate-alarmist community will break rules, injudiciously cross ethical lines and run a cheap con to push its left-wing agenda. He and the movement he represents deserve stiff punishment. |
