Background on Fakegate

1.  What is Fakegate?

On February 14, 2012, an environmental activist named Peter Gleick sent to liberal activists and sympathetic journalists several documents he stole from The Heartland Institute, along with a fake memo he claimed was also from Heartland. On February 20, Gleick confessed to stealing the documents but claimed to have received the fake memo “in the mail” from an anonymous source.

The fake memo, titled “January 2012 Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a mixture of text copied and pasted from the stolen documents and original commentary by the forger. By distorting and misrepresenting the plans set forth in the stolen documents, the fake memo paints a false and disturbing picture of Heartland’s motives and tactics.

2.  What did the stolen documents reveal?

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New Evidence Released in Fakegate Global Warming Scandal

The Heartland Institute today released more evidence that Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick was the likely author of a fake “climate strategy memo” that Gleick originally claimed came from a “Heartland insider,” and later said he received “in the mail” from an anonymous source.

Heartland released a computer forensics report, conducted by Protek International, which states: “We conclude that the Memo did not originate on the Heartland System. It was not created on the Heartland System and was never present there prior to its February 14 posting online.”

The new report contradicts disgraced climate scientist Gleick’s claim to have received the memo from someone affiliated with The Heartland Institute and adds to a growing body of evidence pointing to Gleick’s guilt. A month ago, Juola & Associates, the premier provider of expert analysis and testimony in the field of text and authorship, said “it is more likely than not that Gleick is in fact the author/compiler of the document entitled ‘Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,’ and further that the document does not represent a genuine strategy memo from the Heartland Institute.”

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Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner Weighs in on Fakegate

Ed Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, penned a great run-down of Fakegate in today’s Washington Times. Mr. Feulner wrote: “Bravo to Heartland for standing up to the bullies.” We thank him for that, and the entire op-ed in the Times. Here’s the lead:

What could be more American than encouraging a robust debate on one of the most controversial issues of the day? The answer – for some on the left, anyway – is: Lie about your opponents, and make a pathetic effort to discredit them.

That, at least, is what an activist named Peter Gleick decided to do in a backward attempt to promote his view that global warming is unquestionably and primarily a man-made phenomenon – one that will cause calamitous changes in the environment.

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The Heartland Institute Replies to ‘Forecast the Facts’

For the past several weeks, a front-group calling itself “Forecast the Facts” has been contacting donors to The Heartland Institute demanding they publicly commit to withdrawing their financial support. The letters and emails being sent by this group contain false statements that are plainly meant to defame and harm The Heartland Institute. This is our reply.

Background

The campaign actually started on February 14, 2012, when Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and a leading climate scientist, sent to liberal activists and sympathetic journalists several documents he stole from The Heartland Institute, along with a fake memo he claimed was also from Heartland. On February 20, Gleick confessed to stealing the documents but claimed he received the fake memo “in the mail” from an anonymous source.

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Heartland Institute Calls on Oxford to Cancel Speech by Admitted Thief Peter Gleick

‘All Honest Scientists Should Be Outraged’

The Heartland Institute today called on Oxford University to cancel the April 24 “Oxford Amnesty Lectures” event featuring disgraced climate scientist Dr. Peter H. Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, who committed theft, fraud, and defamation in the “Fakegate” scandal – all potential crimes and an affront to scientists everywhere.

Gleick is slated to deliver a lecture on “The Human Right to Water” at the prestigious university just weeks after he admitted to stealing the identity of a board member of The Heartland Institute to obtain confidential documents – including personal information of Heartland employees and board members – which he subsequently sent to environmental activists and sympathetic journalists.

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Heartland Institute to Host Seventh International Conference on Climate Change

Peter Gleick ‘Fakegate’ Scandal, Debates on Latest Climate Science Featured

What: Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-7)

Theme: Real Science, Real Choices

Where: Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL

When: Monday, May 21 – Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Media: Open to all media. Request press credentials here.

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Fakegate: The War on Science

Generations of Americans have been raised to venerate science and those who have enhanced and extended our lives through its application. The rise of environmentalism, however, has generated a war on science, first by distorting it, and then by propagandizing the “findings”, “studies” and resulting claims based on them.

Science hoaxes have been around a long time, most famously, the “Piltdown Man”, a paleontological fraud that began in 1912, claiming to be the “missing link” between man and ape when a fake skill was discovered in a gravel pit in England. In 1869, a fake “giant petrified human body” of a ten foot tall man. Carved out of gypsum, it was quickly debunked, but the public loved the story.

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No Faith With Skeptics

Donna Laframboise asks the key question about Fakegate: “Where do Gleick Apologists Draw the Line?

In a recent post on her Web site, No Frakking Consensus, she provides excerpts from scientists, ethicists, and activists who excuse or even lionize Peter Gleick for stealing Heartland Institute budget documents, impersonating a Heartland board member, misrepresenting himself to bloggers as an anonymous “Heartland insider,” and palming off as genuine – maybe also authoring — a fake climate strategy document in which Koch supposedly funds Heartland to keep opposing voices out of Forbes magazine, sell doubt as their product, and dissuade teachers from teaching science.

Laframboise comments: “Climate change is a strange beast. When it enters the room, even ethicists lose the ability to think straight.”

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Climate McCarthyism: Democrat Congressman Demands Hearing on Interior Employee Linked to Heartland

Yesterday, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) requested that the House Resources Committee investigate whether Department of Interior employee Indur Goklany accepted “illegal outside payments” from the Heartland Institute, and “what confidential information Goklany may have shared with Heartland officials in the course of negotiating his payment agreements.”

Grijalva made this request in a letter to Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Ranking Member Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The alleged ‘issue’ arose because one of the stolen Heartland documents, the Institute’s 2012 budget, proposes to pay Goklany $1,000/m to write a chapter on economics and policy for a forthcoming book, Climate Change Reconsidered: 2012 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.

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