The Smoking Gleick

Last week I described a hypothetical, unethical scam to achieve a desired outcome, which leads up to this week’s rant, which I didn’t have space for last week.

I first came across this in The Wall Street Journal editorial page.  The Heartland institute, which I had never heard of, or at best I forgot about, is a global-warming-crisis skeptic.  From the horse’s mouth, they believe global warming is real, that man contributes, but they are skeptics of the alarmism and the magnitude of man’s impacts.

They are a privately funded non-profit and yes, they get money from big oil just like I do.  I get a $20,000 per month stipend from the petroleum institute to write this stuff.

Actually, that’s a fat lie.  I don’t get a damn thing from anyone, other than applause to write this stuff.  On a side note, the empire howls that Heartland is funded by big oil.  Well golly.  The empire is funded almost entirely by state (universities), federal (DOE, DOC, EPA, NASA), and foreign governments (UN) around the globe with marketing (activism) by other non-profits.  Hey – I’m just telling it like it is, man.

The WSJ piece above talks about the tiny budget of the rebels compared to the marketing arms of the empire, the International Panel on Climate Change.  It is interesting but not so much a scandal.  Here is the major scandal that is almost totally unreported:

In order to get dirt on the Heartland Institute, a guy named Peter Gleick, one of the “peer reviewers” and most outspoken guy on global warming, PhD, distinguished scholar, blah, blah, blah, (PUKE), impersonated a board member from the Heartland Institute.

He made his way to a receptionist at the institute and in a moment of weakness, the receptionist forwarded a bunch of internal documents in hopes that Gleick would find the smoking gun.  There was none.

Here, he completely loses it, like going postal all over the internet.  He writes a two-page memo in the name of a board member, otherwise known as forgery, and “leaks” it to the press.  The press goes wild on the smoking gun forged by the despicable Gleick.  The guy is a PhD dunce and apparently doesn’t know smart people can use electronic fingerprints on a document to determine its origin and the neon arrows all point to Gleick’s computer.

Where is the outrage?  TIME reports “Cheating Hurts Climate Science”.  ABC reports “Why The Heartland Scandal Doesn’t Matter”.  Give me a break, man.  This wasn’t a no-name, know-nothing hack in junior high doing this for fun.  This is like the Watergate scandal times a thousand because it wasn’t just the impersonating the opposition and hacking his way in, it was fabricating documents (lying) and “leaking” them to the press.

You can draw your own conclusions, but a leader of the empire hacks his way into the rebel network (bad enough) finding nothing, he lies and forges documents and sends them to the press.  When a formerly respected leader of the empire breaks in, can’t find anything, and fabricates a scandal, it paints a pretty clear picture.  An apology would be a joke.  Resigning from his quackery and operating a rickshaw in Cambodia for the rest of his life would be more appropriate.

If the empire has any credibility, they will tar, feather, and excommunicate Gleick.  If his name shows up on anything for the cause going forward, it will clearly demonstrate there are no standards.  Put another way, if we have to make things up to demonstrate EE programs are cost effective for ratepayers, I’m out of here.

Tidbits

In the uh-oh, I told you so category, General Motors is idling 1300 from their Volt manufacturing line. Uh huh.  That’s what candidates say right before they drop out and what GM said a few weeks before bankruptcy.

Also in the news, plug-in delivery van maker Bright Automotive is shutting down, as is Aptera Motors, a California three-wheeled electric vehicle maker.

This one is really good – in the name of our children, let’s all sing kumbaya, set the climate wars aside and save the world.  That’s the headline.  Then in the article, Friedman knees all those on the one side of the “war” in the groin:  “If you are so reckless as to dismiss all climate science as a hoax, and do not accept the data that our planet is getting hotter and the oceans rising, I can’t help you. That’s between you and your beach house – and your children, whose future you’re imperiling.”

Now there’s a truce If I’ve ever seen one.