Gleick Scandal Goes Global. Spiegel: “Climate Scientist Pilfers Secret Documents”

Warmist Spiegel journalist Axel Bojanowski presents today a story on Peter Gleick’s Fakegate scandal and on what it means. In a nutshell: climate science is far from settled and there is a bitter war waging between the skeptics and alarmists. Consensus does not exist!

Climate scientist pilfers secret documents from a lobbyist group

Spiegel writes at the top of its report in bold print that the documents, which were intended to discredit the Heartland Institute:

…ended up disgracing the person revealing them.” Renowned climate scientist Peter Gleick using a fake name, succeeded in obtaining documents from a lobby group. He led a group on scientific ethics.”

Here Spiegel’s juxtaposition of Gleick’s seedy behaviour and his leadership of a group on ethics could not be more profound. Spiegel mentions that the bitter conflict between the skeptics and alarmists has been raging for 20 years (there never ever was a consensus).

Slowly one gets the feeling that the influential Spiegel is getting tired of the warmists obvious shenanigans and deception, and are not letting it go unnoticed, as much of the media are doing.

Even Spiegel seems to be going skeptic (at times). Get a load of this statement in the article (emphasis added):

The UN climate report, which is summarized every few years with the involvement of hundreds of scientists, comes to worrisome conclusions. However, the environment comprising air and earth is so complex that there are still huge gaps of knowledgeand they provide the fuel for fierce debate.”

So much for settled science. Bojanowski, a journalist who has written some of the warmist of articles in the past, doesn’t seem to believe in settled science anymore.

Spiegel explains how Gleick obtained the documents and how they were published by Desmogblog, and informs readers that “a simple apology will not suffice” and that Heartland is “demanding a complete clarification” from Gleick and that “legal consequences will follow”and that the integrity of many members and the reputation of the institute were damaged.

Spiegel goes into Gleick’s “downfall” – from being a leader of an ethics workgroup for the renowned American Geophysical Union (AGU) – to now reaping the outrage from Mark Fennel of the AAAS, and how Kevin Knobloch of the Union of Concerned Scientists has distanced himself from Gleick.

As the war between skeptics and alarmists intensifies in bitterness, Spiegel concludes with the following observation:

The recent affair fully confirms that the complexity of the climate topic is presenting challenges that are simply too much for the public debate to handle. Even intelligent scientists like Peter Gleick can lose their rationality.”

Indeed the science is complex and far from being settled. But we should remind Spiegel why intelligent scientists lose their rationality in the first place. It has something to do with the quality of their arguments and their failure to convince.

14 responses to “Gleick Scandal Goes Global. Spiegel: “Climate Scientist Pilfers Secret Documents””

  1. Edward.

    AGW is a scam, the crafty part of the biggest ponzi scheme in history was the ‘man made’ bit – ie, humans are to blame and wasn’t that the perfect political excuse?
    Blame man for overheating the planet and then tax the people until they screamed – redistribute wealth via a carbon trading scheme to benefit the third world and wow global Socialism and a UN [wet dream of] one world government and the rich in Europe and in the US maintain their hegemony – by browbeating the public into making further sacrifice – perfect – they nearly got away with it.

    AGW and MMCO2 warming the planet – Total and utter BS, mankind is only responsible for 5-7% of total CO2 emissions, therefore our own contribution to ‘global warming’ is absolutely FA and that’s if you actually believe CO2 is the major ‘culprit’. CO2 is a minor GHG gas, I’ve no doubt that it is a GHG [how could there be?] but only a minor player in thermo-atmospheric dynamics.

    Water is the key, as vapour, liquid [very important] or in solid state and the sun or TSI is the major influence or driver – hey it’s that complicated – it really is.

    Der Spiegel, should never tire of questioning the political ‘consensus’ until this madness [AGW] is put to bed [neither -should we let up either].

    1. DirkH

      “Der Spiegel, should never tire of questioning the political ‘consensus’ until this madness [AGW] is put to bed [neither -should we let up either].”

      Oh come on. It’s not like they would ever challenge a UNIPCC consensus. Der Spiegel LOVES the UN because they hate the US. Just like US liberals.

      1. Edward.

        Yes Dirk heard understood and acknowledged – but I live in hope.

        Alack, it is the same in Britain with our papers but the mood in the country is changing and then the popular press will ‘get it’.

        How long it will be before the politicians get it is anyone’s guess –

        Hmm, it may be sooner than we think…………………….I wonder……………look at this:

        http://www.iceagenow.com/New_Little_Ice_Age_to_Begin_in_2014.htm

  2. Mr. P

    Do we really want this going global?

    It looks like they are trying to keep the story alive so they can make Gleick a hero.

    There’s a video of him that shows he’s got the puppy dog act down pretty good.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKIPL-ksU3k

  3. John A

    The UN’s IPCC was founded not to investigate climate as such, but to investigate what human action/inaction might influence climate. Thus, those who already felt humans always had not just an influence but always a destructive and deciding influence jumped in and quickly took control. Natural influences were deemed irrelevant, no matter how large (without the Sun, Earth would be some 450 degrees Centigrade/Kelvin colder, but we were told that the Sun could not possibly account for 0.7C degrees change over 150+years, and that records from Greenland eatward to China did not “prove” the Medieval Warm – indeed, it must have been colder then as shown by the “Hockey Stick” graph. Bah).

    That it has, overall, warmed since at least the mid-Nineteenth Century is a matter of written observational record. Why it has done so is far more complex than “people started burning fossil fuels.”

  4. TheJollyGreenMan

    Pierre, Thank you for a very good post. I am heartened by the fact that common sense seems to making its return to the public debate in your country.

    To my mind the timing of Gleick’s fraud and miss-endeavours appears to be a godsend for Dr Varenholt’s book. A better publicity stunt to put Global Warming (and all its subsequent naming variations) in the public eye and to closer scrutiny is hard to imagine.

  5. GregO

    Gleik was invited several times to address and/or debate skeptics. Here’s evidence of one such invitation from the Heartland Institute itself:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/23/peter-gleick-debate-invitation-email-thread/

    This whole idea that skeptics do not want to discuss/debate or even hear both sides of this issue is wrong; and of course, no science – not even climate science – is ever settled.

    I hope German main stream media (MSM) thoroughly cover this story so more people get interested in finding out the rest of the CAGW narrative and why so many people are skeptical climate science catastrophic claims.

    1. Ebethcwog

      That the PNAS has seen fit to publish a paper in which a ceanrtl premise of a paper is the fact that 97% of scientists support the theory of AGW is a sad day for science ..What has become clear is that much of “science” has become very unscientific. True science is open to anyone who is intelligent enough to take the basic premises of a branch of science, play with them and come up with novel testable theories ..

      Thank you for that comment. It echos my experience in industry dealing with PhD Chemists and Biologists. If you do not have a PhD, and especially if you are female those with PhDs do not even hear you. I spent years feeding my ideas through a Chem Engineer who was willing to listen and parrot what I said in meetings. Also the expertise in one tiny field seem to make PhDs think they are an expert in everything. This was a very big handicap when a PhD was flat out wrong and deaf to boot. I had to have that PhD removed from a project because of his pig headedness. Even upper management could not change this guys mind.

  6. Mindert Eiting
  7. DirkH

    For everybody who hasn’t seen the faked memo.
    This post is written by a lawyer. He is not afraid to show and analyze the entire faked memo; and he openly accuses Gleick of being the forger and taunts him: “If I’m wrong, sue me.” And he means it.
    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/02/global-warming-alarmists-resort-to-hoax.php

    1. Bernd Felsche

      Money quote: “This is almost unbelievably stupid, and it was obviously written by a left-winger who has never read any of Heartland’s sophisticated critiques of global warming hysteria.”

  8. Bernd Felsche

    Looks like something went “pop” at Der Spiegel.
    They’ve started reporting facts inconvenient to governments and bureaucracy.

    http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,816859,00.html
    Neue Studie zu Radarkontrollen: Blitzer verhindern keine Unfälle
    (New Study of Radar Speed Checks: Cameras Don’t Prevent Accidents)

    This has been known by observers for at least 20 years. Observers who warned about the increasing reliance on gadgets which observe only one form of technical infringement but are blind to other gross misbehaviour that is actually dangerous.

    Der Spiegel still fails to recognize that read safety efforts should focus on the quality of the drivers; ensuring that drivers have an appropriate attitude, in line with the Basic Rules of the StVO, leveraging the exposure of candidates to driving instructors under traffic situations. Something that would be much easier to implement in Germany than in Australia.
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/33181711/Certified-Instructors

    One can but chip persistently at the marketing efforts that have driven the “road safety industry” since the 1990’s. All the emperors are naked.
    http://contrary2belief.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/wa-police-again-show-that-speed-limits-are-too-low/

  9. Bruce of Newcastle

    I’ve loved seeing the increasing understanding in Der Spiegel and also reading Megan McArdle’s articles on the Gleick affair at the Atlantic. Particularly in this one you get the feeling she is starting to dawn to the idea that unethical behaviour is normal for certain cliques of CAGW people. Heaven help her if she were ever to read Donna Laframboise’s book. Der Spiegel seems to be (to coin a word) on a similar trajectory of deblinkerisation.

  10. Kim

    I went to Spiegel out of idle curiosity, expecting to see a very sympathetic treatment of Gleick- in line with Spiegel’s historical alignment with left/Green causes.

    I was shocked to see a semblance of even-handeness. As Mr. Gosselin noted, perhaps “the influential Spiegel is getting tired of the warmists obvious shenanigans and deception, and are not letting it go unnoticed.”

    Erstaunlich.

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. More information at our Data Privacy Policy

Close