Climate Scientist Admits To Lying, Leaking Documents

[salvorhardin]

Peter Gleick is not just any scientist. He got his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley and won a MacArthur "genius" award. He is also an outspoken proponent of scientific evidence that humans are responsible for climate change.

And earlier this week, he confessed that he had lied to obtain internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a group that questions to what extent climate change is caused by humans.

...

But Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at the University of California, San Diego, says maybe that's not such a big deal. "The documents that were released last week essentially affirm what we already knew," she says. "And [the deception] was not necessary because this information is actually available through entirely appropriate means." In fact, Oreskes has documented ties between climate skeptics and their funders in her book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

Oreskes says Gleick's actions don't diminish the validity of decades of climate research, nor do they reflect the ethics of scientists who do it. "Thousands and thousands of people are working on this issue, and this is one man," she says.

Full story + audio: http://www.npr.org/2012/02/22/147263862/climate-scientist-admits-to-lying-leaking-documents

[mike_c]

1. Heartland INSTITUTIONALIZED deception, yet Gleick's actions are "inappropriate?"

Yeah, whatever.

[ret5hd]

2. I am so sure this truly upsets you.

Sit down, have a drink, and try to focus on something else. I'm sure Two and a Half Men or somesuch will be on. Tears will solve nothing. Peace my sensitive friend.

[niyad]

3. so the man fools those cretins at the heartland institute and exposes them, and we are to find his

actions inappropriate?

somehow, I don't really have any outrage, would buy him a drink instead.

[eShirl]

4. Good for him!

[joe1991]

5. Attack the messenger!!

The Fox/right-wing spin on this story was ridiculous, but of course scientists have to hold themselves up to a higher standard than the paid shill deniers and their propaganda machines.

I'm pushing for a "scopes monkey trial" type action, where deniers and scientists can face off in court, everyone see the evidence, and then our kids can be taught properly in schools and we adults can start looking for solutions.

[eShirl]

6. excellent

[RainDog]

7. Gleick's actions don't diminish the validity of decades of climate research

as the article notes.

the headline is like a supermarket tabloid.

[salvorhardin]

8. Yeah, I really thought the NPR slant on this was out of line

Like Megan McArdle at The Atlantic, I'm puzzled by Gleick's actions considering that he knows how duplicitous Heartland is. He should have suspected that they'd have slipped a fake document in there. I think this is much the same sort of setup as the video "sting" of Ron Schiller at NPR last year. If only Gleick had taken these documents to Pro Publica or something instead of trying to investigate them on his own.