Last fall, Government Motors assaulted the John and Ken radio show by pulling ads from the show because the talk show hosts favored restricting immigration. I wrote it about it then. If Government Motors had been a private company, that would have been no problem. Private companies can do what they want. But Government Motors, formerly General Motors, is owned 32 percent by the U.S. government.

Now, Government Motors is assaulting the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, because it’s a skeptic on global warming. Reported the Los Angeles Times:

“Citing its corporate stance that climate change is real, General Motors announced Wednesday that its General Motors Foundation would no longer be funding the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank that has attacked human-caused global warming as ‘junk science.'”

Again, if GM were General Motors, a private company, no problem. But it’s Government Motors. It’s run by the fanatical “climate change” Obama administration.

It was just last month that global-warming fanatic Peter Gleick admitted he tricked Heartland into turning over to him internal documents, a clear violation of privacy laws.

GM even admitted its decision was based on the Gleick deception. The Times:

“The development is fallout from the release of Heartland Institute funding documents in February, which showed that GM contributed $15,000 to Heartland in 2010 and 2011. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, revealed in February that he had assumed a false identity to obtain some of those documents.

“In a statement released to the press, Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast said: ‘The General Motors Foundation has been a supporter of The Heartland Institute for some 20 years. We regret the loss of their support, particularly since it was prompted by false claims contained in a fake memo circulated by disgraced climate scientist Peter Gleick.’”

It’s clear that the Government Motors action is payback for the Gleick scandal. The Obama regime is the head “climate change” advocacy regime in the world. It controls Government Motors. So it’s using Government Motors to undercut Heartland.

GM is the Yugo of American car companies.

If Government Motors is so concerned about “climate change,” it should go out of business and tell people to walk.

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Correction: The article was corrected on the percentage of GM owned by the government. Relying on Wikipedia, I originally posted it at 61 percent. It’s now 32 percent, as a reader (below) pointed out. However, GM also is partly owned by the UAW, now basically part of the U.S. government, and by the Canadian government. — John Seiler

If the theory of man-made global warming were such a self-obvious truth, the result of scientific consensus, then why do its advocates keep committing fraud to advance it? Even more disturbing, why are some writers willing to defend this behavior?

The latest embarrassment for global-warming activists came Feb. 20, when Peter Gleick, founder of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, admitted that he committed fraud to obtain documents he thought would embarrass a conservative think tank that has been a leading debunker of some of the overheated claims of the climate-change Chicken Littles.

The memos, which reveal Chicago-based Heartland Institute’s political and fund-raising strategies, provided little to embarrass Heartland, but the subterfuge to obtain them has damaged the reputation of a respected intellectual in the environmental world. Gleick, a MacArthur Foundation “genius” fellow, doesn’t seem brilliant now, having taken a leave of absence from the institute and facing public embarrassment and possible prosecution. (Heartland contends one memo was fabricated, which Gleick denies, but the scandal could get uglier.)

After Gleick admitted and apologized for his action, Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik defended him: “It’s a sign of the emotions wrapped up in the global warming debate that Gleick should be apologizing for his actions today while the Heartland Institute stakes out the moral high ground.”

“Peter Gleick lied, but was it justified by the wider good?” asked James Garvey of the liberal British newspaper the Guardian. He compared Gleick’s action to that of a man who lied to keep his friend from driving home drunk. “What Heartland is doing is harmful, because it gets in the way of public consensus and action,” Garvey argued. “If his lie has good effects overall — if those who take Heartland’s money to push skepticism are dismissed as shills, if donors pull funding after being exposed in the press — then perhaps on balance he did the right thing…. It depends on how this plays out.”

Cheating Is Good?

In his view, anything that gets in the way of “consensus” — i.e., everyone agreeing with Garvey — is dangerous, so why not cheat, as long as it “has good effects”? Let’s reserve judgment based on how it plays out.

What would these people argue if a conservative who argues that, say, public-sector unions are bankrupting the state, pulled a similar fraud to get his hands on documents from union officials? Would they be defending that? Of course not. These writers are advancing a Machiavellian political agenda, not advancing a consistent ethical principle.

When it comes to global warming, the ends apparently justify the means. People from all political persuasions do stupid things to advance their causes, but what bothers me most are respectable people who justify behavior they would never tolerate from their foes. That type of ideological fanaticism is corrosive of our democratic society.

It’s easy to chide the hypocrisy of Gleick. He had been the chairman of an ethics committee for a scientific association. His column blasting dishonesty still sits on his institute’s website. It’s harder to explain away his deceit as a mere aberration in the climate-change drama.

In the “Climategate” scandal in 2009, “Hundreds of private email messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change,” according to a New York Times report from the time. The emails showed that the scientific community is so invested in this climate-change ideology for financial and ideological reasons that it would rather cook the numbers than level with the public about the reality of the threat. A follow-up release of emails in 2011 provided even more evidence supporting skeptics’ claims.

Bogus Email Account

In this scandal, Gleick created a bogus email account in which he pretended to be a Heartland board member. Then he contacted the organization and asked for documents from a recent board meeting. He released them anonymously on the Internet and to journalists while claiming to be a Heartland insider, according to the institute’s explanation.

Although he offered his regrets, Gleick’s mea culpa was laden with excuses: “I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My 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.”

How do you base a “rational public debate” on deceit?

It’s not as if the documents added anything to the debate. They didn’t show any enormous investment by big corporations. They proved, as one writer noted, that donors give money to organizations whose work they endorse. What a revelation. Isn’t that also what happens on the environmentalist side?

Marc Gunther of The Energy Collective admitted that “the leaked Heartland documents didn’t prove very much.” He slammed allies in the global-warming movement for praising Gleick and comparing him with a whistleblower. Clearly, not all believers in man-made global warming defend the indefensible.

But there is something about global warming that attracts the “ends justify the means” crowd. It’s the same fraudulent ideology that California’s state government has embraced as it implements a first-in-the-nation cap-and-trade program that won’t do a thing to cool our state, but will raise taxes on businesses and drive many of them elsewhere. Advocates of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which authorizes the scheme, were hardly fonts of honesty and rational debate.

Hey, if Planet Earth is in danger, then anything goes in the political realm also. That ideology is far scarier to me than a little warmer weather.

– Steven Greenhut

By WAYNE LUSVARDI

The environmental movement is suffering from a cluster of scandals.

First there was Climategate.

Then there was Climategate 2.0.

Now, there’s Climategate 3.0 — also called “Gleickgate.”

Climate activist Dr. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute of water policy in Oakland may face criminal charges that he deceptively obtained data from a conservative think tank, the Heartland Institute, then “doctored” it and disseminated it on the web to libel that organization. Gleick has admitted he is the source of the leaked data but denies he produced the doctored document.

Andrew Revkin, the Dot Earth columnist for the New York Times, says Gleick’s admission that he deceptively obtained emails from the Heartland Institute will destroy his reputation and career.

Centrist professor of foreign affairs at Bard College Walter Russell Mead states on his Via Meadia blog:

“Reckless and sensationalist actions like Gleick’s are a reminder of the wild and loony side of the green movement — no group certain of its own arguments should feel the need to stoop to this level, and it will take a long time for the movement to be trusted again in the eyes of the public.”

The ClimateChangeDispatch.com website is reporting Gleick is likely to face criminal charges which could involve serving jail time for libeling the Heartland Institute.  The Heartland Institute has reportedly called the FBI into the case.

Liberal economist Megan McArdle, writing at The Atlantic magazine online, says she is “very surprised a man of Gleick’s stature would take this sort of risk, on such flimsy evidence.”

What did Gleick do?  Writing in Forbes magazine, James Taylor, a senior environmental policy analyst at the Heartland Institute online, explains it:

“In short, Gleick set up an email account designed to mimic the email account of a Heartland Institute board member. Gleick then sent an email from that account to a Heartland Institute staffer, in which Gleick explicitly claimed to be the Heartland Institute board member. Gleick asked the staffer to email him internal documents relating to a recent board meeting. Soon thereafter, Gleick, while claiming to be a ‘Heartland Insider,’ sent those Heartland Institute documents plus the forged ‘2012 Climate Strategy’ document to sympathetic media and global warming activists.” 

In the liberal magazine The Atlantic, Megan McArdle explains the heart of the ethical problem involved:

“Impersonating an actual person is well over the line that any reputable journalist needs to maintain. I might get a job at Food Lion to expose unsafe food handling.  I would not represent myself as a health inspector, or regional VP.  I don’t do things that are illegal. 

“Nor would I ever, ever claim that a document came from Heartland unless I personally received it from them, gotten them to confirm its provenance, or authenticated it with multiple independent sources. And ethics aside, what Gleick did is insane for someone of his position — so crazy that I confess to wondering whether he doesn’t have some sort of medical condition that requires urgent treatment.  The reason he did it was even crazier…. I would not have risked jail or personal ruin over something so questionable, and which provided evidence of…what? That Heartland exists?  That it has a budget?  That it spends that budget promoting views which Gleick finds reprehensible?” 

According to Mark Gunther ,writing at the EnergyColletive.com Website, Gleick likely sees himself as something of a hero who possibly hopes to use the discovery process in any legal action taken against him to embarrass the Heartland Institute.  But embarrass them with what: That they used donors’ funds to exercise their First Amendment right of free speech?

Ironically, it is reported that Gleick was chairman of the American Geophysical Union’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics until he resigned last week.

Dr. Gleick may have perpetrated a fraud and libeled the Heartland Institute. But that is not the only action of Dr. Gleick that has been questionable.

Slick Gleick’s Water Tricks

Here at Calwatchdog.com, we have previously taken Dr. Gleick to task for his misleading op-ed columns in newspapers across the state saying:

1) There “isn’t enough water to satisfy 100 percent of demand” in California;
2) Agriculture consumes 80 percent of all the water in California; and
3) There are eight times as many water rights given away as there is water available in an average year.

All of the above statements by Gleick about California water are partial truths and overblown distortions that are never put in context.  Nor are the assumptions about such statistics disclosed as would be required by any ethical scientist.   Let’s take a quick look at Gleick’s claims.

1.   Gleick: Not Enough Water To Meet 100 Percent of Demands.

According to data from Cal State University at Stanislaus, there is on average 194.2 million acre-feet of precipitation and imported water in California per year (see table below). An acre-foot of water is enough to supply two families per year; or one acre of farmland. Deducting the 39.4 million acre-feet of water that goes to the environment on an average year, that would leave 154.8 million acre-feet of water.  That would equate to enough water for 774 million people per year. (154.8 x 2 x 2.5 persons per household.) Or it would be 154.8 million acres of farmland. So much for Gleick’s claim that there isn’t enough water to supply 100 percent of demand in a year.

Contrary to Gleick’s widely disseminated claims, there is enough potential water.  The problem is not necessarily a shortage of water caused by waste by agriculture or cities but capture, storage, conveyance, and treatment of potential water resources.

2. Gleick: Agriculture Uses 80 Percent of All Water.

According to the California Department of Water Resources official statistics, agriculture uses 42 percent of all “dedicated” water for human use in an average year.  In a wet year, agriculture uses 28 percent of the water and in a dry year, 52 percent.
To claim that agriculture uses 80 percent of the water one would have to assume that every year is a dry year and that the pool of water one is referring to is the total amount of water for “human use.”

A percentage is the ratio between a whole and a part.  If you make the whole smaller, the part appears bigger.

There are three concentric rings of water in California (see table below):

1. The largest amount of water is total precipitation and imported water, which is 194.2 million acre feet per year on average;
2. The next largest is total “available” water, which is about 82.5 million acre-feet on average; and
3. The smallest amount is water for “human use,” which is 43.1 million acre-feet of water on average.  Gleick uses this amount to determine the percentage of agricultural use of water, but only on a dry year.

In other words, one would have to assume the smallest amount of water — water for “human use” — and a continuous drought to say that agriculture uses 80 percent of all water in California.  Failure to disclose these preconditions is misleading.

California depends on “monsoon-like” rains in wet years to fill reservoirs. Cites and farms depend on the water from wet years until the next cyclical wet year.  To accurately report how much water agriculture uses, “average” data must be used, not data from a dry or a wet year.  Gleick uses data from a dry year and the narrow supply of water for “human use” — not total potential water or all available water — to derive his 80 percent figure. He also presumes there is no water storage or groundwater resources available.  Cities and farms often use groundwater during dry years to offset less imported supplies.

To repeat, 42 percent is the official figure the California Department of Water Resources uses for average agricultural water use.  This is about half of what Dr. Gleick claims.

And if we take into consideration all the water supplies from precipitation and imported water in a wet year, then agriculture would only use about 8 percent of total potential water.

It is misleading to not disclose the assumptions on which an estimate is based.  Dr. Gleick never discloses what circumstances would result in agriculture using 80 percent of “dedicated” water supplies. Such circumstances would include:

* Wet or dry year;
* Total potential water;
* Available water;
* Water only for human use;
* Whether all storage reservoirs and groundwater basins are empty.

When assumptions are not disclosed, it is not ethical science that is reported but propaganda.

3. Gleick: Eight Times Water Rights Have Been Contracted.

It is likely true that eight times as much water has technically been contracted as there is water available from various water sources.  But under what conditions is this true?  As Mike Wade of the Agricultural Coalition explains: “The truth is water rights permits are issued for time and place of use, not gross quantity.”

For example, it is typical to grant greater water rights during a wet year. And then by comparing the amount of water in those wet year grants to the water in a dry year, one can fallaciously conclude that the water rights granted are eight times the amount available in a dry year.  But in a dry year, it is typically not permitted to draw water or only draw to less of it.

The exercise of water rights is based on contingencies such as rainfall.  It can also be based on court adjudicated restrictions such as the “safe yield” of a groundwater basin so that the basin is not depleted.

So it is misleading to say the contracted water rights are eight times the capacity. If it were true that water rights granted were eight times the amount of available water, this would have perpetrated a contractual fraud.  And such frauds and disputes have historically been brought before courts of law for adjudication.  One would have to assume there is no court system to adjudicate the claims of those who hold water rights to make the outlandish statement that water rights exceed water supplies.

Many Phish Swim In Unpure Water

We will await the outcome of any future legal actions to report what, if any, alleged crimes Gleick may or may not have committed with Heartland Institute documents.  Gleick’s self-admitted reckless and apparently delusional actions in the Heartland scandal don’t aid in the credibility of his interpretations of the data about agricultural water usage.

What Gleick admittedly did is called “phishing” in Internet language, which is defined as: To request confidential information over the Internet under false pretenses in order to fraudulently obtain credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal data.

There is a saying, “Water that is too pure has no fish.”

So of Gleick’s actions, we could say, “Unpure water has many phish.”

Percentage of Agricultural Water Under Various Scenarios (Million Acre Feet)

Peter Gleick is a fraudster.

The president and co-founder of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security confessed this week that he used a stolen identity to obtain internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a public policy organization known for challenging the scientific and political orthodoxy on climate change.

Gleick decided he would stop at nothing to put a hurt on Heartland, which has the temerity to suggest that the threat posed by anthropogenic planetary warming might be just a tad bit overstated by climate-change alarmists. So Gleick  posed as a member of Heartland’s board of directors, gaining access to information to which he had absolutely no right.

‘Serious Lapse’

Gleick acknowledged “a serious lapse” in his “professional judgment and ethics,” while at the same claiming, in effect, that the devil — Heartland — made him do it. He was frustrated, he explained, “with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and the lack of transparency of the organizations involved.”

So how did the UC Berkeley-trained scientist, a former recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, advance the cause of transparency in the climate change debate? By anonymously leaking the sensitive materials he stole from Heartland to sympathetic journalists and to fellow climate change activists.

For all the sound and fury directed at Heartland by Gleick’s leak, it really was much ado about nothing. They are only surprising, wrote Time Magazine, “if you’ve paid exactly zero attention to the climate debate over the past decade.”

And as to the “well-funded” attack on climate change scientists, surprise, surprise, surprise, the Heartland memos, wrote Time, “indicate that fossil fuel companies don’t seem to be spending that much money on climate denial.”

What does that mean? That Heartland has not been bought and paid for by Big Oil, as Gleick and his fellow climate change activist so often claim. It means that some of us — I’d dare say most if not all of us — who question the conventional wisdom on climate change have come by our skepticism honestly.

When I hear Gleick and others insist that it is beyond scientific dispute that human activity has precipitated global warming, I am reminded of a scary Newsweek story in 1975 warning of “global cooling.”

Global Cooling

The scientific community was just as certain in 1975 that a new Ice Age was in the offing as it is today that a planetary meltdown will take place unless enlightened lawgivers in places likeSacramentodo something to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels.

Indeed, it was because of climate change hysteria — based on worst-case scenarios laid out politically-motivated scientists, driven  by environmental extremists who want us all living in little boxes, little boxes and driving around in Teensy smart cars — that the Legislature enacted AB 32, the nation’s most Draconian global warming law.

The law requires California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, eight short years away. It also requires that 33 percent of the state’s energy mix come from renewable sources — solar, wind, hydro — by the turn of the decade.

Robert Stavins, director of Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program, blogged last year that, “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require greater reliance on more costly energy sources and more costly appliances, vehicles and other equipment.”

Is it worth it? Yes, if climate change truly is the life-or-death threat suggested by Gleick and other activist scientists.

But what if the scientific community is dead wrong about climate change (just as it was back in 1975, when the overwhelming consensus was that a dangerous planetary cooling was underway)?

Then California’s global warming law makes no scientific or economic sense.

That’s the quite reasonable point that the Heartland Institute and other climate change skeptics are trying to make. And that’s why they are under attack by climate change activists like Gleick, the fraudster.

– Joseph Perkins