Certainly Peter Gleick is still in the running.
But as I wrote in Forbes last week, the memo does not have the feel of having been written by a “player” like Gleick. It feels like someone younger, someone more likely to take the cynical political knife-fighting statements of someone like Glieck (e.g. skeptics are anti-science) and convert them literally (and blindly) to supposed Heartland agenda items like trying to discourage science teaching. Someone like an intern or student, who might not realize how outrageous their stilted document might look to real adults in the real world, who understand that leaders of even non-profits they dislike don’t generally speak like James Bond villains. Even Megan McArdle joked “Basically, it reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern.”
Now combine that with a second idea. Gleick is about the only strong global warming believer mentioned by the fake strategy document. I don’t think many folks who have observed Heartland from afar would say that Heartland has any special focus on or animus towards Gleick (more than they might have for any other strong advocate of catastrophic man-made global warming theory). I would not have inferred any such focus by Heartland, and seriously, who would possibly think to single out Peter Gleick of all candidates (vs. Romm or Hansen or Mann et al) in a skeptic attack strategy?
The only person who might have inferred such a rivalry would have been someone close to Gleick, who heard about Heartland mainly from Gleick. Certainly Gleick seems to have had a particular focus, almost obsession, with Heartland, and so someone who viewed Heartland only through the prism of Gleick’s rants might have inferred that Heartland had something special in for him. And thus might have featured him prominently in a hypothesized attack in their strategy document.
So this is what I infer from all this: My bet is on a fairly young Gleick sycophant — maybe a worker at the Pacific Institute, maybe an intern, maybe a student. Which would mean in turn that Gleick very likely knows who wrote the document, but might feel some responsibility to protect that person’s identity.
*****”Although this argument might be true in other contexts, it is certainly not true here.”
If it is true in other contexts, it is also true here.
*****Whoever created the fake memo obviously had the phished documents to guide him because he copied and paraphrased liberally from them.
You do see that this is predicated upon the notion that the memo is “fake,” something which has not been proven, although you clearly wish it were?
The other, perfectly plausible explanation is that whoever wrote the memo-in-question had that information at his/her finger tips.
*****The statement that the memo is generally accurate is true to the extent that the copied and paraphrased portions of the memo are consistent with the portions of the phished documents from which it was copied and paraphrased.
Again, this is predicated upon the belief that whoever wrote the memo was copying and paraphrasing and not writing an original memo.
Did it ever occur to you that the pilfered memo may have been the original draft of what became the emailed documents?
The fact that parts of the memo are “paraphrased” actually makes it more likely it was an original document;
******this can only be verified by an appeal to extrinsic evidence to which I have no access.
Bingo! Therefore we cannot know if the memo is fake or not.
And, by the way, it’s pretty amusing that you keep declaring victory. You are a champion in your own mind, congrats! The blimp’s still afloat, my friend, and no one is crashing and burning.
By the way, I’m not the only one who thinks Heartland is acting a little funny:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/why-is-heartland-institut_b_1311208.html
“let me know if you still want to play.”
Still game.
Terrible Ted is back to his old tricks (he always does the same thing).
1. Ted posts some generalized statements about the impossibility of some technological / technocratic predicament which is apparently beyond Ted’s ability as an engineer. This virtually always has something to do with a green technology.
2. He will then post a detailed summary of why the technological / technocratic predicament will fail, consistently adding something to the effect of “you can’t build a [insert gizmo/idea/technology] with a full-scale plan” and then make some hyperbolic analogy to a historical figures who have failed at some vast undertaking.
Ted will sprinkle the dialogue with references to the supremacy of engineers and repeatedly assert that “if an engineer tried this, he would be fired in a day” or “any engineer would see through this in an hour or two,” despite the fact that no technological / technocratic project goes anywhere without engineers.
3. I will then do a simple Google search and find engineers how are working on the problem Ted says can’t be fixed; I will then suggest Ted contact these other engineers and explain to them why their project won’t work.
4. Ted will not do this.
5. Ted will become obstinate and insist that “this has nothing to do with what I am talking about” and/or he will explain the project-in-question by blaming politicians.
6. Ted will then relate an anecdote (unverified, of course) about some engineer “laughing his way to the bank” while working on some irresolvable problem, implying that engineers have no ethics and no oversight.
7. Then Ted will disappear.
Oh, and whatever Ted posts will have nothing to do with the issue at hand, just as above.
WALDO: I nearly fell off my chair laughing at the suggestion at HP that Steven Mosher might be a secret agent for Heartland. Mosher frequents many of the blogs I read such lucias blackboard, climate audit and Judith Currys blog.
Moshers extremely bright and makes many interesting comments. The thing about Mosher is that he is one of the most independent minded persons I have ever read. He tears into climate scientists when he thinks they are wrong so he is a fierce critic of michael mann and his gang. On the biggest issue, climate sensitivity he is aligned with the IPCC’s high climate sensitity and is thus an unlikey agent for Heartland. I have often thought your side of the debate wouldnt be loosing so badly in public opinion if it had more Stephen Moshers.
So I went over to Lucias blacboard hoping to be the first to link to the HP post on Mosher. Alas the crowd has been having fun with that for hours and is also deconstructing the updated computer analysis.
For the record, Mosher denies he is a secret agent, noting that any idiot who reads his posts would know that he doesnt like Heartland but he does like mysteries.
Waldo: “Then Ted will disappear.”
Go back to Warren’s post http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2012/02/heartland-documents-whose-biases-are-being-revealed-here.html. , particularly the comments following Teds observation:
“Waldo makes a criticism and then runs when it is aswwered, using some idiotic escape from his faulty comment. He says we should blindly accept what the expert scientists say. Then he argues with engineers when it is clear that he has no understanding whatever of engineering principles.”
Its seems to me that you are the one who disappeared. I provided many links that backed up Ted’s position. I am still waiting for your thoughts.
I protest! I ran nowhere. I am still here. Do you think I’d leave the party early? I had to go back and scan the thread again. What comment would you have me respond to? I suggested that Ted tell the engineers in question that their project was doomed. Ted said essentially, “You’re not an engineer!” Then you and Ted started rubbing elbows. I am happy to admit I am not an engineer (I must admit I was much more impressed with engineers before I began talking to Ted), I simply think Ted should should help out his fellow engineers in the green technology movement by pointing out where they face certain folly. He consistently balks at this public service.
And you must realize that Ted performed the 7 steps exactly as I posted above.
The funniest thing is that Ted is happy to point out when other posters are not engineers—heavily implying that we should not meddle where we are not qualified (this is the entire reason he posts about technology on a thread dedicated to a Heartland memo)—yet he, and you (apparently an economist), have no inhibition about challenging climate scientists.
And you will forgive me if I take your evaluation of Mosher with a grain of salt. You have a certain bias depending upon whether one is a denialist or not.
And again, I protest! My “side of the debate” is that most of us are unqualified and uninformed when it comes to climate science, and we amateurs should step out of the way and let the climate scientists do their work without the political hoopla of the blogosphere. I do not know if AGW exists or not (something it is hard for the good peeps here to comprehend—as a group, you seem to see the world in one of two shades of color).
As for “loosing so badly in public opinion”—Kim Jong-il, Joe McCarthy, and the Nazis did great in the public eye through demonization, misrepresentation, indoctrination, and popularization. You’re in good company.
Waldo:
I think it is clear that Mosher is no “denier”. I was incorrect when I said that he identifies himself with the IPCC’s high climate sensitivity. He puts himself in the lower half of the IPCC’s range and therefore identifies himself as a “lukewarmer” not a “sceptic” Here is his position in his own words.
steven mosher | June 2, 2011 at 1:16 am | Reply
“Lukewarmer ( hey I’m a founding member) was first coined on climate Audit. There were two core beliefs we held about the SCIENCE.
1. IR opaque gases in the atmosphere lead to a warmer planet. That is, an atmosphere with, say, twice the C02 will be warmer than one with half the C02. Most of the initial members of the group are engineers or former engineers who understand the physics of radiative transfer.”
2. The key question of climate science is how sensitive is the long term temperature average ( one climate metric) to the doubling of C02.
“Our belief in radiative physics separates us from those in the Sky Dragon camp and from people who believe that GHGs have nothing to do with the temperature of the planet. We see them as flouting basic physics known to work. They are anti scientific. I cant think of a better word. This is measured working physics.”
“The second question is one that we believe can divide the debate into 3 rough groups. The IPCC puts a range of sensitivity between 1.5C and and 6C for a doubling of C02. We see a skeptical camp falling anywhere below ~1C. They are skeptical of the accepted science. You might class Lindzen and Spencer in this group. We dont see them as being anti scientific. They fall outside the mainstream, but they are dedicated to doing science.”
“Lukewarmers fall anywhere between 1C and 3C. They believe that the real sensitivity will fall below the mean value of the IPCC (~3C). For reference, ModelE has a sensitivity of 2.7C. Those who believe that the real sensitivity lies above 3 ( say hansen, perhaps) we call them warmers. Lukewarmers are within the mainstream of climate science.” http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/01/making-the-lukewarmer-case/#comment-72648
Waldo said: “I protest! I ran nowhere. I am still here. Do you think I’d leave the party early? I had to go back and scan the thread again. What comment would you have me respond to? I suggested that Ted tell the engineers in question that their project was doomed. Ted said essentially, “You’re not an engineer!” Then you and Ted started rubbing elbows. I am happy to admit I am not an engineer (I must admit I was much more impressed with engineers before I began talking to Ted), I simply think Ted should should help out his fellow engineers in the green technology movement by pointing out where they face certain folly. He consistently balks at this public service.”
The thread is still open so you can comment there. I don’t want to continue the discussion here because it is off topic.
As my comments and links indicate, what Ted was saying is dead on and one of my links is to a detailed engineering study that fully backs him up. As I indicated, he doesn’t need to warn the engineers as what he said is common knowledge among them. It is the politicians who need to get up to speed. They, in fact, are being educated by reality as other links I provided demonstrate. I’ll be happy to continue the conversation on the other thread.
Waldo still afloat says:
I said*****”Although this argument might be true in other contexts, it is certainly not true here.”
Waldo says, “If it is true in other contexts, it is also true here.”
Well, you will need an argument to back that up. I did explain why the context is different here.
*****Whoever created the fake memo obviously had the phished documents to guide him because he copied and paraphrased liberally from them.
Waldo replies: “You do see that this is predicated upon the notion that the memo is “fake,” something which has not been proven, although you clearly wish it were?”
Nope. Even if the memo were written by a Heartland insider it is clear he would have needed the phished documents because he copied directly from them.
I said*****The statement that the memo is generally accurate is true to the extent that the copied and paraphrased portions of the memo are consistent with the portions of the phished documents from which it was copied and paraphrased.”
Waldo says: “Again, this is predicated upon the belief that whoever wrote the memo was copying and paraphrasing and not writing an original memo. Did it ever occur to you that the pilfered memo may have been the original draft of what became the emailed documents?”
Are you suggesting that the phished documents might have been copied directly or paraphrased from the strategy memo? This is pure speculation that is not based upon any type of argument rooted in common sense. Like I said before, one cannot rule out implausible and fanciful possibilities.
Waldo continues: “The fact that parts of the memo are “paraphrased” actually makes it more likely it was an original document”
You will need to explain the argument for that assertion. I am also not sure how this advances your position.
******this can only be verified by an appeal to extrinsic evidence to which I have no access.
Waldo says: “Bingo! Therefore we cannot know if the memo is fake or not.”
Nope. We can say the fact that the strategy memo is inconsistent in many ways from the phished documents suggests that it was forged. An insider,especially a CEO or high level staffer, would be more likely to keep his story straight. By contrast, a forger is likely to get things mixed up in many subtle ways as he in fact did.
Waldo says: “And, by the way, it’s pretty amusing that you keep declaring victory. You are a champion in your own mind, congrats! The blimp’s still afloat, my friend, and no one is crashing and burning.”
If you could get past your “it not impossible that the memo is authentic” position, and actually presents some interesting arguments rather than “hand waiving”, I would be willing to listen.
A quick further thought on the strange theory that the strategy memo was the orignal document from which the phished documents were created.
One of the subtle inconsistencies between the documents is that the strategy memo double counts certain expenditures that are properly presented in the phished documents. See fakegate.org for the details.
It would indeed be strange if the author of the strategy memo make such a mistake, corrected it in the phished documents, and then failed to correct the strategy memo.
“one cannot rule out implausible and fanciful possibilities.”
“This is pure speculation that is not based upon any type of argument rooted in common sense.”
Paul you must realize that both these statements above, both yours, so nicely sum up my entire position regarding the memo in question. Virtually anything you or I have asserted thus far can be countered by either of these two propositions: you repeatedly assert something is “common sense” and I repeatedly assert that something is “pure speculation.” Yet when you assert something it is “common sense,” and when I counter you suggest “speculation. Can’t you see we are both playing at the same game? This, more than anything, proves that we cannot know if the memo is a forgery or not. It’s only common sense.
The one objective standard (the computer analysis) you now want to disregard because it contradicts your “common sense.”
And you have been using the “common sense” argument a great deal, apparently believing that to assert that “it is common sense” is a definitive statement. Certainly you must realize that “common sense” is extraordinarily subjective and various (drug addicts and hardcore racists may use the phrase to rationalize their behavior) and thus is simply proof of an opinion, and that’s all. It is simply not a very good tool for deducing anything. One must convict on more than “common sense,” which it is not clear you are using in the first place. For this reason, I remain agnostic about the nature of the memo in question.
Thus:
***** Even if the memo were written by a Heartland insider it is clear he would have needed the phished documents because he copied directly from them.
Granted. But this does nothing to prove that the memo is a fake or which document came first. This does nothing to prove or disprove the memo’s provenance. Sorry, this response was poorly worded on my part. I was responding to your constant reference to the memo as “fake,” which has not been proven yet.
***** Are you suggesting that the phished documents might have been copied directly or paraphrased from the strategy memo?
Well, it did occur to me that everything thus far is predicated on the idea that the phished documents came first and then the memo. And the memo has always read like a draft to me. So it did occur to me that everyone, myself included, has made a huge assumption about the chicken and the egg. Since we do not know where the strategy memo came from, I suppose it is possible that it preceded the other phished documents. But this is pure speculation which one cannot rule out, even if it seem fanciful and implausible.
And now I must run for the moment but I will visit again later this evening and we shall talk more about your common sense.
One last thing though—you misunderstand, either through obstinacy or obtuseness (perhaps deliberately), about our friend Ted. I have no question whatsoever that he knows about the problems involving wind energy, energy conservation, cost analysis, or what have you. But what he does here is to cite a problem and then assert that it is an irresolvable problem that no one can ever solve, even while engineers as talented as he are working to solve them. Thus any sort of green technology is a doomed failure as long as Ted can post here. Out there, the engineers working on green technology may have a difference of opinion. I think Ted should talk to them and explain that they are doomed to failure. You and he may post whatever links you like, they do not change Ted’s basic behavior in this regard. He is not here to discuss science; he is here to vent his conservative irritation and to try and shut down anyone who disagrees with him with a random display of engineering know-how apropos of nothing at hand.
Waldo: Ill admit that I enjoy engaging in a dual of wits with an unarmed man. Eventually, however, it gets boring. I was interested in seeing exploring your ideas to see whether was true that I had jumped to conclusions.
But then I came across this statement by James Annan, a prominent climate scientist and vocal critic of sceptics. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Annan.
On the issue of Gleicks authorship he says on his own blog at the comment time-stamped 2-29 @ 10:22 AM
“It’s the equivalent of someone being found holding a knife, spattered with blood and standing over a fresh corpse saying “someone else did it, then gave me the knife and ran away”. I wouldn’t be surprised if such an event has indeed occurred at least once in the past, but on any given occasion it’s a lot more than just “likely” th the knife-holder did it. ”
He explained:
The “Gleick did it” theory is simple and straightforward. We know he was already in contact with HI, and pressing them on funders. This is, of course, a widespread meme (unhealthily so, IMO, but that’s another discussion) among a particular clique of the most vocal scientists. Frustrated by their stonewalling, he has a cunning plan, gets the docs through email, then belatedly realises that HI will easily identify him as he hasn’t covered his tracks well enough (and would be circumstantially under suspicion due to the previous discussion), and has to rapidly invent a cover story. He puts his own name into the doc as a plausible reason as to why it was sent to him. Under pressure of time and under great stress, he wasn’t thinking that clearly at this point, and is still deeply enmeshed in the good vs evil mindset (witness his interest in “ethics”), hence the rather implausible language. He actually thinks that HI thinks like this! In short, he has the obvious means, motive, and opportunity, and absolutely no alibi -though if he was innocent, he would at least be able to produce the original “fake”, and maybe even demonstrate that it is incompatible with his printer(s). “
Waldo:
You are ABSOLUTELY correct. You CAN run a google search and find thousands of articles about alternative energy projects that are under way, many with glowing approval. So what? If a company is formed to implement some scheme and adevertises to hire engineers, they will hire some. Those engineers will carry out their assignments to the best of their ability. Many will do extremely competent work (a la the engineers designing wind turbines that you sent me a pretty picture of). All of this has NOTHING to do with whether the basic idea is sound.
The problems with the utilities chasing the up and down wind is well documented. Pauld referes me to one re the Colorado power company. There are many others. The economic, backup, and storage problems are also well described (not just by me). I have invited you to point out to me where my calculations are wrong. You never do, but merely state that I have a negative attitude and am against progress. I am ALL for progress. Chasing some crazy scheme that can be easily shown to be nonsense is NOT progress. It is sheer incompetence. That is precisely what engineers are paid to avoid: wasting money and resources on bad ideas. Every company has many engineers doing exactly that. As I have pointed out, it has been well established practise in industrey for generations. Why do you object to doing it here?
I am all for technical progress (I have over a dozen patents) but VERY MUCH against idiotic waste.
By the way, I have an engineer in the family that was making $200k studying compressed air storage of energy. As ANY competent engineer can do, he quickly realized (thermodynamic calcs) that it was nonsense, and it became a joke in the family. By the way, there are demonstration plants in existance storing energy this way, with horrible efficiency that can easily be predicted beforhand. Oh well, it’s only government money. I am sure all sorts of profs and research organizations are also laughing all the way to the bank.
Many years ago, I was invited to a meeting re drying high-moisture Wyoming coal. The guy that called the meeting stated that we all new it was uneconomical, but the USG was pushig 300 million out the door and we should get a piece of it. Not only is most of the alternative energy stuff stupid, but it has corrupted the R&D establishment, as well as businessmen who see a quick buck.
How about running some calcs of your own to show that, for example, hydro or compressed air storage is a sound idea, rather than continually harping on your notion that engineers are negative toward new ideas? You are nuts. New ideas are what engineers do, for Pete’s sake. Also, this is your opportunty to show that all this is beyond Ted’s competence and that Waldo will show the true light.
Yes, engineers, profs, and researchers have ethics and oversight. But, as is clearly being demonstrated, everyone has a price. If you offer someone enough money, they will study what kind of cheese the moon is made of. The DOE has corrupted the whole system. It would be nice if everyone refused to sort paper clips for $200k for ethical reasons, but that is not happening.
I saw an article the other day on the internet that someone has proposed putting windmills on huge kites high in the sky where the wind blows more strongly and where they will not obstruct the landscape. It was reported that the USG has set aside $100k to studt this. Simple question: what happens when the wind dies dow and the kite crashes? Waldo, I am sure you will be enthusiatic about this idea (maybe it was yours?)
You like to google. Google wind and solar energy in Germany, Spain, etc. They are reducing subsidies they can’t afford and are realizing the problems many (myself included) have been pointing out for years. Oh, and you might also find more pretty pictures of windmills!
Opps, here is the link http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2012/02/his-transgression-cannot-be-condoned.html?showComment=1330478538291#c1137226813390030638
Waldo: If you are interested in discussing problems with large scale wind and solar power lets go back to the previos thread so Ted and I dont need to go over the same ground again or post the same links.
OMG, this is so funny! Thank you, Ted, this made my night. The paradigm is all out of order, probably because I aggravated him. But here are our steps. Note: this is an abbreviated version of the usual dialogue, again because I think I aggravated him and what we have has come out in rather a rush.
So…
5. Ted will become obstinate and insist that “this has nothing to do with what I am talking about”
Note: This a slight variation, but the wording is too good not to mention.
*****“All of this has NOTHING to do with whether the basic idea is sound.”
1. Ted posts some generalized statements about the impossibility of some technological / technocratic predicament
***** “The problems with the utilities chasing the up and down wind is well documented”
***** “Chasing some crazy scheme that can be easily shown to be nonsense is NOT progress.”
and/or he will explain the project-in-question by blaming politicians.
***** “The DOE has corrupted the whole system.”
Note: this comes somewhat later than usual, and Ted also likes to blame the DOE [I should have added that before—apologies].
Ted will sprinkle the dialogue with references to the supremacy of engineers
***** “That is precisely what engineers are paid to avoid: wasting money and resources on bad ideas. Every company has many engineers doing exactly that.”
6. Ted will then relate an anecdote (unverified, of course) about some engineer “laughing his way to the bank” while working on some irresolvable problem, implying that engineers have no ethics and no oversight.
Please note: we were exceptionally lucky this time and have two.
***** “I have an engineer in the family that was making $200k studying compressed air storage of energy. As ANY competent engineer can do, he quickly realized (thermodynamic calcs) that it was nonsense, and it became a joke in the family.”
***** “Many years ago, I was invited to a meeting re drying high-moisture Wyoming coal. The guy that called the meeting stated that we all new it was uneconomical, but the USG was pushig 300 million out the door and we should get a piece of it. Not only is most of the alternative energy stuff stupid, but it has corrupted the R&D establishment, as well as businessmen who see a quick buck.”
And then, since we are exceptionally lucky tonight, Ted performs step #2 again:
2. He will then post a detailed summary of why the technological / technocratic predicament will fail
***** “I saw an article the other day on the internet that someone has proposed putting windmills on huge kites high in the sky where the wind blows more strongly and where they will not obstruct the landscape. It was reported that the USG has set aside $100k to studt this. Simple question: what happens when the wind dies dow and the kite crashes?”
I will perform step #3:
3. I will then do a simple Google search and find engineers how are working on the problem Ted says can’t be fixed; I will then suggest Ted contact these other engineers and explain to them why their project won’t work.
“Hey Ted, here’s the email of the scientist (a former astronaut) working on the windmills-on-kites project; why don’t you email him and explain to him how his project is about to fail (possibly saving millions of lives): joos@ockels.nl
“He has a great name by the way, Wubbo Ockels.”
4. Ted will not do this.
Oh, and whatever Ted posts will have nothing to do with the issue at hand, just as above.
“Hey Ted, this has nothing to do with the Heartland memo.”
This is perhaps the funniest, slap-happiest, Keystone cop-iest thing that has happened on CS ever. Thanks Ted. I would almost believe you are funnin’ with me….
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! God that’s funny. You really did make my night.
P.S. – “How about running some calcs of your own” No thanks, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ted, I totally believe you. What I can’t figure out is why you won’t share your incredible prescience with the world.
“If you are interested in discussing problems with large scale wind and solar power.”
No thanks again, I totally believe you. Post whatever links you like. I’m sure they will be very interesting. Now I think I’ve posted this before. What I can’t figure out is why you don’t seem to understand this. You’re not being deliberately obtuse, are you?
P.S. — You should know better than to try and drive me away with a ridiculous ploy like this.
BAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OMG that’s funny.
U Guys R just 2 damn funny!
Whew! Okay, sorry. Need to get my breath back.
So, where were we…
Oh yes. Paul and I have been trading insults and speculations and attempting poke holes in each others’ arguments, recently point by point. We got slightly diverted for a while.
Now Paul has found another “authority” and he is simply reasserting his common sense assertions, all of which are unverified.
So we seem that we are back to square one.
This has been one of the best threads ever. Really.
Waldo: You never the left square one. Everyone else has left you behind.
“Everyone” as in…you? No, you’re pretty squarely square one squared, pal.
You know, it occurred to me, Paul, that you sometimes miss the forest for the trees—you get so focused on nitpicking that you miss the big picture.
For instance:
*Mosher is a warmist.
Okay, maybe he is. And maybe he had nothing to do with Gleick’s phishing trip. How knows? Hp was engaging in more wild speculation. What’s interesting there is that other people are noticing that the Heartland is, perhaps, acting suspiciously.
*Parts of the memo are copied or paraphrased.
Okay, granted. But these observations alone prove nothing except that the docs in question are extremely similar in some respects.
And the issue with “Paraphrase” in this context is that, by definition, a paraphrase is the close rewriting of a primary passage in the secondary author’s own words; thus any paraphrase should sound more like the secondary author than the primary author—except that this is apparently not what happened, and the “paraphrased” passages appear to sound suspiciously like Bast. And then Bast protests by claiming, essentially, “The memo sounds so much like my writing that it proves it’s not my writing.” But again, you get so lost in trying to win debate points by being particular you miss this.
*Finally, when you write something like “Whoever created the fake memo obviously had the phished documents to guide him.”
You entirely miss the point that a) the memo is not proved to be “fake” and b) the above statement is only true if we know for sure that the memo “fake.” Therefore, the fact that the memo is mostly accurate speaks to its authenticity more than it speaks to its forgery. You contention is only true if one assumes a priori that the memo in question is fake.
And so on and so forth…
It really is very simple. I think you are playing deliberately obtuse. Are you just trolling to amuse yourself, Paul?
Has Waldo found his first minion or am I reading his alter ego?
Still no minons, alas. Just me playing with the tag line. Maybe someday I’ll have a minion. Job’s still open, Paul.
Sorry, thought you’d figure that out.
Actually, I never did like “Waldo” as an avatar. Had I known I’d be around as long as I have I would have thought of something better.
Perhaps “Ted’s Excellent Adventure” or “Paul’s Manipulated Memo” would be more catchy.
Okay, now I’m just futzing around…gotta run anyway.
Waldo: I think I you should give up on me. Perhaps you can help out this well-known climate scientist:
Martin Vermeer* (Department of Surveying, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 1200, FI-02150, Espoo, Finland)
He thinks:
“The basic situation is very simple: Gleick was the only person outside Heartland known to have the leaked docs and enough time to put together the strategy memo. He did not use the memo to extract the other docs.
And it is strange that the mysterious outsider that sent him the memo — and if he wrote it, had access to electronic copies of the other docs — didn’t just send those too in the same letter.
And why use Gleick as a middleman at all?
And even now, as James points out, Gleick could settle the issue by allowing forensics on the hard copy.”
Waldo: Maybe you would like to run your ideas past Steven Mosher. He might be impressed? Here is sort of a recap of his current thinking:
“Let me tell you how I proceeded with this.
At 140pm n the 15th I downloaded the documents and looked at the metadata. The smoking gun memo was scanned. red flag. I then read all the budget documents. Then I read the memo.
Several things told me the memo was a fake.
1. Heartland claimed it was a fake.
2. It was scanned
3. It didnt read like a strategy memo.
a) wrong markings for a confidential document
b) no distribution list
c) no signature line
d) the document mixed operational
details with strategy
e)The style immediately said two
authors.
f)It got certain budget details
wrong.
g) it constructed a strategy
around individually named
people.
h) it got heartland attitudes toward revkin wrong.
The final kicker was the mention of Gleick. That stuck out as the weirdest thing of all.
Faced with an oddity, I used abduction:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning
What would have to be true for these things to make sense. I looked at the smoking paragraph.
Clearly written by a second hand to my ear. I read it like a story: who is the villian, who are the heros.
And then, who would write this kind of story putting Gleick at the center of heartland strategy?
Bam. That insight took about 1 second. If Glecik faked this, then all those odd things made sense.
I wrote Revkin: He agreed. paraphrasing, he thought that it made sense of the weird comment about him. Heartland dont like him.
A day later other evidence came in to support the hypothesis. The west coast time. The use of very rare words. If Gleick didnt write it then you have to assume a faker who knew that gleick used this term and that it was rare. Then came the style. There were only two aspects I found that stuck out.
1. the odd use of parenthesis.
2. some comma errors.
The comma errors I dont expect to find in edited text. But I did expect to find that in his extemporaneous writing you would see an odd use of parenthesis. So, I suggested that people look at comments he made on Judiths blog. Someone also sent a letter he wrote to Pielke. You’ll find that the style is consistent. I’m talking only about his weird use of parenthesis.
In short, The reasoning I used was abductive reasoning. The memo was odd and surprising. What would have to be true for it not to be surprising.”
Waldo: More fun.
Why is Heartland making such a big fuss? Well, in eyes of one its senior staffers the publicity to the authentic documents is undermining the attacks of its critics:
“But the stolen Heartland documents exonerated, rather than embarrassed, the skeptic movement. They demonstrate only an interest at Heartland in getting the truth out on the actual objective science. They revealed little funding from oil companies and other self interested commercial enterprises, who actually contribute heavily to global warming alarmists as protection money instead. The documents also show how poorly funded the global warming skeptics at Heartland are, managing on a shoestring to raise a shockingly successful global challenge to the heavily overfunded UN and politicized government science. As the Wall Street Journal observed on Feb. 21, while Heartland’s budget for the NIPCC this year totals $388,000, that compares to $6.5 million for the UN’s IPCC, and $2.5 billion that President Obama’s budget commits for research into “the global changes that have resulted primarily from global over-dependence on fossil fuels.” That demonstrates how an ounce of truth can overcome a tidal wave of falsehood. Maybe that is why Gleick or one of his coconspirators felt compelled to go farther and composed a fake memo titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/03/01/fakegate-the-obnoxious-fabrication-of-global-warming/
Continuing, it gives Heartland an opportunity to showcase the work it is actually doing:
“. . . I have been fascinated over the years by Heartland’s work on climate change. I’ve attended the Heartland global warming conferences and read through the organization’s publications on the issue. What has fascinated me is how the objective, dispassionate scientific presentations so thoroughly demolish the intellectual case for catastrophic man-caused global warming. In contrast, as the comments to this article will no doubt show, the case for catastrophic global warming is no more than appeals to authority (“the United Nations says it’s true!”) or ad hominem attacks.”
And highlight some of the evidence upon which it relies:
“Moreover, the incorruptible and objective satellite temperature records show only modest warming starting in the late 1970s, which stopped roughly 10 years ago, with more recent declines.”
And
“The likely reason for that failure is that while the models recognize that increased CO2 itself will not produce a big, catastrophic increase in global temperatures, the models assume that the very small amount of warming caused by increased CO2 will result in much larger temperature increases caused by positive feedbacks. The real, emerging science, as the Heartland publications indicate, is that the feedbacks are more likely to be offset by negative feedbacks, resulting in a much smaller net temperature change. Scientists have pointed out that much higher CO2 concentrations deep in the earth’s history, as shown by proxy records, did not result in catastrophic temperature increases, a very powerful rebuttal to the idea today’s relatively low CO2 levels could trigger catastrophic global warming.
Highlight the views of other skeptics:
” In an interview with Spiegel magazine, titled “I Feel Duped on Climate Change,” Vahrenholt tells readers that the UN’s forecasts on the severity of climate change are exaggerated and supported by weak science”
Lastly, point out the true nature of its opponents:
” That is why Gleick’s Fakegate memo is actually a perfect metaphor for the entire fabrication of global warming. It and the entire Fakegate scandal provide a window, much like Climategate did, into the global warming movement, and what we see is ugly indeed.”
Waldo: Maybe be you should apply your new found skepticism to the evidence presented by the IPCC.
Waldo:
As usual, you dodged the question. You must have been terrific at dodgeball as a kid. I am dying to find out how your calcs prove that energy storage or any other aspect of “alternative energy” are viable.
Long ago, I discovered that blindly accepting what someone says or writes can lead to disaster. You seem to swallow all that the DOE puts out without question, and feel that any questioning of it is blasphemy. In the past, I found only a small amount of technical info to be faulty. In the case of the USG, it is approaching 100%. The old adage “don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see” seems to be thriving.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, carefully checking out ideas before spending lots of money is standard engineering procedure. If you believe one should plunge ahead without doing this is being negative, go ahead. Just do it with your money, not public funds. By the way, virtually all of the USG sponsored projects were unable to get all private financing. Did it ever occur to you that their engineers did the kind of studies I recommend and subsequently advised against them?
Thanks for the entertainment. You are hilarious.
Waldo:
Earlier on, you stated that you were happy not to be an engineer. I am ECSTATIC that you are not an engineer. I would probably burn my diploma if you were. You would be such an embarrasment to the profession.
This is my last post. You are oblivious to reason.
Ted, are you being purposely obtuse too? I have no doubt that energy storage is completely non-viable and “alternative energies” are the end of civilization.
What I can’t figure out is why you are only telling me.
Tell the world.
And you are welcome for the entertainment, although I must give you the real credit.
PS – Man, I really chapped your hide with that last one; you lumped steps #1, #2, and #4 into one concise paragraph.
Tee-hee.
Paul, I will never give up on you, man. I look at you like I look at a homeless drug addict—first you must admit you have a problem, then the steps to recovery can continue from there.
What you’ve posted above from Mr. Moshur and Prof. Vermeer sounds pretty much like what we’ve been debating here and seems to add very little to the territory already covered. So…
Let me wait until after work (it would be more appropriate to personally contact professional people from a home computer in this case) and I will send an invite to Mosher and Vermeer to join us.
How does that sound to you?
I will plan on using this text:
“Dear Mr. Moshur / Prof. Vermeer:
“We have been debating the probable guilt of Peter Gleick for some time. Our main points of contention revolve largely around the same reasons and style of reasoning that you use in your statements about the scenario.
“Would you care to join us?
“We are at Warren Meyer’s blog, “Climate Skeptic.” http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2012/02/who-wrote-the-fake-heartland-strategy-memo.html/comment-page-3#comment-17663
“I would respectfully ask that you read or at least scan the thread so that you may enter the conversation mid-stream, although I must apologize for much of it because we rather let ourselves become somewhat juvenile and overtly disrespectful.
“Also, you may avoid those posts with some version of “Ted” in the line as these are digressions away from the main conversation.
“Thank you and hope to hear from you soon,
“Paul’s Manipulated Memo”
What do you think? Should I add anything?
I’m off in another couple of hours and then will contact our two guest-stars sometime this evening.
Cheers, PMM
Waldo: whatever you want to spend your time on. I doubt if they will accept but I would welcome their partipation. As long as you are on your frolic why don’t you add to a few others to whom I have linked to your mailing list.
Ted: There is no reason to respond to Waldo–it is a waste of time–unless you find it amusing.
I think Ted’s gone. Yes, I will add the others too, although I suspect you are correct, they will not accept (which is to their credit, I think).
And I like this, “on your frolic.” Nice.
I am curious, however, have you reversed your notion about “authorities” recently?
Nope
First, is always appropriate to cite a person’s argument or analysis either by directly quoting or by linking.
Second, when a person, such as me, is being repeatedly accused of jumping to conclusions and allowing biases to cloud my judgment, it is appropriate to offer evidence that other people thoughtful people whose biases would tend to influence them in the other direction have reached the same conclusion on the same evidence. The evidence is offerred to rebut the allegation of bias.
Similarly, evidence that your natural allies are abandoning the ship is evidence that you should examine whether it your biases that are clouding your judgment.
In this case I directly quoted Mosher primarily for the new arguments he added. I particularly liked that Andrew Revkin, the NYT writer thought it weird that some Heartland insider might percieve him as a potential ally. To him that made the memo sound fake.
The remainder of the people I cited for both purposes described above.
Neither of these uses is an improper appeal to authority as would be case if I argued that the memo is fake just because “so and so” said so.
I realize that I have made some nuanced distinctions. Let me know if you don’t understand.
Pauld:
Every once in a while, one encounters someone with whom a logical, intelligent discussion is impossible. I used to look for ulterior motives, but have come to believe that it is sheer stupidity.
One definition of an intelligent man is that he shuts up when he is beyond his area of knowledge. We seem to have found a perfect confirmation of thet definition. Good luck with your further sallies into never-never land.
There are endless articles on the internet re the problems (technical and economic) with wind and solar. I am clearly not a voice in the wilderness.
Gotcha.
Authority vs authority. It’s a nuanced difference between blindly believing an expert and finding an expert that agrees with you. And you cite other biased people as evidence that you yourself are not biased. And it’s apparently appropriate and nuanced to cite somebody when they add “a new argument.” Clearly a lot of nuanced thinking went in to posting and citing above. One assumes that you are still “thinking for yourself.”
So when you posted “Don’t you have some authority you can consult to learn what you should think about the memo?” you meant a non-nuanced relationship to “authority.” Thus any “appeal to authority” lacks nuance. That’s a crucial difference. Hmmmm…
Okay, Paul, I’m glad you explained this crucial difference. I understand. That’s not hypocritical at all. Think mom’ll buy it?
“One definition of an intelligent man is that he shuts up when he is beyond his area of knowledge.”
This has been my argument regarding AGW all along. Thank you.
Okay, emails away. Let’s see if anyone comes.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/interior_department_reviewing_heartland_institute_payments_to_government_scientist.php
They are actually selling Fakegate novelties.
http://fakegate.org/gear/
Man, what a classy, dispassionate outfit. You guys gonna buy a mug?
Waldo: so you think it is an improper appeal to authority to directly quote or link to another persons argument or analysis? If so could you cite an authority for your position?
Ted: Here is another great article that says exactly what you have been saying.
http://m.spectator.org/169477/show/a05b9cca9ddbb0999b19589a8ce89825/
“The President began his term with an Inaugural Address promise that “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” He has kept that promise. Using the crowbar of the $1 trillion “stimulus,” the Administration has shoehorned much of the country’s energy investment into a Rube-Goldberg sector of the economy made up of the half-baked projects of armchair entrepreneurs plus the off-the-charts dreams of those wanting see the entire planet transformed into an environmental utopia.
On wind power:
“Prompted by various federal and state government tax incentives plus market-obliterating “renewable mandates,” hundreds of square miles of mountain and prairie have been covered with 45-story windmills that look like the archaeological remnants of a previous race of 80-foot giants. These “wind farms” generally produce electricity that is essentially useless. When the wind blows, windmills can force other forms of generation out of the market because they are free of fuel costs. But those other forms of generation have to be kept running just in case the wind dies down. Last year when temperatures rose to 110 degrees in Texas, that state’s 7 percent “wind capacity” proved absolutely useless in the heat-induced doldrums. ”
On the storage issue you have repeatedly highlighted:
“Nobody has yet invented a way to store commercial quantities of electricity and it may be impossible without building facilities of equally gargantuan dimensions –say an entire city block of rechargeable batteries. Without any means of storage wind power is essentially a nusance”
On solar power:
“Then there is solar electricity, which, in order to access, California is now planning to cover dozens of square miles of pristine desert (yes, there is already environmental opposition) in order to prove the world can run on sunshine. Solar energy is a bit more concentrated than wind so that it only takes about five square miles of highly polished collectors to produce 100 megawatts –when the sun shines. In the desert environment, these solar panels will require constant cleaning and polishing to keep them from getting covered with dust and therefore becoming dysfunctional. It’s a labor-intensive task that will require lots of water coming from who-knows-where.”
Ted: It looks like reality is teaching the politicians what you engineers knew already.
Now Paul, we’re rowing in circles here (and you should be able to figure this out).
I do not think it is improper to cite an authority.
In fact, I think it is smart to defer one’s judgements to the experts.
I just wasn’t sure why you found the “appeal to authority” so improper and then repeatedly cited authorities. I was hoping for clarification.
I thought you were unconsciously being hypocritical, but then you have explained that a “nuanced” relationship to an authority is an entirely different matter.
Thanks, that cleared things up.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you are playing deliberately obtuse on this point in an attempt to turn the tables.
Nice try.
And I appreciate that you are trying to make Ted feel better. He seems like a nice enough old guy and I feel kind of bad about him. I’ve all along conceded his points about the various green energies on the rise and is use across the continent—I’m just glad that someone points out that, say, large battery storage units or cleaning solar panels are problems irresolvable by human industry. I’m sure you and Ted are very fair and balanced in your evaluation of these issues, as is the authority you cite above.
I’m just glad you guys weren’t at Kittyhawk. I’m sure the first manned flight presented no irresolvable problems or the future.
Waldo: “In fact, I think it is smart to defer one’s judgements to the experts. ”
This is likely the source of confusion regarding my position on authorities.
Unless the issue is not important to me I don’t like fully defer to expert opinions. That is why I don’t like arguments that take the form: Proposition A is true because experts say so.
I prefer to evaluate the basis of the opinion. I have no problem with arguments that take the form Expert A thinks Proposition B is true for these specific reasons as outlined in this link.
This point seems elementary to me and seems the type of thing one could learn in a high school debate class. Waldo, is that still an option for you?
******”Unless the issue is not important to me I don’t like fully defer to expert opinions. That is why I don’t like arguments that take the form: Proposition A is true because experts say so.”
Paul we finally agree on something. Forgive me for my confusion since you so often take issue with anyone who disagrees with you by charging the “appeal to authority.” It simply seemed to me that this was a default strategy of yours that you did not live up to yourself. So you will understand why I am not fully convinced of Ted or your take on green energy or the Heartland memo.
Now, next time you go to the doctor, please explain to him or her that you are not convinced about Proposition A about colon cancer or a heart transplant. Please examine your doctor’s “basis of opinion.”
Pauld:
A bit of humor. If Waldo was at Kitty Hawk, they would have tried to make an anvil fly instead of an airplane. I can see it now. A flying anvil with the letters emplazoned on its bow: “USS Waldo”
Waldo: Surely you jest? If your doctor recommended that you get a heart transplant, you would not ask him to explain why?
Sure. And then I might look for a second opinion,
but I would seek advice from a second cardiologist,
not a blog run by a parks manager,
nor would I listen to, say, engineers and economists,
nor would I listen to individuals who clearly have issues with Democratic administrations
and who believe that the overrun costs of healthcare might hurt the long-term economy, therefore there is no such thing as heart disease…
and so on.
So sure, I would ask why.
Is this a nuanced relationship to authorities?