Latest Gleick Links
A couple of interesting items from the last few days:
- Gleick and the Watergate burglars – Steve McIntyre at his Climate Audit blog gives a nice history lesson on Watergate, and points out some interesting parallels with the Gleick affair. I think McIntyre probably has an overly optimistic view about the likelihood of a criminal prosecution against Gleick. He seems perplexed by the incongruity of Watergate having bought down the government, while so far the affair of Peter Gleick is mostly of interest only to a few obsessive bloggers, with no federal indictment for wire fraud having happened, despite his (McIntyre’s) exhaustively argued case for it.
- Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick Breaks Silence – KQED’s Climate Watch blog covers the appearance by Peter Gleick last weekend as the keynote speaker at an L.A. water policy conference. Gleick apparently alluded to recent incidents, while refusing to address them directly.
From the latter article:
“I should make it clear that today I am speaking as an individual, which I am always speaking as,” Gleick told the audience. “I will not be addressing the recent contretemps between me and the Heartland institute. At this point I am going to let my last Huffington Post piece and the Heartland documents speak for themselves,” he said. “And if you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about you’re better off.”
[snip]
“I am a scientist by training and it isn’t always clear that the public, or even colleagues, appreciate it when scientists stray too far into the public arena. But I am a concerned and interested citizen as well, as are all of you,” he told the audience.
Gleick would not discuss the specifics of his leave with me but hinted in his talk that he would continue to oppose those who seek to discount mounting scientific evidence of human-induced climate change.
“Those who deny this science and this evidence are becoming increasingly desperate in their efforts to attack the science and scientists and fool the public and prevent any rational discussion of a climate or energy policy from being adopted,” he said in his remarks.
It’s interesting to contemplate what he said, and try to infer his mental state and fit it into the various theories of his recent actions. It’s not much to go on, I realize, but that’s all we’ve got at this point.
