I don't normally do requests, as they say - but I've a lot of messages via emails, blog comments and Twitter asking for a follow-up post on the Heartland Institute, and am happy to oblige.
Many thanks for all your messages - nice to know one's thoughts are in such demand!
So what's happened since last week's post, flagging up and analysing the contents of documents obtained through subterfuge from the leading US climate sceptic lobby group?
First, we saw a request from the institute that all media organisations who'd covered the story should take their articles down and issue retractions, with a vague threat of legal action.
As far as I can see, few complied - and why would they?
As the old saying goes, "news is something that someone somewhere doesn't want you to know" - and here was information about a significant player in climate politics that it certainly didn't want you to have.
In saying one of the documents was a fake, the institute also signified that the rest were genuine.
Then on Tuesday, the perpetrator came forward and 'fessed up. Scientist Peter Gleick, head of the Pacific Institute and a moderately well-known commentator on such matters, spilled the beans in the Huffington Post and proffered an apology.
"In a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else's name," he wrote.
"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."
Part of the lack of transparency he raised concerns funding.
The documents told us the identity of many Heartland donors, but not the identity of the "Anonymous Donor" who has given the organisation about $8m in the last four years, by far the major share of its finance for climate work.
Click source for FULL attack from Richard Black and also read the comments, if they are not removed anytime soon!!!
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