Why would Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and chairman of an American Geophysical Union task force on "scientific ethics and integrity," break the law to engage in a smear campaign against a small think-tank called The Heartland Institute that resulted in "Fakegate"?
As Alan Caruba
related in the opening paragraph of his article published on Tuesday, April 3rd, titled "Fatetgate: The War on Science," "[g]enerations of Americans have been raised to venerate science and those who have enhanced and extended our lives through its application. The rise of environmentalism, however, has generated a war on science, first by distorting it, and then by propagandizing the 'findings', studies' and resulting claims based on them."
The Heartland Institute, as a leading voice, led the effort to debunk the hoax through its sponsorship of six international conferences featuring scientists and others who presented papers demonstrating "that 0.038 percent of CO2 in the atmosphere had little or no "greenhouse" effect on the Earth's climate or weather events."
Heartland's six International Conferences on Climate Change (ICCC) attracted scientists worldwide, who employed science rather than pseudo-science in their presentations. Among these scientists were such notables as Lord Monckton, special adviser to former Margaret Thatcher, and former Czech President Vaclav Klaus. Monckton and Klaus were featured guests at Heartland's Fourth International Conference on Climate Change in May of 2010.