Year 3, Month 3, Day 1: Remixed.

The Silicon Valley Mercury-News, on Gleick:

For the past two decades, Peter Gleick has earned a reputation as a nationally known expert on water and climate issues, winning a MacArthur “genius award,” penning a long list of scientific articles and testifying before Congress.

But over the past two days, the 55-year-old Berkeley resident has found himself at the center of a national maelstrom of his own making: using a false name to obtain confidential documents from a pro-industry think tank known for minimizing the risks of global warming.

The issue has riveted the environmental community and the energy industry, raising questions about whether the damage will extend past Gleick’s reputation and harm scientists’ efforts to convince the public that climate change is real and largely caused by humans.

Gleick, president of the nonprofit Pacific Institute, in Oakland, wasn’t talking Tuesday.

But Monday, he stunned the scientific community when he admitted — via his blog in the Huffington Post — that he obtained confidential fundraising and strategy documents from the libertarian Heartland Institute in Chicago by using someone else’s name, and distributed them on the Internet.

Heartland/Gleick — the gift that keeps on giving. Sent February 24 (putting me six days ahead of the game):

Yes, Dr. Peter Gleick was naughty. Misrepresenting himself to the Heartland Institute in order to verify the provenance of some documents was indeed an ethical lapse — but when measured against the wholesale mendacity of Heartland’s climate-change denialist curricula, Gleick’s offense is about as serious as a parking ticket.

But unlike Gleick, Heartland Institute didn’t have an “ethical lapse.” You can’t lose what you don’t have, and all the evidence suggests that this secretive right-wing think tank never had any ethics in the first place.

Misrepresenting the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change is bad enough when it’s done in politics and the media, for it fosters inaction in the face of a serious (and steadily worsening) global threat. But misrepresenting climate science in our nation’s classrooms is a form of intellectual child abuse; a gross violation of the public trust; a lie so big it beggars the imagination.

Warren Senders