by Walter Starck, Doomed Palnet
Although climate alarmists have attempted to present the public release of the Heartland Institute documents as being a scandal for climate sceptics comparable to the one Climategate has been for AGW proponents, the comparison is spurious in several key respects:
- Heartland is a private advocacy group, whereas Climategate involved publicly funded scientific research.
- Climategate entailed a legal and ethical obligation to FOI. Heartland does not.
- The Heartland documents were obtained by criminal impersonation of a Heartland board member. It is unknown if the Climategate documents were obtained illegally or were released by a whistle blower.
- No malfeasance was revealed in the Heartland documents. The Climategate documents exposed multiple ongoing instances of scientific misconduct and conspiracy to illegally thwart FOI requests.
- The only Heartland document suggesting anything less than entirely ethical intent has been denounced as a fabrication and there is strong evidence to support this claim. The authenticity of the Climategate documents has never been denied by any of those involved.
- The very modest remuneration provided by Heartland to a few researchers for their assistance becomes a pathetic joke in contrast to the multiple orders of magnitude greater personal remuneration plus million dollar research grants received by leading climate alarmists.
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