The coveted "Carl Sagan" Award goes to a scientist who admitted to having used a conservative think tank

12:17 11/09/2018 | Energy

Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor

• The Carl Sagan Award will be presented to Peter Gleick, President-Emeritus of the Pacific Institute.
• However, Gleick admitted to using "the name of another person" to obtain confidential documents from the Heartland Institute.
• Heartland's spokesman said the award to Gleick "sullied Carl Sagan's memory."

A prominent California scientist will receive a prestigious scientific award on Friday, although he admitted to obtaining confidential documents from a conservative think tank "under the name of someone else" before disclosing them to reporters.

President Emeritus of the Pacific Institute, Peter Gleick, will receive the Carl Sagan Award for Popular Science, named in honor of physicist and science communicator Carl Sagan. Gleick will receive the prize at Wonderfest in San Francisco.

Selected by a committee, the Sagan Award is presented to scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area who have advanced "public understanding and appreciation of science". The prize is also endowed with $ 5,000. (RELATED: University of California sued for "climate litigation")

"Sagan would be proud to know that Peter Gleick, renowned for his research and outreach, has been awarded the Sagan Wonderfest Award for 2018," Wonderfest Founding Executive Director Tucker Hiatt said in a statement released at the end of the month. d & # 39; August.

Gleick is a prolific writer and a strong advocate for policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Gleick also criticizes the skeptics of catastrophic global warming, which he calls "deniers".

In fact, Gleick admitted in 2012 that his hatred for those who disagreed with him on climatology had led to "a serious lapse in my own judgment and professional ethics."

Tomorrow in San Francisco, @ PeterGleick will receive the 2018 Carl Sagan Award for Popular Science. The award recognizes researchers who have contributed to the public's understanding and appreciation of the #science: https://t.co/FZnd9iq1lH pic.twitter.com/pxa5xsK7l9

– Pacific Institute (@PacificInstitute) November 8, 2018

Gleick admitted in a 2012 article in the Huffington Post blog that he was using "the name of another person" to extract confidential internal documents and confidential donor information from the Heartland Institute, a skeptical conservative think tank as to global warming caused by humans.

Gleick then disclosed to the reporters these documents, including the one that could have been fake. At the time, Heartland kept its private donors, in part because activists had harassed them in the past. Gleick fulfilled this task while chairing the American Geophysical Union Scientific Ethics Committee.

"My judgment was blinded by my frustration with ongoing efforts – often anonymous, well funded and coordinated – to attack climate scientists and scientists and prevent this debate, and the lack of transparency of the organizations involved," Gleick writes. in 2012. .

Gleick has often criticized Heartland, regularly reproaching the group for not publicly disclosing its donors. Gleick has been passed for a board member of the Heartland Institute to extract internal funding documents from the group, said the group spokesman.

A former member of Heartland's board of directors assumed that Gleick was behind leaked documents three days before renowned scientists admit it.

"Nevertheless, I deeply regret my own actions in this case. I apologize personally to everyone involved, "wrote Gleick.

The Heartland Institute presents itself as the most important think tank that promotes skepticism about man-made global warming. The group regularly publishes reports to counter the general discourse on climate science published by the United Nations.

"Wonderfest is shaming and defiling Carl Sagan's memory by awarding this award to a recognized liar and thief," Heartland spokesman Jim Lakely told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gleick's actions, motivated by a false document that was sent to him "anonymously", allowed Greenpeace and other environmental groups to put pressure on Heartland Institute donors to withdraw their funding. GM and Diageo have stopped funding Heartland despite the pressure.

"Peter Gleick's reward for imitating a Heartland board member by email, stealing private documents and writing a fake" memo "for defamation. The Heartland Institute should have been a prison sentence, "said Lakely. "Instead, it is regularly celebrated by the radical environmental movement."

The admission of Gleick has earned him the condemnation of the entire ideological spectrum. Columnist Megan McArdle, who was then writing for The Atlantic, wrote at the time: "I confess to asking myself if there is not an underlying health problem that requires treatment urgent."

A Washington Post writer lamented that Gleick "did more to discredit himself and his work than to denounce the cynicism and collusion between the deniers of global warming."

Gleick resigned from the AGU Ethics Committee and the National Center for Scientific Education. Gleick, however, returned to his position as president of the Pacific Institute after a three-month investigation into his conduct.

Heartland Institute lawyers have prepared a long slide show of evidence of Gleick's fraud, including e-mails and document metadata, for federal prosecutors. The government did not sue Gleick.

Niatt and Gleick, of Wonderfest, did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment.

"I am delighted to be honored with the Sagan Award," said Gleick in a statement released late August. "Carl Sagan's early efforts to bring scientific challenges and solutions to the public and policy makers have inspired and encouraged a generation of scientists willing to speak out on the critical challenges of our time."

Update: Wonderfest's founding Executive Director, Tucker Hiatt, made the following statement at TheDCNF after the press time.

Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter