Peter Gleick is a hero, and a man of gumption. It's amusingly ironic that he is being lambasted for using a slight deception to obtain documents from one of the foisters of the grand deception of our day -- the denial of climate change. The Heartland Institute has been doing its master's bidding and selling our children down the river, afloat on society's tax exempt largesse. Climate change is real, and now, and urgent, and we all know it (unless we are deluded enough to believe that random acts of God are behind the weather upheavals of the last years).
The thing about climate change is that we are all a part of the problem, with every smart device we buy, light we leave burning, or hamburger we eat -- all of which explains why we are so willing to listen to the deniers. After all, who wants to forgo all those indulgences? And with so many august politicians and think tanks and their paid scientists casting doubt on the issue, maybe it's OK to keep driving that SUV.
Civility is the lubricant which greases the interactions of society, and thus we value it highly, so highly that conformity is the logical progression. Lying, cheating, and stealing in social interactions are frowned upon as they undermine the trust on which society depends. Gleick told a small lie to uncover a massive truth, and the press (owned by the same cabal that funds Heartland) is up in arms. The irony is that the mainstream press at large is not calling Heartland (or any of the climate change deniers or their funders) to account for the big lies and deceptions they have been spreading for years, which are putting us all at risk.
Gleick is a hero, and has no need to apologize. We as a society need to wake up and do something about this while there is still time.
