Craig Miller

Californians may want to rethink the long-established tradition of watering the sidewalk.

You installed a low-flow toilet. You take fast showers. Your yard is water-wise and drought-tolerant. And even if everyone in California were just like you, which they’re not — yet — the state would still see a significant bump in urban water demand by the end of the century. The culprit: warmer temperatures caused by climate change.

An innovative new model developed by researchers at Oakland’s Pacific Institute shows that even if California meets its current goal of reducing per-capita water usage 20 percent by 2020 — and continues to improve water efficiency at a similar rate through the end of the century — still, by 2100 the state’s urban water demand will increase by eight percent, or roughly one million acre-feet (with all other factors held constant). That’s a lot of water: enough to satisfy the current household needs of 6.7 million Californians.

The result came as a surprise even to model co-creator Juliet Christian-Smith. “Warming overwhelms the efficiency improvements,” she said. Here’s why, in a nutshell: warmer temperatures lead to higher evaporation and respiration from plants. It may sound trivial, but it’s serious stuff. Up to half of California’s urban water use takes place outdoors, including at golf courses, parks, and other large landscaped areas. As temperatures increase, it takes more water to hydrate the same plants. (The one million acre-feet figure is based on temperatures associated with a medium-high greenhouse gas emissions scenario.)

It’s also worth noting that at a certain point — around 2080, Christian-Smith projects — the residential efficiency measures that Californians have been slowly adopting since the 1980s will cease being quite as effective. By the end of this century, if we stay on track, enough homes will have low-flow toilets, shower heads, faucets, washing machines, and dishwashers that their benefit will become less pronounced. At that point (what you might call the “saturation point”), we’ll really need to focus on reducing outdoor water use through low-water landscapes and widespread use of reclaimed water.

The Pacific Institute’s new model isn’t just designed to offer another spin on global-warming doom and gloom — or to pooh-pooh your new toilet. Rather, it’s designed to offer a useful tool to water agencies hoping to plan for the future. It’s particularly targeted toward cities and local agencies that lack the ability to develop their own models, Christian-Smith said.

“This tool will allow smaller agencies that don’t have any modeling staff to run some scenarios and potentially include those in their water management plan,” she noted. It’s even available for free to armchair hydrologists. You can download it and an accompanying report, which explains how the model was created and examines a series of six state-level scenarios, at the Pacific Institute’s website.

Pacific Institute

After a three-month internal investigation, Pacific Institute president Peter Gleick has been cleared of further wrongdoing in the Heartland Institute scandal.

The announcement that Peter Gleick has been reinstated as president of the Pacific Institute was met with an outcry from the Heartland Institute, which has vowed to press ahead in its effort to prosecute the noted scientist for fraud.

In February, Gleick admitted he had faked his identity to obtain internal documents from the conservative think-tank.

“The Pacific Institute’s board of directors has failed to perform its duty and should be deeply ashamed,” said Heartland president Joseph Bast in a statement released today. “We have asked the federal government to prosecute Gleick for what we believe were serious crimes he committed, and we await its decision.”

Gleick took a leave of absence from the Oakland-based Pacific Institute in February, as an independent internal investigation began looking into allegations that he had given a false name to Heartland, and also manufactured a document containing detailed strategy information on Heartland’s national effort to downplay climate science.

While the Pacific Institute has not released any documents detailing the specifics of the investigation, it has cleared him of any further wrongdoing.

“Dr. Gleick has apologized publicly for his actions, which are not condoned by the Pacific Institute and run counter to the Institute’s policies and standard of ethics over its 25-year history,” read a statement released yesterday by the Oakland-based group. “The Board of Directors accepts Dr. Gleick’s apology for his lapse in judgment.”

Heartland, which has dubbed the incident “Fakegate,” maintains that the document outlining the group’s strategy – which Gleick asserted he received “in the mail” from a company insider – is a forgery.

Jeremy Miller

Pacific Institute founder Peter Gleick steered clear of his current controversy in his remarks at a water policy conference in L.A.

Nearly three weeks after admitting that he had faked his identity to obtain documents from a conservative think-tank, noted California scientist and president of the Pacific Institute, Peter Gleick, returned to the public arena.

Gleick spoke at the annual California Water Policy Conference in Los Angeles and was warmly received by a crowd of roughly 300 California scientists, regulators and advocates.

Notably missing from Gleick’s talk — which focused on a wide range of global and regional water issues central to the Pacific Institute’s core mission — was any specific mention of last month’s confession that he had impersonated of a board member of the Chicago-based, libertarian Heartland Institute to obtain internal documents outlining the group’s anti-climate change campaign.

“I should make it clear that today I am speaking as an individual, which I am always speaking as,” Gleick told the audience. “I will not be addressing the recent contretemps between me and the Heartland institute. At this point I am going to let my last Huffington Post piece and the Heartland documents speak for themselves,” he said. “And if you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about you’re better off.”

Almost immediately after Gleick’s post appeared on the Huffington Post website, his admission was met a torrent of criticism — particularly from conservative commentators and politicians. Criticism was not exclusive to those on the right, however. Andy Revkin of the New York Times Dot Earth blog noted that his “reputation was in ruins.”

Others, however, praised his actions and some suggested that he should be afforded whistleblower protection.

Since the incident, Gleick has taken temporary leave as president of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute and the organization has appointed a third party to investigate the matter. Heartland has announced it is contemplating legal action.

“I am a scientist by training and it isn’t always clear that the public, or even colleagues, appreciate it when scientists stray too far into the public arena. But I am a concerned and interested and citizen as well, as are all of you,” he told the audience.

Gleick would not discuss the specifics of his leave with me but hinted in his talk that he would continue to oppose those who seek to discount mounting scientific evidence of human-induced climate change.

“Those who deny this science and this evidence are becoming increasingly desperate in their efforts to attack the science and scientists and fool the public and prevent any rational discussion of a climate or energy policy from being adopted,” he said in his remarks.

World Economic Forum/Flickr

Peter Gleick is taking a temporary leave of absence from the Pacific Institute.

The Pacific Institute has posted a new statement to its website, saying the board is hiring an independent firm to investigate the actions and allegations surrounding its founder, Peter Gleick, who admitted last week to using deception in order to obtain documents from the Heartland Institute.

Gleick requested a temporary leave of absence over the weekend and the board has nominated Elena Schmid, an independent consultant, to head the organization on an interim basis. According to a bio from the Pacific Institute, Schmid has worked at California Independent System Operator, “focusing on policy, communications, and human resources for this corporation that manages the high voltage transmission lines for California,” and at the California Public Utilities Commission, “developing policies, programs, projects, and budgets that resulted in active representation of long-term consumer interests in telecommunications, gas, water, and electric industries.”

Meanwhile the Heartland Institute is doing its part to keep the Gleick scandal center stage, releasing a line-by-line analysis of a strategy memo Gleick says was sent to him by an anonymous source, but which the Heartland Institute says is forged:

The forged memo, titled “January 2012 Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a mixture of text copied and pasted from the stolen documents and original commentary by the forger. By distorting and misrepresenting the plans set forth in the stolen documents, the fake memo paints a false and disturbing picture of Heartland’s motives and tactics.

Gleick has not spoken publicly about the matter, choosing instead to write an online admission, which appeared on the Huffington Post last week.

Craig Miller/KQED

Founded in 1987, the Pacific Institute is housed in this Oakland Victorian.

ANALYSIS

The old blue-and-gray Victorian in Oakland’s preservation district is familiar turf for me and other journalists on the resources beat. It’s long been a place we could rely on for solid information and interviews.

The analysts who inhabit the rabbit warren of offices at the Pacific Institute are doing honest work on issues that are critical to the future of California and the West, notably where our water will come from. There are few issues more deserving of study than that one.

So I was troubled when, in the haboob of outrage surrounding the tragic missteps of its founder, Peter Gleick, this particularly intemperate remark appeared in the comments thread of the Climate Watch blog:

“Gleick is a liar-self admitted, and ALL the “research” which comes from his solely owned “Pacific Institute” is suspect, ad cannot and should not be trusted.  This is what happens when you lie, you cannot be trusted.”

I responded partly to correct the ownership point: The Pacific Institute is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit with a legitimate board of directors. It is not “solely owned” by anybody. It is true that Gleick is a founder and has been the public face of the organization for years, partly because he’s a dynamic presenter and a pithy sound bite. Now he’s taken a wrong turn and few are defending what he did to obtain sensitive documents from a nemesis of his.

UPDATE: In a brief letter to his board on Friday, Gleick asked for “a temporary, short-term leave of absence from the Institute,” in order for the “staff to continue to refocus on its work, while permitting the Board to conduct a full and fair review and determine an appropriate course of action.”

But the notion that his actions invalidate any — let alone “ALL” — of the Institute’s research is way off the mark. Over the years, the Pacific Institute has done much to advance public knowledge of natural resources in the West and apparently dozens of clients and funders, from the Bureau of Reclamation to the United Nations, agree.

Among many other works, Institute analysts wrote the recently released seventh volume of The World’s Water, a compendium of freshwater issues and insights worldwide. Matthew Heberger’s chapter on Australia’s Millennium Drought will figure prominently in an upcoming Climate Watch report on what lessons California and other states in the western U.S. can draw from the “Big Dry.” We’re going to need them. Take a look at the staff’s recent reports on best practices in agricultural water management, or the crucial role of water in producing electricity for the West, or nitrate contamination of groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley. These are things we need to know about.

Over the years, Pacific Institute analysts have been important sources for us on topics ranging from the future of hydro-electric power to rising sea levels. And In all of my interactions with the staff there, I have found them to be a smart, conscientious group of people, doing important work. That work should continue, with or without Peter Gleick at the helm.

World Economic Forum/Flickr

Peter Gleick is a prominent water scientist and a Macarthur Fellow.

The furor surrounding Peter Gleick’s admission that he lied in order to get internal documents from the Heartland Institute appears to be gaining momentum, with the board and at least one major funder of Gleick’s Oakland-based Pacific Institute appearing to back-peddle on initial statements of support.

Gleick, who co-founded the Institute, wrote in a blog post earlier this week that he impersonated a Heartland insider to obtain the information, which includes strategy and fundraising details from the organization, a conservative think tank that’s against taking action on climate change.

Gleick has already stepped down from positions with the American Geophysical Union and the National Center for Science Education. Initially the Pacific Institute stood by him, saying in a brief statement posted to its website, Gleick “has been and continues to be an integral part of our team.” That statement is no longer there, replaced yesterday by one that takes a different tone:

The Board of Directors of the Pacific Institute is deeply concerned and is actively reviewing information about the recent events involving its president, Dr. Peter Gleick, and documents pertaining to the Heartland Institute. Neither the board nor the staff of the Pacific Institute knew of, played any role in, or condones these events. As facts emerge and are confirmed, the Board will inform all stakeholders of our findings and of any actions based on these findings.

Meanwhile The Guardian reported that Pacific Institute funders are concerned, and quoted Conrad N. Hilton Foundation spokesman Marc Moorghen:

Obviously we are concerned about any allegations of unethical conduct and Dr Gleick has already admitted to it and apologised. We are disappointed in his poor judgment.

That’s a more stand-offish appraisal of the situation than I got from Moorghen yesterday in an email.

“The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s relationship with Dr. Gleick has nothing to do with global warming and climate change. Our foundation has been working to provide safe water in developing countries since 1990, and since Dr. Gleick is a recognized expert on global water issues, we have funded the Pacific Institute to assist us in these endeavors.”

The Heartland Institute states on its website that it’s consulting legal counsel. Before Gleick fessed up online, the Institute said it intended to see the perpetrator put in jail.

Craig Miller/KQED

Peter Gleick is a co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a research group based in Oakland.

Climate scientist Peter Gleick, who last night admitted that he was the source of leaked documents from the Heartland Institute, has resigned from the American Geophysical Union’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics. Gleick was chair of the task force, which met for the first time last November. According to a press release from the AGU, Gleick resigned last Thursday — after the explosive documents appeared on various blogs but before his online admission as perpetrator.

He’s also stepped down from a position which he hadn’t yet officially begun with the National Center for Science Education, an organization that advocates for evolution and climate change education in schools. Gleick was scheduled to begin serving on its board this week, but tendered his resignation yesterday.

I spoke with Bud Ward, editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, who said he sees the whole affair as a setback not only for Gleick, but also for the climate science community.

“I don’t think this is just a quick passing episode,” Ward said in a telephone interview. “I’m afraid this is going to leave some stains and some victims, and to some extent I think Peter Gleick is going to be — and I say this with great regret — among the victims.”

Ward took the long view in an article today, analyzing the media’s response to the documents and Gleick’s admission to leaking them:

“Reporting on a ‘myth’ or a ‘hoax,’ one might say, does society no good in coming to grips with an issue of the importance and complexity of climate change, regardless of one’s own views on the subject scientifically, economically, politically, or otherwise.”

The Heartland Institute posted a press release last night, in which it says it’s consulting legal counsel, and the Pacific Institute added a short statement on its website this afternoon, saying that it’s “aware of Dr. Peter Gleick’s apology and actions related to the Heartland Institute,” and that Gleick “has been and continues to be an integral part of our team.”

What’s next for Gleick, the Pacific Institute and the Heartland Institute is an emerging story. The Pacific Institute’s audited financial statements for 2010 include a diverse list of funders and contract clients, from government agencies to major private foundations.

Gleick has yet to make a public statement since yesterday’s blog post, in which he said he yielded to frustration with corporate efforts to subvert the prevailing climate science.

Update:

I checked in with some of the Pacific Institute’s biggest funders. Marc Moorghen, the communications manager for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, said in an email that they don’t know about the issue beyond what they’ve read, but their relationship with the Pacific Institute isn’t related to climate change.

“Our foundation has been working to provide safe water in developing countries since 1990, and since Dr. Gleick is a recognized expert on global water issues, we have funded the Pacific Institute to assist us in these endeavors.”

And If you’re just catching up on this story, here are a couple good places to start.

• On KQED 88.5 FM last night, Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller reviewed what’s happened so far, saying, “It remains to be seen where all the ripples will end up…But I think one has to ask whether the Pacific Institute can survive this.”
• This evening on All Things Considered, Science Correspondent Christopher Joyce reports on the controversy. One response he includes is from Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at the University of California:

“The documents that were released last week essentially affirm what we already knew,” she says. “And [the deception] was not necessary because this information is actually available through entirely appropriate means.”

Earlier this month, documents were allegedly leaked from the Heartland Institute — a think tank that questions human-caused climate change — which describe elements of the organization’s strategy to discredit climate science, and include background on funders. Now climate scientist Peter Gleick, the founder of the Pacific Institute, has admitted to using deception to obtain the information.

On his blog on the Huffington Post, Gleick said he first received a document about Heartland from an anonymous source. He goes on to describe how he received additional information:

I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget.

Gleick has been a source for Climate Watch and for KQED News. In the past, he’s spoken out against tactics to discredit climate science that he said were politically motivated.

When the documents were first released, Heartland Institute threatened to pursue legal action against bloggers who published them. In a statement on its website responding to Gleick’s confession, Heartland says it’s consulting with legal counsel to decide on next steps.

We’ll continue following this story as it develops, here on the blog and on KQED News.

Despite a dozen billion-dollar weather catastrophes in the US alone, year-end tallies show that overall, coverage of climate change continued to flag in the mainstream media.

That isn’t to say that there wasn’t plenty of public jabber about it, much of it wrong, according to Peter Gleick, who heads the Oakland-based Pacific Institute. Gleick is a hydrologist and one of the more outspoken science figures on Western water and climate issues. As a countermeasure against what he calls climate “disinformation,” Gleick and some colleagues have started handing out yearly Climate B.S. (Bad Science) Awards. In so doing, Gleick doesn’t spare the media itself. His list of 2011 “winners” came out today (gratefully we’re not on it). The following are Gleick’s words. Some of the links are mine. May I have the envelope, please:

THE WINNER OF THE 2011 CLIMATE B.S.* OF THE YEAR AWARDS IS:

All of the Republican candidates for President
Being anti-science in general, and anti-climate science in particular, seems a requirement for nomination to lead the Republican Party. Not a single one of the Republican candidates for President has a position on climate change that is consistent with the actual science accepted by 97-98% of all climate scientists and every national academy of sciences on the planet. The choice among the current Republican candidates on the issue of climate change is scientific ignorance, distain for science, blatant misrepresentation of facts, or naked political expediency, any one of which would make the individual candidates strong contenders for the 2011 Climate B.S. Award. Combined? The group wins the 2011 Award hands down.

Second Place: Disinformation from Fox News and Murdoch’s News Corporation
Fox News moves up from their fifth place finish last year, joined by the entire News Corporation empire of Rupert Murdoch because of its apparent efforts to synchronize anti-climate science reporting among the different Murdoch outlets in the UK, the U.S., and Australia.

Third Place: Spencer, Braswell, and Christy
Third place goes to Roy Spencer and William (Danny) Braswell for a debunked research paper on climate sensitivity, and John Christy, for an astounding piece of misleading testimony at a Congressional climate change hearing.

Fourth Place: The Koch Brothers for funding the promotion of bad climate science
Fourth place goes to fossil-fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, Inc., who provide substantial funding to groups and politicians who deny the science of climate change. The Koch brothers fund a veritable Who’s Who of groups that put out misleading science or tout bad science on climate change as an intentional strategy.

Fifth Place: Anthony Watts for his BEST hypocrisy
Anti-climate-science blogger Anthony Watts said he would accept the results of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature or “BEST” study, even if it proved him wrong. Unfortunately for him, the study showed that the Earth’s surface is warming and at just the rate that numerous previous studies had shown – but he reneged and attacked the paper and the science.

Runners-Up in 2011 included:
Harrison Schmitt and the Heartland Institute for “Arcticgate” (documented errors in denying disappearance of Arctic sea ice); Rush Limbaugh for his consistent falsehoods about climate science; and  Steve McIntyre for his smear of climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State University.

Maxwell Boykoff / University of Colorado

More than a decade's worth of climate coverage trends, as tracked by the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research in Boulder, CO.

Gleick sharpened his teeth a bit for this year’s round. Last year, all but one of his first awards went to a series of commonly repeated “false and misleading climate science claims,” whereas this time around Gleick and his nomination team (which includes more than a dozen prominent climate scientists) took aim more directly at individuals and organizations. Reflecting the general trend in polemics these days, I guess the volume is being turned up.

Lake Powell, the Colorado River's second-largest reservoir, in April 2010 (Photo: Gretchen Weber)

There’s some good news for the 35 million people in the Western United States who rely on the Colorado River for their water, says a new study from the Oakland-based Pacific Institute.

No, the supply isn’t increasing.  And yes, the population is still growing.

But according to the paper, entitled Municipal Deliveries of Colorado River Basin Water, more efficient water use by water agencies across the West is making the supply/demand gap a lot less painful than it could be.

“Although population growth has increased very quickly, the amount of water delivered has not kept pace,” said study author Michael Cohen. “That shows that people have been getting much more efficient with their use of water.”

According to the report:

• Since 1990, the number of people who rely on water from the Colorado River basin has grown by 10 million. But during that time, per-capita water use has declined an average of one percent per year.
• Water agencies in Southern California delivered four percent less water from the Colorado in 2008 than they did in 1990, despite delivering water to almost 3.6 million more people.

Cohen said he was surprised and encouraged by the study results, and while he credited some of the efficiency to short-term policies (such as temporary drought restrictions) and new standards (like more efficient toilets and fixtures), he said that a lot of the change is likely due to changing attitudes.

“People are becoming much more aware of the value of water in the West, becoming sensitive that it is, in fact, a limited resource, and a resource that should be used wisely,” he said.

Not everyone in California is embracing efficiency, however.  Of the 100 water agencies studied, those with the three highest per-capita water deliveries are in California; the City of San Marino and two districts in Coachella Valley.

“They think it’s appropriate to have lawns in the middle of the desert even though they have to water them two or three times a day,” he said.  By comparison, he said, there are other, less affluent parts of Coachella Valley where water usage is about average for the state.

“Lots of agencies say [water usage] is driven by climate, but here’s a pretty stark example of cities or agencies with the exact same climate, but very different water use patterns,” Cohen observed.

Of course, what this study does not look at, is the 500-pound gorilla that is agricultural water use, which uses 70% of the water from the Colorado.  Municipal deliveries comprise just 15%, although it is the fastest growing segment of water use.

It seems that whatever efficiencies can be implemented now in any sector will only serve to ease what’s likely to become an even starker gap between supply and demand.  According to the Bureau of Reclamation, demand has recently outstripped supply along the Colorado, and a new federal study released earlier this month finds that the river’s flow could decrease 9% in the next 50 years due to impacts of climate change.  Meanwhile populations are expected to continue to grow rapidly in many regions dependent on the river.

“The question is, how are they going to balance supply and demand in the future,” said Cohen. “I think this report shows that at least part of that answer lies in more efficient use within the cities themselves.”