An internationally recognized water and climate change expert admitted yesterday that he lied about his identity to obtain internal funding and strategy documents from the Heartland Institute.

STINSON BEACH, Calif. -- The Pacific Ocean laps against a seaside property in the small Northern California town. If it comes a foot closer, it will breach the black-painted concrete wall that surrounds the wooden house on three sides. The threatening water isn't caused by climate change, but according to activists and experts, it provide a convenient way to see what everyday tides might look like decades from now.

In 1998, a young climate scientist named Michael Mann published a paper that would change his life forever. The work by Mann, then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts, and his two co-authors sought to reconstruct the past climate hundreds of years into the past. The result was startling: a graph that showed global average temperature ticking up sharply during the second half of the 20th century, like the blade of a hockey stick.