The blogosphere is boiling with the enthusiasm of climate deniers who have finally found their “smoking gun” to alarm us good citizens that all IPC-believing climate researchers are just communist fraudsters. They are cherry-picking some hacked emails to prove their case: these scientists are manipulating their data and preventing honest climate-sceptical scientists to publish their papers. They are talking about “climategate” (remember Watergate?) and the “global warming conspiracy”.

Of course, the reality is that:

  • climate change science is now highly politicised which makes things very difficult for critical scientists (pro or contra strong global warming policies);
  • most climate scientists have their own doubts about the climate models but fear that they are erring on the side of underestimating the speed of global warming (confirmed by most of the recent science BTW). Some of them fear of getting “hijacked" by the climate deniers when they publish more critical positions;
  • citizens (who fear having to change their lifestyles) tend to believe those who bring them arguments which question the science and therefore are becoming increasingly doubtful (also because all these policies they hear off, does not really seem to make a difference – they do not see positive change);
  • climate deniers will do anything to make sure the Copenhagen climate summit fails.

For some excellent coverage of this blown-up “climate swindle scandal”, read Wired, Real Climate or Joe Romm’s blog.

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