ClimateGate

Climate fraud finally made it to the New York Times.

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change. In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

The NYTimes also nails the likely reaction, which you can see amongst establishment wannabes like Marginal Revolution, and Jane Galt.

The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.

Since everyone knows it's real, who cares if it's shown to be a fraud?

The nonsense that Steve McIntyre's been dealing with for years directly matches my experience in some of the most prestigious university departments on the planet. Of course, my work was pretty inconsequential, but the dollars and prestige (Gore, Nobel Prize Committee, Democratic Party, every European Government etc.) means that the mask could not afford to slip there. And now it has.

That said, I think the Times still has it right. So what if it's all bogus?