WITH 'CLIMATEGATE' HAVING COME AND GONE.... When global warming deniers latched onto the "Climate" gate story, they thought they'd finally come up with a credible basis for their beliefs.
The charge was the climate scientists deliberately manipulated their
research to reach pre-conceived conclusions. Some of the nuttiest
deniers on the right even tried to use the "controversy" to suggest
climate change itself is irrelevant and inconsequential.

Of course, there have now been five independent investigations of the incident, and all five have found that the deniers' arguments are wrong. The most recent report, released this week, concluded,
"On the specific allegations made against the behavior of [Climatic
Research Unit] scientists, we find that their rigor and honesty as
scientists are not in doubt."

The New York Times editorial board raised a good point today: "Perhaps now we can put the manufactured controversy known as Climategate behind us and turn to the task of
actually doing something about global warming."

There have since been several reports upholding the U.N.'s basic findings, including a major assessment in May from the National Academy of Sciences. This assessment not only confirmed the
relationship between climate change and human activities but warned of
growing risks -- sea level rise, drought, disease -- that must swiftly
be addressed by firm action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Given the trajectory the scientists say we are on, one must hope that the academy's report, and Wednesday's debunking of Climategate, will receive as much circulation as the original, diversionary
controversies.

That last point is of particular interest.

...Media Matters for America joined 12 clean energy and progressive organizations in strongly urging news outlets that reported on the original "Climategate" controversy over stolen emails and the
reliability of climate science to set the record straight. These outlets
are urged to highlight recent developments that completely disprove
much of the evidence that supported the alleged "Climategate" scandal
with the same forcefulness and frequency that they reported the original
charges.

Of course, if given a choice between policymakers taking climate change seriously going forward and major U.S. media outlets covering the exoneration of the climate scientists with equal gusto to coverage of
the "scandal," I suspect the former is more likely.