By now, even the American mainstream media has picked up on the hacked/leaked emails from CRU that implicate many of the world's top climate change activists in a tawdry web of lies and deception. US President Obama has reversed his decision not to attend the Copenhagen climate conference in a vain attempt to buck-up his flagging green credentials. Some claim we are witnessing the collapse of the climate change scam that the perfidious UN IPCC has been running for the past two decades, but is this true? All the signs indicate that the anthropogenic global warming crowd is going to ignore Climategate and proceed with business as usual.

The e-mails, some written as long as 13 years ago, ranged from nasty comments by global warming researchers about climate skeptics to exchanges between researchers on how to present data in charts to make global warming look convincing. Coverage of the climategate scandal has been fast and furious in the blogosphere, with climate change skeptics quick to say “we told you so!” But the major news networks, with the exception of FOX, have pretty much downplayed the whole affair. Other news outlets are openly siding with the AGW true believers. According to Reuters:

WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Revelation of a series of embarrassing e-mails by climate scientists provides fodder for critics, but experts believe the issue will not hurt the U.S. climate bill’s chance for passage or efforts to forge a global climate change deal.

Already dubbed “Climategate,” e-mails stolen from a British university are sparking outrage from climate change skeptics who say they show that the scientists were colluding on suppressing data on how humans affect climate change.

Their bottom line analysis is that the embarrassing climate e-mails will have limited impact and that scientists behaving badly won't change the evidence. And Reuters is not alone in supporting the climate change status quo.

In The Washington Post, Geologist Thomas Crowley of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom defended colleagues, saying skeptics are “desperate to discredit global warming” and “there is no need to do anything differently by the scientists.” Science historian Spencer Weart told the Post's Capital Weather Gang that such charges are unprecedented:

We’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.

Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers. In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers.

Instead of addressing the content of the emails, AGW proponents are taking the low road and trying to smear anyone speaking out about the building scandal. Skeptics are likened to stooges for the tobacco industry, shills for Big Energy, people not to be trusted. The warmistas are true to form, trying to shut off debate by stonewalling or using personal insult.

Admitting that there could be a lot to learn from the documents if the owner of the emails would release them for analysis, Weart then discounted the cache of emails saying: “Of course no scholar can make use of stolen material, and in particular one cannot legally or ethically quote a private message without the explicit permission of the writer.” We suppose there will be more criticism because the correspondents were not read their Miranda Rights.

ScienceInsider, an online newsletter and blog from the AAAS, publisher of the journal Science, has rushed to do damage control for the implicated climate change activists. On climateprogress.org they provide a list of “related posts” that will give you an idea of how on-message the climate change establishment is:

• Rep. Jay Inslee slams SuperFreakonomics: “People are still trying to write books to deceive the American public” on climate science.
• Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)
• Here’s what we know so far: CRU’s emails were hacked, the 2000s will easily be the hottest decade on record, and the planet keeps warming thanks to us!
• Newtongate: The final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment “thinking”
• Competitive Enterprise Institute to sue RealClimate blogger over moderation policy
• The newspaper that publishes George Will (and Sarah Palin) editorializes: “Many — including us — find global warming deniers’ claims irresponsible.”
• UK Guardian: “To stop a climate catastrophe … Scientists must stop sanitising their message”

As you can see, the climate change establishment is closing ranks and trying to dismiss or ignore the entire indecent. The AGW Cassandras are going to try and rally their forces at the Copenhagen conference with Barrack Obama leading the charge. The Obama Administration has dismissed the Climategate scandal and defended the science behind global warming. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House believes climate change is happening, but offered no documentation and rationale for that conclusion other than: “I don't think that's anything that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore.”

According to inside-the-beltway newspaper The Hill: “The White House on Monday made exceptionally clear that it wants nothing to do with the furor over documents that global warming skeptics say prove the phenomenon is not a threat.” Even so, Obama's on-again off-again trip to Copenhagen is on-again.

The White House is facing criticism from the left for offering too few concessions ahead of the climate change conference. It is also having to deal with grumbling from the right for participating in a summit sponsored in part by the IPCC. Obama's decision to attend fits his modis operandi—whenever the going gets tough, Obama flies somewhere in Air Force One and gives a speech. As his sinking popularity numbers indicate, this act is getting old.

Our message is simple: don't become complacent! This war is not over by a long shot. Despite the great job being done by bloggers like Marc Morano, skeptics like Lord Monckton and right thinking politicians, this is only one battle in a long struggle. The forces of global warming will not quietly slink away, they have too much at stake—political influence, billions of dollars in research grants and their professional reputations are all on the line. This is a fight to the finish and the forces of skepticism must remain stalwart.

PS: It looks like the press in the UK is on top of the story...

LONDON — The chief of a prestigious British research center caught in a storm of controversy over claims that he and others suppressed data about climate change has stepped down pending an investigation, the University of East Anglia said Tuesday. more...