Climate-change alarmists' favorite weapon was the allegation of a 'scientific consensus' in their favor. So much for that. Over the past two weeks, that allegation has been exposed as an utter fraud.

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"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be." 
~Albert Einstein 

In their longstanding effort to squelch objective debate, climate-change alarmists’ favorite weapon was the allegation of a “scientific consensus” in their favor. 

So much for that. 

Over the past two weeks, that allegation has been exposed as an utter fraud.  Of course, those familiar with the ongoing debate knew all along that this “consensus” claim never held validity, because thousands of scientists whom the alarmists sought to marginalize maintained a contrary view. 

But now the alarmists’ pretense has been documented for the entire world to see. 

On Thursday, November 24, over 3,000 emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University in Britain were anonymously exposed on the Internet.  These documents between global-warming activist researchers reveal nothing short of a prolonged, concerted effort to conceal data that undermined their agenda, to shamelessly blacklist other scientists who sought to test their hypotheses or challenge their agenda and even to “redefine what the peer-review literature is” in order to advance their worldview. 

A sampling of the more damning communications includes the following: 

“The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty we can’t.” 

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” 

“If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone…  We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.” 

“Try and change the received date!  Don’t give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with.” 

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report.  Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” 

So why are these revelations so significant? 

Because the CRU has served as a primary data source for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which seeks to impose the costly global-warming agenda upon the entire world.  And here in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has in turn based its extremist environmental agenda and proposal to regulate carbon dioxide upon the IPCC’s reports. 

In other words, these so-called “scientists” are the unstable sand upon which much of the global-warming house is built. 

Even climate-change activist George Monbiot has admitted that these revelations “could scarcely be more damaging,” and that, “I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.”  And according to Megan McArdle of The Atlantic, “the CRU’s main computer model may be, to put it bluntly, complete rubbish.” 

As a result of these revelations, the University of East Anglia announced that Phil Jones, the CRU’s director, “is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.”  Similarly, Penn State University has announced that it is investigating Dr. Michael Mann, one of the prominent participants in the email exchanges.  And in Australia, their Senate suddenly rejected a proposal to impose a carbon cap-and-tax legislation similar to a bill now contemplated by the Pelosi-Reid Congress. 

It appears, however, that Barack Obama remains the last person blissfully oblivious to these ground-shaking revelations. 

How else to explain the fact that he still plans to attend next week’s IPCC-sponsored UN climate summit in Copenhagen?  The explicit goal of the summit is to advance the discredited global-warming agenda, despite the fact that its underlying research has been exposed as corrupt to the entire world. 

In his typical head-in-the-sand manner, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended Obama’s boondoggle by mindlessly claiming, “climate change is happening,” and that “I don’t think that’s anything, that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore.” 

Somebody apparently needs to send the White House a newspaper subscription or Internet connection as a Christmas gift. 

We can only conclude that the White House is better at shielding Obama from unwelcome news than it is at preventing uninvited guests from entering White House black-tie dinners.  But either way, we can thank whoever exposed these documents for helping move the world closer to rejecting the fraud that is the man-made global-warming agenda.