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What You Need to Know About “Climategate”

A round-up of articles and blogs about the hacked emails and the climate change deniers who love them.

Robert S. Eshelman

December 10, 2009

The climate change denial movement is having a field day with the hacked University of East Anglia e-mails that appeared last week. Sarah Palin chimed in on the topic with an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on Monday and a Republican delegation is making its way to Copenhagen hoping to derail talks. Here’s a round up of articles about the “climategate” controversy.

Mark Ambinder of The Atlantic offers a take down of Palin’s WaPo editorial.

Mother Jones’s Kate Sheppard has been reporting from Copenhagen and argues that the controversy is overshadowing COP15 talks. Politico.com takes a similar view but says the controversy isn’t effecting negotiations.

Chris Mooney over at Science Progress gives an overview of the scandal.

The science journal Nature shows why the hacked e-mails in no way undermine the large body of scientific evidence demonstrating that global warming is caused by human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

And the Union of Concerned Scientists has put together a backgrounder that methodically rebuts the denialists’ claims.

The website Swifthack has been a go-to source for news about the hacked email story.

Think Progress compares the controversy to other right-wing hits and provides a timeline of the story. The site has also posted a video of dozens of young people from the U.S. crashing an Americans for Progress-sponsored event at COP15. AFP played a big role in sabotaging the town halls meetings on health care reform back in August.

And, finally, Real Climate – “Climate science from climate scientists” – offers a nuanced view on the topic.

Robert S. EshelmanRobert S. Eshelman is an independent journalist. His articles have appeared in Abu Dhabi's the National, In These Times and on TomDispatch.com.


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