Nothing to see here
So writes Geoffrey Lean in The Telegraph (UK), who thinks that three coats of whitewash is enough to cover up the fudging of data, destruction of emails and corruption of the peer-review process revealed by the Climategate emails:
The result of Sir Muir Russell’s inquiry had been widely predicted – both by those who have long known that there was no evidence of scientific malpractice (but plenty of excessive secrecy and of flouting Freedom of Information laws), and by sceptics forecasting a whitewash [and we were right, too!].
The public’s reaction, however, has been much more surprising. Thanks to the free run enjoyed by the sceptics – through cowardice among scientists and green groups [wtf?]– it should have had a big impact. But new polls on both sides of the Atlantic suggest that, while acceptance of global warming has been falling, the much-hyped furore is not responsible.
An American poll found that only 9 per cent of the respondents thought that “Climategate” indicated that climate scientists are untrustworthy, about the same proportion as told a Scottish one that they had altered their opinions as a result of it. A survey for the BBC indicated that just a quarter of those who had heard of it had changed their views – and that most of these had become more convinced of global warming, not less. (source)
Yes, and I wonder why that percentage is so low? I guess its because the MSM, like The Telegraph, played the whole thing down in order to keep the global warming bandwagon rolling, so that very few of the public were even aware of its significance.
And as a final two fingered salute to the rest of us, UEA has reinstated Phil Jones. But as Gerald Warner, another Telegraph writer points out, the Jones brand is toxic, so such a move will harm climate science credibility even more (read here).
And Michael Mann has gone feral now that he’s been “cleared”, ranting on in a ten minute interview about being “exonerated”, despite the fact that the Hockey Stick is still completely broken and discredited, and railing against “professional climate change deniers”. Keep up the good work. You and Phil Jones are doing your cause more harm than we ever could. Read it here.
Australian Climate Madness 
I’d like to know which “American Poll” found that. One hosted on an alarmists site, perhaps. Does the guy know about the MSNBC poll?:
http://msnbc.newsvine.com/_question/2010/07/07/4630892-are-you-satisfied-with-the-british-panels-conclusion-that-while-climategate-scientists-were-not-always-forthcoming-their-science-was-sound
And the first question asked was “Have you ever heard of Climategate?”
To which 9% responded they had.
As I’ve posted elsewhere, it matters little because while the historians will declare this little battle won by the whitewashers, it proved the straw that broke the Copenhagen camels back. And once that fell, the whole caravan of policies and governments toppled over, until now, not even 12 months later, no democratically elected government, with the distinct exception of New Zealand, has managed to get any sort of ETS going properly since.
The thing that climategate did was allow sane people to stick their head up over the parapet and say ‘actually, some of this is wrong’. Because prior to that, you couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Now we’re back to debating the AGW theory on it’s merits, which is a distinctly more difficult place for the supporters to be in than just yelling and screaming and filming polar bears.
As for NZ, they’re going with the ‘brand’ of NZ now as the reason for pushing ahead, as if tourists check tripadvisor to make sure their holiday destination trades carbon credits, not realising they continue to fuel migration to Australia, away from carbon credits.