The past week has seen the world of climate research embroiled in serious scandal (more than the usual war waging between climate change skeptics and climate change researchers) after the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia found a significant portion of e-mails had been hacked from the university’s webmail server. While it’s easy to wonder why anyone would want to go through the trouble to delve into the—many—personal e-mails of the climate researchers, the e-mails actually contained some controversial wording and plenty of fuel for anti-global warming advocates (who seem to have conveniently upped their efforts in the month leading up to Copenhagen).

At first glance, even a firm believer in the link between human action and global warming might feel that the e-mails indicate they’ve been led astray, but in the days since the climate e-mails controversy, many scientists and organizations have spoken out to assure the public that what’s really going on is a matter of anti-global warming activists trying to rework and cherry pick information to mislead in their own way.

While we won’t delve into everything that’s covered in the e-mails (they’re full of jargon, lengthy, and available here), arguably the most debated area has been the paragraph where researcher Phil Jones states “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.” It’s undoubtedly suspicious sounding, but scientists have said that it’s more a case of the general public not understanding the jargon and information in the sentence. The term “trick”, for example, usually refers to a method of working out a problem in the scientific community, and not to a deceitful act. You can read more about what’s really being said in the e-mails at RealClimate.

Meanwhile, in other anti-global warming efforts, Weather Network founder and longtime anti-global warming activist John Coleman claims to have rallied 30,000 scientists together to join him as he sues Al Gore. Coleman appeared on the conservative—and often obscene—Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld show on the Fox News Network to discuss his plans (and the “scam” of global warming). Coleman also attempted to demonstrate how serious his work was—and how big the scam of gobal warming—by highlighting the fact that no other network would put him on the air and that some had “scoffed” at him. He said he hopes to make himself heard by bringing the matter to the court of law, admitting that Gore seems to regard him as little more than pest.

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