As far as I can tell, for example by reading the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Clime Change) report (summary: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm...), the overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus is that global warming is real and man-made. I've yet to see anyone critical of this view make a case (much less a convincing one) that anything in these emails provides any reason to doubt the overall scientific conclusions and policy implications. Until someone does, I'm planning to ignore this "controversy" and use any time I spend on climate change to better educate myself on the general scientific consensus and the implications for policy. If we're interested in doing something about global warming, we shouldn't be nitpicking about whether some few lines of code were commented out or not. We should be making the case for cap-and-trade legislation and doing what we can to get it passed here in the U.S.
You speak like a true believer. The mails have shown, precisely, that IPCC process is manipulated. That is the problem.
Does warming exists? Most likely.
Is it human-made? Who knows.
P.S. Yes, I am paid by Royal Dutch/Shell to post deceptive comments on HackerNew.
In Poland the global consensus is that God exists.
The problem is "overwhelming scientific evidence" — turns out it is not that overhelming. If you try to dig deeper you will get "there is some evidence" and "our models show". I don't deny GW or even AGW, but it is sad to see how in this case science is somewhere in the background and all is mostly polictics and beliefs.
