Several indicators have emerged indicating that the impact from the stolen climate mails may be less than the climate deniers hoped.
Over the weekend I blogged at Daily Kos that
While there’s been plenty of uncritical and unbalanced coverage of the stolen emails, the "scandal" has become a sideshow distraction . . . In fact, the emails are largely getting a big ho-hum from most editorial and op-ed pages around the United States, and many editorial pages are expressing hope that Copenhagen will move both domestic and international efforts to combat global warming further down the track."
I included a sample of editorials and opeds from around the nation - not just "blue" states - to show what I'm talking about.
In addition, AP did some serious reporting on the issue, assigning a team to review all the stolen emails and consult experts to determine whether any of the content erodes the consensus that human activities are warming the planet. What they found was that
E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked.
And some recent polling shows that Americans remain concerned about global warming, stolen emails or not. As Joe Romm discussed on his blog,
A McClatchy-Ipsos poll from December 3-6 – taken at the height of the stolen email media feeding frenzy – found that that 70% of Americans believe that global warming is indeed a reality.
And, as I wrote on Daily Kos,
"No one believes that the climate science deniers are going away. No one seriously thinks that the "Climategate" hoax won’t continue to kick around and confuse people for some time to come. But the good news is that reason is prevailing. Abraham Lincoln was right: You can’t fool all the people all the time."
Good sources of information about the stolen emails: