Inhofe to call for hearing into CRU, U.N. climate change research:

The publication of more than 1,000 private e-mails that climate change skeptics say proves the threat is exaggerated has prompted one key Republican senator to call for an investigation into their research. [...]

However, it is not immediately clear what Inhofe hopes to accomplish with his proposed hearing. U.S. lawmakers and scientists routinely cite IPCC evidence when discussing climate change legislation, but Congress can hardly force the United Nations to halt spending on a program over which it has no jurisdiction.

Rather, Inhofe perhaps hopes to deal a symbolic blow to next month's climate change conference, at which IPCC is likely to play a major role.

And The Washington Independent--Is ‘Climategate’ Really the Game-Changer Skeptics Say It Is?:

On Friday, the news broke that hackers had obtained and released thousands of email exchanges between climate scientists at England’s University of East Anglia. Climate change skeptics pounced on the leak, dubbing it “Climategate” and proclaiming that the questionable communications between the scientists proved that global warming was based on cooked data.

So what exactly in these emails is causing such celebration among the deniers? The Daily Telegraph compiled “the most contentious quotes,” and while they’re certainly embarrassing for their authors, they don’t come close to undermining the very basis of climate science.

And more from The Wonk Room--ClimateGate: Hacked Emails Reveal Global Warming Deniers Are Crazed Conspiracy Theorists:

Thousands of “emails from the University of East Anglia webmail server” — a top climate research center in the United Kingdom — “were hacked recently” and dumped on a Russian web server. Global warming deniers are sifting through the illegally obtained letters of private correspondence for “proof” that the scientific consensus on climate change is actually a global conspiracy. [...]

Evidently due to this e-mail conspiracy, Arctic sea ice is at historically low levels, Australia is on fire, the northern United Kingdom is underwater, and the world’s glaciers are disappearing. Oh yeah, and it’s the hottest decade in history.