The head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic research unit trying to cover up evidence that implies that climate change may not be happening or is less bad than feared shows that the 'consensus' in science over this problem is entirely artificial. Ignoring data showing that the world is not warming is fundamentally against what scientists should be doing, it is bad science. Climate is changing, it has done so for thousands of years, but there is evidence to suggest that humans do not cause it.

The Heartland Institute, whose members are qualified scientists, have published "Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change," by Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer that oppose global warming caused by humanity.

31 000 scientists have signed a petition that there is no evidence that human actions cause the catastrophic heating of the earth.. Renowned Scientists H. Schmitt and F. Singer supports this point of view. The reason you do not see many such scientists is because there is pressure on scientists who question global warming. Scientists just cannot get funding if they do not write in support of ‘global warming’.

The UEA climatic research unit is by no means the only reputable scientific or academic institution to be arguing that climate change exists. There is immense amounts of evidence to back up that climate change is happening and is getting faster not slowing down. One piece of evidence supposedly being tampered with makes no difference.

97% of climatologists surveyed agreed that the earth is warming and man is playing a significant role in that warming http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0122-climate.html

There are also currently no major international scientific organizations that say man is not causing global warming. They all either say man is causing it or they take no position.

The Heartland Institute is paid by Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company in the world. If there is one institute you can not trust on climate change issues, it's the Heartland Institute.

There are many different interpretations for the wording of the emails. It in no way is any sort of proof that there was any fraudulent manipulation of any data.These emails have been posted, entirely out of context, along with an implication about their meaning (that more than likely is wrong).

Gordon Brown says "No one should be in any doubt about the overwhelming scientific evidence which underpins the conference. In fact, the recent anti-scientific backlash which has been unleashed has exposed just what is at stake. So a strong deal in Copenhagen is essential." This shows that major world leaders are in no delusion as to the seriousness of climate change and the importance of reaching a deal, despite the revelation of the falsification.

This revelation creates an opening for climate change skeptics to argue that there is no consensus. In turn if there is no scientific consensus, or if countries can say there is not then they can justify doing nothing. Afterall why should a nation act if science cant agree with itself, why pay the costs of reducing emissions if the scientific community might turn around and say 'no we do not think climate change is man made afterall', they would have spent loads of money for nothing.

The majority of scientists do agree and those that don't are generally funded by oil companies. There is rarely a total consensus on any scientific issue and this is a good thing; we would not have scientific progress if research was simply accepted without question. Any skepticism about the existence of man-made global warming only forces those who do argue it exists to strengthen their arguments and back it up with hard data.

Seeing such high-level members of the scientific community making up data for political/monetary purposes, how can anyone trust scientists around the world anymore? Let alone East Anglia. We have to trust scientists because they are the experts, we certainly cant trust politicians and we cant all go and do the research and experiments for our selves.

This isn't the first nor is it the last fraud by scientists to be revealed; another recent huge one was the human therapeutic cloning scandal revolving a South Korean team that falsified data in its papers. While such scandals do undermine the hard work and progress achieved by dedicated scientists it doesn't hurt science because most people do realize that while frauds may be there, most scientists produce real and reliable results, which are then confirmed (or perhaps even rejected) by further research by other scientists. So overall scientific work is reliable and shall remain so.

This has only a tiny impact on the security of the science itself. Science is continually self-corrective, and has mechanisms (eg. peer review, repeatability) that deal as well with fraud, in the long run, as earnest scientific effort. Any real inconsistency in the data will eventually show as an anomaly, which will in turn result in more attention being paid to the work in question.The problem here is with the public's perception of science.

Anything good that comes out of extra scrutiny will be too late. This is the worst possible time for this revelation, all that can happen is disruptive, with two weeks of the conference this will sow doubt without any way to repair in such a short space of time.

The more scrutiny something gets the more checked it will be and so the more reliable it will be. If we go through a crisis of having to revisit some of the science that has been done on climate change then once the results are in everyone will be more sure than ever. This would hopefully mean faster progress in negotiations. Perhaps not a short term success but a long term one.

J. S. Mill thought we should not fear criticism of scientific (or other) beliefs. God forbid we should start believing in climate change in the same way as others believe in religions.

Science is based on questioning the knowledge. The Scientific Method propose to never stop, and continue to keep researching each new theory. At the beginning we may think that scrutiny is going to impact in a negative way on the negotiations, but now, with the doubt, more arguments for climate change will be released.

The UEA worked closely with the IPCC so questioning of its research has to be taken further on to the IPCC itself, if the IPCC is to be questioned how can we go on with the conference?

Many other organisations have used UEA's data to form their conclusions so are only as valid as UEA's data. Also, if UEA have been motivated to deceive, why should anyone believe that other organisations are immune from such temptation?

The negotiations at the copenhagen conference have very little to do with the research done at UEA. The negotiations are based on the IPCC's reports which consider a range of evidence that is much broader than simply from one research unit like UEA. While this reasearch may have been slightly discredited it is only one piece of research among thousands and one group of scientists among hundreds. The IPCC still has all the evidence it needs and its reasearch is not affected.

It does not matter that the UEA were falsifying data or hiding information. A large number of other research organizations and individuals have confirmed the validity and seriousness of climate change. The sceptics of climate change are standing on very weak ground.

"Climategate" together with other things that happened around the conference, are only distractions or attempts at "boycotts" of the important matters. These are peripheral issues that distract from the main problem to discuss.