The Hill reports “Climategate hasn’t swayed swing votes on climate change bill”

Plus “Climategate: The phony scandal”

Bad news for the flat-earth society: This alleged scandal of criminally stolen e-mails is one of the phoniest productions of all time, because it changes nothing about the scientific facts believed by the overwhelming majority of scientists….

But at the end of the day, all of this is as relevant to climate change as Tiger Woods’s ladies. There is a major crisis. Urgent action is needed. The overwhelming majority of scientists agree. The flat-earth society is wrong. It is time to act.

That sanity comes from Brent Budowsky of The Hill‘s Pundit Blog with his piece, “Climategate: The phony scandal.“  At the same time, The Hill’s Ben Geman reports:

Centrist Republican Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) argues that the “climategate” e-mails should be probed on Capitol Hill, but the e-mails haven’t changed her views on global warming.

Why haven’t her views changed?  Because she talked to actual climate scientists from her state [Hint, hint climate scientists in other states!]:

“There appears to be sufficient controversy and concern that I think it warrants the Environment and Public Works Committee taking a look at it,” said Collins, a swing vote in the looming Senate fight on cap-and-trade, in the Capitol on Sunday.

She told The Hill that the e-mails, hacked from a British research institute, led her to check in with two scientists at the University of Maine on the matter. “They are disappointed at what appears may have happened, but they tell me it does not change their own conclusions or their own research,” she said. Collins still believes humans are causing climate change.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said he does not believe the e-mails are jeopardizing Democratic swing votes.

And here’s more from Budowsky:

It is true that the wimpy e-mails don’t look pretty and that all views, no matter how wrong or reprehensible, no matter how much we may agree or disagree with them, should be presented fully and fairly. I have no hesitation condemning anyone who wrote any e-mail suggesting otherwise for any reason.

But facts are facts, and science is science. The view of those who wrote the e-mails and the view of the overwhelming majority of scientists is clear and simple: that climate change poses a huge threat to the world and that urgent and major action is needed.

I have no hesitation condemning some of the e-mails. I have no hesitation calling for the prosecution, and incarceration, if convicted, of anyone proven to have committed the criminal offense of stealing them. And I am certainly curious about how who, in fact, did violate the law to get the e-mails.

But at the end of the day, all of this is as relevant to climate change as Tiger Woods’s ladies. There is a major crisis. Urgent action is needed. The overwhelming majority of scientists agree. The flat-earth society is wrong. It is time to act.

Precisely.