Right-wing lawmakers may investigate climate change e-mails

I think we can officially say Congress has jumped the shark.

The clattering class we call the wingnutosphere is generating much din over what appears to be recently leaked e-mails regarding climate change. The right-wing intelligentsia claims the e-mails show scientists tried rigging studies to play up global warming.

But I've yet to see any of the scientists in question admit the e-mails are even real. So I'm starting from the premise that the e-mails are hoaxes that someone put out to try to discredit the scientists.

Even if the e-mails were real, that doesn't change the key facts: Glaciers are melting, temperatures are changing, and it's because of human activity. In fact, most of the e-mails - if they're genuine - are perfectly justifiable. For instance, one of them laments having to "respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots" (which has been my sentiment for years). Nothing in the e-mails even suggests any studies were fabricated! The scientists' only "left-wing agenda" appears to be trying to uphold the scientific method.

Someone on another website really zinged the wingnuts: This user joked that if the e-mails are genuine, the e-mails must have been important enough to convince the polar ice caps to start melting faster and the oceans to rise just to prove these scientists right.

The debate is over: Climate change is real and is caused by humans.

Because the e-mails are probably hoaxes, this story has generated relatively little press among credible news organizations.

But in the halls of Congress, it's a different matter.

Right-wing Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) now want to launch an investigation of climate change scientists. They cite the e-mails as "proof" that they jimmied studies.

If they're going to investigate something, why don't they probe the right-wing e-mails that lied about Saddam having nukes, which were used to draw America into a war?

Inhofe, Issa, and other right-wingers are big beneficiaries of campaign donations from energy companies and other corporations that produce pollutants that contribute to climate change. So they have a vested interest in denying climate change.

In the meantime, somebody should do jail time over the e-mail scandal. If the e-mails are fake, someone close to the wingnutosphere should be doing hard time for fraud. If not, somebody needs to be locked up for hacking accounts. It's either one or the other. I'm amazed that the right-wing brain trust keeps bragging that they got the e-mails from a hacker.

If this apparent leak suggests that scientists rigged data, it also shows that their opponents illegally hacked computers.

Loose lips sink ships, wingnuts.