I have just made several updates to The SwiftHack Scandal: What you Need to Know: Here are today’s updates:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which gets considerable funding from polluting industries, is pushing this story as hard as they can. Tim Lambert at Deltoid points out that the CEI intends to sue Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate for… doing such a great job debunking the SwiftHack story.

Crooks and Liars has a video clip of Senator Inhofe making a fool of himself by calling for a probe of the hacked emails. Here is a video of Senator Inhofe being seriously questioned by a CNBC reporter:

Media Matters debunks some of the crazy claims put forth by the Drudge Report and the Washington Times.

I have also added a section on statements from scientists. It will be updated considerably in the days to come. So far it includes the following entries:

Prof Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit:

The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change. We are committed to furthering this debate despite being faced with difficult circumstances related to a criminal breach of our security systems and our concern to protect colleagues from the more extreme behaviour of some who have responded in irrational and unpleasant ways to the publication of personal information.

Professor Phil Jones, Head of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia:

In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.

One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks.

That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.

Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.

Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography:

We’re facing an effort by special interests who are trying to confuse the public.

Michael Mann, co-author of the Copenhagen Diagnosis and lead author of the UN IPCC Third Assessment Report:

What they’ve done is search through stolen personal emails—confidential between colleagues who often speak in a language they understand and is often foreign to the outside world. Suddenly, all these are subject to cherry picking. They’ve turned “something innocent into something nefarious.

Michael Mann addresses several of the emails specifically here.

Thomas Crowley, professor of geosciences and director of the Scottish Alliance for Geosciences and the Environment at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland:

To sum, it doesn’t reflect badly at all – it reflects badly on the people who are so desperate to discredit global warming that they will unhesitatingly seize on a figure of speech, take it out of context, blow it all out of proportion (notice how quickly the WSJ [Wall Street Journal] got in on this?) and use it for their own predetermined purpose. Now that’s real dishonesty!

Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

This private communication in no way damages the credibility of the AR4 findings.

The entire report writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as governments,” he added in a written statement to Reuters.

There is, therefore, no possibility of exclusion of any contrarian views, if they have been published in established journals or other publications which are peer reviewed.

I have also added a section on pieces of general interest, which don’t necessarily fit into one of the headings. Here are the current items in that section:

The Lessons of “ClimateGate”

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment ‘thinking’

Skeptics Exaggerating Science Scandal to Derail Copenhagen Climate Talks

No, BBC was not sent the stolen emails

How Important Are Those Stolen Climate E-mails?

More Insight on Those Leaked Climate Change Emails

“ClimateGate” and the Biased Conservative Media

New Zealand Climate Science Coalition Caught Lying About Temperature Trends

The Great Climate Change Scandal of 2009

And Now For A Moment of Thanksgiving Sanity Regarding the Stolen “Climate Change” Emails

Let’s look at one of the illegally hacked emails in more detail — the one by NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth on “where the heck is global warming?”

ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer

The Real Scandal in the Hacked Climate Change e-mails Controversy