If You Read Nothing Else About Global Warming, Read This

Scientists, politicians and the media are jetting into Copenhagen for tomorrow's opening of the UN Climate Change Conference. Those who believe in anthropogenic global warming are hoping for a major international treaty that will transfer literally trillions of dollars out of developed western economies via the UN.

Christopher Booker writes in the Telegraph that the AGW faithful will tell you that thousands of climate scientists have reached a consensus that the planet is warming dangerously, carbon must be controlled, humans are to blame and we must pay a heavy price for our sins against the planet.

Coming to light in recent days has been one of the most extraordinary scientific detective stories of our time, bizarrely centred on a single tree in Siberia dubbed "the most influential tree in the world". On this astonishing tale, it is no exaggeration to say, could hang in considerable part the future shape of our civilisation. Right at the heart of the sound and fury of "Climategate" – the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia – is one story of scientific chicanery, overlooked by the media, whose implications dwarf all the rest. If all those thousands of emails and other documents were leaked by an angry whistle-blower, as now seems likely, it was this story more than any other that he or she wanted the world to see.

The truth is that the grand theory of AGW, the "consensus" of thousands of climatologists, all comes down to British scientist Keith Briffa and his data from one tree in Yamal, Siberia. Yes, one scientist, one tree.

Be sure to read the whole thing, and the comments are worth your while too.