This "climategate" thing has been pissing me off. Partly because the scientists from whom the emails were stolen were being political, stupid and imprudent, but mostly because it's being used, entirely predictably, to quickly jump to the wrong conclusions. I'm trying, sometimes unsuccessfully, to avoid getting into discussions about it. People who care about the truth and the science and hadn't made up their minds beforehand are able to figure out that this is not nearly as nefarious as skeptics are attempting to spin it. My impression is that those claiming that these emails are a disproof of AGW are not those inclined to take the science seriously or those who already made up their minds long ago. It's hard to find any evidence against AGW in this controversy. So I'm trying to avoid the debate in much the same way that I avoid the "birther" debate or the evolution debate. But in the meantime, the Northwest Passage is now passable, we're rapidly losing sea ice and temperatures increase and we keep twiddling our thumbs and feeling reassured because Matt Drudge laughs when global warming press conferences occur during a snow storm. I can't disprove determined scepticism so for my own peace of mind I'm going to try to leave it alone. But my favorite objection has been the one about the "politicization of science". That climate change sceptics can say this with a straight face is remarkable.