(Image source: University of East Anglia)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

It’s being called Climategate 2.0. Two years after hacked emails from climate scientists caused a stir, 5,000 new emails have been released. The Washington Post summarizes what’s new since the 2009 release.

“Those e-mails painted the scientific climate establishment as combative and clubby … This second batch deals less with climate science than with how some prominent scientists framed the issue and recruited colleagues to serve on panels such as the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

The 2009 emails led to accusations that climate scientists were manipulating their data and going after political and scientific opponents. Several inquiries cleared the scientists of any wrongdoing, but the new emails look poised to give further fuel to the skeptic crowd.

Al Jazeera has a couple of the emails:

“There’s one that says, ‘I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it.’ One says, ‘The important thing is to make sure they’re losing the PR battle.’ And another, ‘The political challenge is then to turn this from an argument about the cost of cutting emissions’ which the author describes as ‘bad politics -- to one about the value of a stable climate’ which the author describes as ‘much better politics.’”

While police still haven’t tracked down the hackers, this time they apparently left a message, saying:

“Poverty is a death sentence. Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.”

A writer for the BBC takes a stab at the message’s meaning.

“One hesitates to dive into anyone else's mind on the basis of a few words ... but as far as I can see, the only logical explanation is that the writer thinks curbing grenhouse gas emissions will cost so much that the developing world will be left poverty-stricken as a result.”

And a writer for Wired UK speculates about the release’s timing.

“It appears to be an attempt to replicate the impact of 2009's release, which came just before the Copenhagen Climate Summit. 2011's summit is due to start on 28 November in Durban, South Africa.”

The scientists say the emails are cherry-picked and shown out of context. But an opinion writer for the Wall Street Journal says, even though there’s no “smoking gun” that shows the scientists manipulated their data, it still looks bad.

“If the case for man-made global warming is really as strong as the so-called ‘consensus’ claims it is, what need have all those climate scientists to behave so cagily? Why are they shown in emails deliberately conspiring to shut out of the debate scientists with dissenting points of view?”

If you want to look through the emails, climate skeptic Anthony Watts has the original release on his blog Watts Up With That? We’ve got a link in our transcript section.