hyperlinks and video live at source: http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2009m12d2-Climategate-comprehensive-explanation-of-unethic...

Sir Christopher Monckton of the Science and Public Policy Institute has written the most comprehensive understanding I’ve found of the “Climategate” scandal, Climategate: Caught green-handed. I wrote a condensed version, here. The even further condensed version:

Global temperature averages peaked in 1997, and have been on a slight overall decline through 2009. Among the six global warming gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important. CO2 readings have increased beyond 1997 through to the present. The global warming argument is that CO2 increases causes increased global temperatures. The scandal is that scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the main data point for the global warming argument, had thousands of internal e-mails leaked that revealed the following unethical and possibly criminal behavior:

Manipulating computer programming to “hide the decline” of global temperatures.

Lying about the decline of average global temperatures, stating in their most official report, "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal."

“Losing” their data to prevent independent verification of their models and conclusions. This followed years of refusing to provide such data to other scientists to test for replicable results.

Cherry-picking data to show their predetermined conclusion rather than letting the data drive the conclusion.

Suppressing scientific papers with data that challenges their global warming idea.

Attacking scientific journal editors who favor publishing papers that challenge their explanation.

Admission to destroying some of the data that contradict their explanation.

Taking the above actions with understanding their conclusions were driving a soon-to-be trillion dollar global tax to reduce CO2 in order to stop “global warming.”

Perhaps the most damning admission is that given the decline of global temperatures along with the rise of CO2 for the last 12 years, they don’t know what’s driving global temperatures:

How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!

Jon Stewart’s take:
(see article)