Worshipers of the Church of Global Warming have been beating us up for years about the “growing consensus” of the “settled science” holding that climate change imperils us all unless we spend trillions of dollars, give up much of our freedom and turn over more and more of our lives to government micromanagers. And anyone who dares raise a doubt is a “global warming denier” as blind as those who deny the Holocaust.

Now comes Climategate, the scandal revealed in hacked e-mails showing that climate “scientists” fudged their data, messed with the peer review process and worked to keep any heretical skepticism out of the discussion. Not only is the science not settled and the consensus a fraud, the very models being used to push all this nonsense may be compromised beyond redemption, indeed may be the worst sort of junk.

Since the revelations came on the eve of Copenhagen, the environmentalist revival meeting that opened Monday, you'd think the warmist high priests would be at least mildly embarrassed. But, no, they don't miss a beat. The leaked e-mails will end up being “just a blip,” says Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change in Copenhagen. “The science is incredibly robust.” Talk about climate-change deniers.

Even worse, the Environmental Protection Agency made a pre-emptive strike Monday, declaring greenhouse gases “a danger to public health,” which paves the way for that agency to make all sorts of sweeping changes in the way we live. It doesn't matter what is or is not decided in Copenhagen or what action Congress does or does not take - the environmental statists are now in control.

And that is what this is all about - politics, not science. People who are always looking for a way to strengthen state control have found the perfect issue with which to achieve their ends. Too many people who would ordinarily recoil in horror are going along lest they be accused of apathy about the planet's well-being.

Is the Earth warming? Yes, it appears to be, slightly. Has humankind caused it? Probably, some of it. Do we really know all the effects, both harmful and positive, and should we risk so much money and our freedom on scientific models that are open to question? Absolutely not.

Science is never “settled,” and anyone who says it is has lost the right to be called a scientist. Science is always searching, always testing, always looking to disprove the latest hypothesis. We are seeing an unholy alliance between science and politics that will do great damage to both. The only way out is to take the 2010 elections seriously and start throwing the statists out of office.