Climate change has been one of the most consistently discussed political topics of the past few decades. Proponents like Al Gore have argued for years that human activities ranging from the burning of fossil fuels to raising livestock have contributed to the warming of the planet, and that without serious action the world’s climate will be irreversibly damaged.

Yet all the while, critics of climate change have offered the suggestion, backed up by reasonable evidence, that the ups and downs of global temperatures can be considered part of a natural cycle — and have largely been ignored. Most problematically they have also questioned the science behind the accusations, questioning the various computer models and later projections of the impact that carbon emissions have had on temperature variations.

These critics, however, may not have been too far off base.

Hackers recently cracked the servers of the Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Verified as real by the New York Times, these e-mail records detail conversations between various climate researchers around the world, some dated as recently as this past month. The correspondence, which also includes some day-to-day interactions, devotes a large amount of content to climate research and various pet projects.

The researchers seem unable to account for cooling trends over the last eight to 10 years. Mick Kelly, a lead researcher at the Hadley CRU, confirms in an e-mail: “Just updated my global temperature trend graphic for a public talk and noted that the level has really been quite stable since 2000 or so and 2008 doesn’t look too hot.”

A separate e-mail series confirms this observation, in which Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., writes that “the fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

The researchers’ response to this problem is troubling and, at the least, disconcerting. Kelly solves his graphing dilemma by stating he will “cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that’s trending down.” Other researchers offer various “tricks” to hide or obscure any data that doesn’t support global warming trends. When their conclusions aren’t supported by the data, it seems that the data is being shaped to falsely support their chosen conclusions.

This trend is consistent in a large number of e-mails and has some serious implications: it would suggest that climate data is being misrepresented in order to justify the work of climate change proponents. Tom Wigley, a researcher at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, comments on this in the second e-mail chain: “In my (perhaps too harsh) view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC.”

The International Panel on Climate Change has become a UN cornerstone, and its reports are hailed as gospel by climate change proponents. But according to Wigley, even it seems to be distorting results to falsely portray global temperature patterns as dramatically warming.

It would seem that some — but not all — leading scientists have adopted Gore’s approach: “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous [anthropogenic global warming] is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are.” Or at least they seem to be channeling Marcus Tullius Cicero when he wrote to Brutus: “Indeed rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly.” Even 2,000 years ago, it was clear that when problems are falsely exaggerated, garnering support for preferred policies is much easier.

These e-mails reinforce the need for scientists and politicians to take a much more cautious and skeptical approach to climate change. If data is misrepresented or restated to support specific conclusions, there is no way that the resulting policies will be the best ones.

David Giffin is a College senior from Charleston, Ill.