[Journalist Chris Mooney]: The climate scandal that [allegedly] never was

Pearce is an ace climate journalist, deeply conversant with every debate in the field going back several decades. This expertise, however, makes the arcane climategate emails a kind of kryptonite for him. Again and again, they drag Pearce into the weeds of complex technical arguments between scientists and their sceptic detractors. And so we plunge into debates about the validity of certain data from Chinese weather stations and about whether bristlecone pine tree rings show evidence of climate change. And this is precisely where the sceptics want journalists to go - into the weeds - because it confuses the public.

There is a place and time for hashing out these kinds of detail. But with a heavily politicised issue like climate change - and one in which stalled action may lead to disastrous consequences - there is a huge risk in growing over-focused on behind-the-scenes details of small corners of climate research to the detriment of the big picture. Global warming is real and human-caused, and no email can change that.

There are other important storylines here, though Pearce subordinates them to his email sleuthing. There's the radical empowerment of amateur sceptics by the internet, which has crucially changed the dynamic between climate scientists and their attackers. There is scientists' lack of preparedness for the kind of mud sceptics have learned to fling at them. And there's the foolish bunker behaviour of the University of East Anglia as the crisis communications game played out in the media.