By now, unless the only place you get your news is from ABC, CBS, or NBC, you know what “Climategate” is all about. The hacking and dissemination of thousands of emails from the influential Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, revealed wholesale deception and data manipulation to support global-warming trends that don’t exist. Curious minds want to know, what impact will it have?

Considerable impact; more I suspect, than most people believe, not only on the climate-change establishment, but on the scientific community in general, the alternative energy industry, the so called mainstream media (MSM), and Democrats. The emails themselves were explosive enough; however, their full effect will take time to play out.

Climategate doesn’t prove that long-term global warming isn't happening or that humans aren't responsible for some of it. But respected Canadian Broadcast Corporation commentator Rex Murphy, a former leading member of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland, said what increasing numbers of people are thinking: “Climate science and global warming advocacy have become so entwined, so meshed into a mutant creature, that separating alarmism from investigation, ideology from science, agenda from empirical study, is well nigh impossible.”

In such an environment, the skepticism that already existed about global warming has just gotten a massive shot of adrenalin. Overnight, Climategate has exposed equating global-warming deniers to Holocaust deniers for the deceitful and inappropriate tactic that it was. It’s suddenly become much more difficult to ridicule and suppress Climate scientists with alternative theories and explanations for climate change.

As former White House communications director Anita Dunn’s favorite political philosopher, Mao Zedong, once said, “Let one hundred flowers bloom and one hundred schools of thought contend.” Climategate has undermined the credibility of the climate-science community, and only free and open debate will reestablish it.

This isn’t good news for the alternative energy industry. Regardless of the tax breaks and subsidies the federal government provides, industries developing alternative energy sources require massive private investment. Without that investment and a sense of urgency, they can not hope to achieve advances and breakthroughs necessary to replace fossil fuels as the United States’, much less the world’s, principal source of energy for decades to come. After Climategate, that private investment will shrink.

Ignoring Climategate only further undermines the MSM. Their refusal to give Climategate the coverage and analysis it deserves only further diminishes the respect viewers and readers have for it. The MSM is already on the rocks because of changing business models and losses of viewers and subscribers. Increasingly, moderates and liberals look for objective analysis on the Internet and are joining conservative viewers of the Fox News channel, which dominates cable television, where they can hear both sides of the argument.

In a recent survey more than 30 percent of regular viewers of the O’Reilly Factor, the highest rated cable network news program, identified themselves as liberals. The more people turn to Fox News and other more conservative media outlets, the more they hear views that challenge Democrat’s talking points.

And Climategate certainly doesn’t help Democrats. Any hopes of the US Congress passing “cap and trade” legislation or ratifying a new climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocols have become remote. The global recession and China’s and India’s unwillingness to accept strict limits on their C02 emissions already had put the breaks on both. Now, their chances of becoming law are even less.

Nevertheless, President Obama and the Democratic Party remain fully committed to cap and trade legislation and a global climate treaty, although polls demonstrate they're not a high priority with the American people. President Obama will go to Copenhagen and pledge large US reductions in greenhouse gases.

Obama’s science advisor, the controversial John Holdren, a former Harvard professor associated with global-warming studies, appearing before the House Global Warming Committee, dismissed the CRU emails. He argued they represented only a small fraction of climate change science and didn’t change the consensus on global warming.

President Obama’s approval ratings have declined steadily since he took office. The Democratic Party’s approval numbers also are on the decline. Republican Party approval numbers are on the increase. Climategate only contributes to these trends. As the 2010 mid-term elections approach, Democrats who voted for the House “cap and trade” bill, that passed by a narrow margin, can expect campaign ads against them that repeatedly link their vote with Climategate in a 30-second ads. Many of them will lose their seats in Congress.

The antidote to Climategate for climate science, science in general, the alternative energy industry, the mainstream media, and Democrats, is not to deny and ignore it. The antidote is to acknowledge what went wrong, investigate it openly and honestly, admit that man-made global warming isn’t “settled” science, and allow objective scientific inquiry to pursue the truth. Honest, ethical, and objective science can withstanding the most critical debate and skepticism without resorting to deception and the demonization of people with contrary views. Why is it that I don’t expect this will happen?