In Copenhagen today, 15,000 people from 192 countries are debating what a successor to the Kyoto Treaty, the global agreement regulating greenhouse gases, will look like. The current agreement expires in 2012.

If the genuine attempts by some conference attendees to find common ground to combat global warming is successful, Paul Krugman makes this prediction:

Of course, if things go well in Copenhagen, the usual suspects will go wild. We'll hear cries that the whole notion of global warming is a hoax perpetrated by a vast scientific conspiracy, as demonstrated by stolen e-mail messages that show -- well, actually all they show is that scientists are human, but never mind. We'll also, however, hear cries that climate-change policies will destroy jobs and growth.

The truth, however, is that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is affordable as well as essential.

Per Krugman's prediction, the "crying" has already started.

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace claimed that emails stolen from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU) showed that "some of the climate scientists were apparently fudgers and tried to suppress opposition comments." And on the December 3 edition of his Fox News program, Sean Hannity stated: "The climate change emails uncovered at the University of East Anglia shed serious doubts on the science of global warming." And just this morning, Glenn Beck defended his and his colleagues' viewpoint that climate change doesn't exist, saying "We're not making crazy allegations here..."

Beck bemoaned the way in which right-wingers like himself pushing back on climate change existence are having their viewpoints questioned, saying "What kind of Salem Witch Trials are we in? [...] We are in the Salem Witch Trials." Beck then declares that when it comes to climate change, America is "on the wrong side."

Last time I checked, neither Wallace, Hannity or Beck--or any reporters at Fox News, for that matter--were educated experts on the climate or global warming. (You might be able to make this claim for fear-mongering though...). So how about we hear more on this 'controversy' from someone who is?

From Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

"There's nothing in the e-mails that shows that global warming is a hoax...There's no funding by nefarious groups. There's no politics in any of these things; nobody from the [United Nations] telling people what to do. There's nothing hidden, no manipulation. It's just scientists talking about science, and they're talking relatively openly as people in private e-mails generally are freer with their thoughts than they would be in a public forum. The few quotes that are being pulled out [are out] of context. People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way."

As the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit gets underway, it seems likely that deniers will likely only amp up their disinformation campaign to mislead and confuse the public about the existence and gravity of climate change. "It is a chance for business to get our message out to a large audience," says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's energy policy VP Stephen Eule, looking forward to the Summit. (For a list of companies that have quit the U.S. Chamber over their climate change policies and opposition to curbing greenhouse gases, click here).

Amidst all this absurd finger-pointing, I'm betting that investigations are already underway looking into the money trail of "Climate-Gate." Meaning, whose wallets grow in size as a result of posturing the argument that global warming is man-made?

More from Media Matters here.