Just over two years ago, what appeared to be a large treasure trove of emails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was hacked and then released (likely illegally) to the public. This set off a veritable feeding frenzy among climate change deniers. FOX News reported "shocking" revelations of evidence tampering. The emails soon collectively came to be known as "Climategate." The only problem with this conspiracy theory was that the emails only revealed that scientists are humans, and some of them might be a tad impolite.

The Independent Climate Change Email Review cleared the British scientists of their supposed malfeasance, and most importantly, according to Factcheck.org, the leaked emails contained nothing to undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming. And yet, the leaked emails did a lot to distract the public right before the 2009 United Nations Summit in Copenhagen, an international conference that failed to produce any legally-binding commitments for reducing CO₂ emissions.

Score one for the climate change deniers. And now, it is happening again. Almost two years to the date of the last email leak, an anonymous hacker released 5,000 new emails in advance of an international conference on climate change happening right now in Durban, South Africa.

According to James Powell, the former President of Reed College and the author of the recent book, The Inquisition of Climate Science, this is just one of the many tactics used by climate change deniers in their ever-escalating war on science. When the facts aren't on your side, obfuscate.

What's the Big idea?

Powell's use of the term "inquisition" is deliberate. "Just as the Roman Inquisition rejected outright the evidence that Copernicus and Galileo had assembled to show that Earth moves around the Sun," he writes, "the modern inquisitors deny the overwhelming evidence of global warming."

Among the many myths that Powell says climate change deniers have spread, two real doozies stand out:

• There is no scientific consensus that global warming is real/man-made

• Scientists who support climate change must have financial motives at stake

In his book, Powell demolishes both of these myths. Is there a lack of scientific consensus on climate change? As Powell demonstrates, there isn't even a debate. Climate change deniers used to be able to claim at least one lone wolf (real scientist) among their ranks, the Berkley physicist Richard Muller. However, Muller recently completed a David and Charles Koch-funded study that found (Powell assumes, to the brothers' chagrin) that the earth is in fact warming and that previous studies were right on the money. Climate change deniers like Anthony Watts said they would accept Muller's findings, whatever they might bring. So what was Watts's reaction? (Drum roll please)...Still in denial.

So how have climate change deniers been so successful in persuading members of the public that climate change is somehow "a hoax" or "junk science"? Just turn on your TV, says Powell. There we see so-called "climate skeptics" paraded out before the media all the time, where they are presented as experts. According to Powell, these fake scientists, who are completely lacking in any sort of scientific credentials, have no more basis on which to challenge the scientific proof of global warming than the Catholic church had to challenge Galileo.