Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once you accept the idea that all climatologists are partaking in a global conspiracy, then yes, peer review means little to you. You're stuck referencing emails from people you trust, which in your case consists of a mining executive and an economist. I prefer to get my climatology from people who study the climate. For folks out there who aren't conspiracy buffs, there's a good article on this 'controversy' at http…
Oh, no-one seriously believes there's an organized conspiracy. But a lot of scientists seem to have noticed that tacking "climate change" onto their funding proposals increases the odds of them being accepted. And scientists are people who've gotta eat at the end of the day; of course they're going to act in their own self-interest.
Not all, because the above is from "alarmists" and much of their attention is focused on scientists who do believe in AGW, just not "enough". One of the best examples is Roger Pielke Sr., who believes in AGW: http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/roger-a-pie...
From the CRU emails:
Out of context (I can't quite figure out what the context is), but it demonstrates a lack of good faith:
"Obviously, under no circumstances should any of this get back to Pielke." http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=424&filen...
This also doesn't exactly show good faith:
"I almost missed the [message] with Pielke's resignation in. Is this going to make your CCSP task easier or harder? Presumably now you'll get all his comments to officially deal with. Maybe you'll be able to ignore them?" http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=584
And then from what is probably the most infamous single email; for some inexplicable reason the Subject: line was "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL":
"The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well - frequently as I see it.
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !" http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=419
If you do not agree that the above constitutes strong evidence of a conspiracy I don't think we have a basis for further discussion. As Pielke says in his AGW position posting: "The released CRU e-mails documents that a culture in the leadership of the climate science community to suppress and/or ignore viewpoints which differ from the 2007 IPCC view."
Here's the end of Pielke's initial comments on the above email:
"The challenge to the IPCC community, now that their duplicity has been exposed, is to communicate to all of us why the peer-reviewed papers that we documented, and that were available in time for the IPCC review process, were considered “bad papers” and thus ignored in the IPCC report. A balanced assessment would comment on these papers, and provide the reason they disagree with their results.
"The reply by Gavin Schmidt documents the control of the IPCC process by a few individuals (see also Climate Assessment Oligarchy – The IPCC)." http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/comment-on-...
Here's Schmidt's item on the IPCC "oligarchy": http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/climate-oli...
Anyway, Schmidt is NASA GISS scientist and a co-founder and current member of RealClimate (along with e.g. Mann), so if he's saying this we should pay attention, and we can safely say he and Pielke are not "no-one".