Political Climate Change

... we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem--or, what is much the same thing, of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem--in its effort to promote the cause. It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society's respect for scientific endeavour. 

 --Garth Paltridge, former chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research

I think he is right about the stakes involved: science's current prestige rests on an unshakeable public faith that scientists are utterly honest. Because scientific papers and scientific results can easily be falsified, and non-scientists would usually never know the difference.

That unshakeable public faith is very much at risk now, and a large ivory castle could come suddenly crashing down.