Many of us believe the fraud and crimes revealed by the Climategate and Climategate II scandals should have sunk the man-made global warming scam, but biased media and corrupt figures in universities and government worked to ignore and hide the truth. The Fakegate scandal of 2012 further demonstrated the depths of corruption within the ranks of the global warming movement and the lengths it would go to protect its own from prosecution.

Now we learn that John Beale, one of the highest ranking figures in the Environmental Protection Agency, was also a criminal, sentenced this week to 32 months in federal prison. His own attorney says his client “has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior” and Beale was motivated “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives” because of “his insecurities.”

You have to search long and hard to find a better description of the individuals at the top of the global warming movement. Again and again we have seen these men and women lie to the public and to their own friends and colleagues, forge data, conceal evidence, and use the power of their offices to shut down dissent and demonize those who sought to expose their fraud.

An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal editorial titled “John Beale’s EPA” ends with this observation:

What Congress needs to examine is whether the policies that the head of EPA says were shaped to a large degree by Beale were also based on fraud. Oh, and what Gina McCarthy knew or suspected, and why she so admired a fraudster.

After the latest revelations, anyone who still thinks the environmental movement is based on real science or genuine concern for the environment or public health is either a fool or a “useful idiot” for the most extreme elements of the environmental left.

But these new revelations, too, will be ignored by the mainstream media. The regulations, taxes, and subsidies passed by Congress or adopted unilaterally by EPA and other executive branch agencies will stay on the books, seemingly immune to challenges.

This is a sad note on which to end 2013.

Maybe the best that can be said of these latest revelations is that they cast more light on the facts, in case any more was needed, that the global warming movement was a fraud from start to finish, that the Obama administration and EPA in particular need to be reined in before they destroy even more businesses and the careers of additional brave and imminent scientists, and that 2014 must be a breakthrough year for the voices of truth.

This is likely to be my last blog post before the end of the year. My dad, age 82, was hospitalized a week ago and Diane and I are spending much of our time in the hospital to be with him and my mom. (He’s out of the Intensive Care Unit and breathing on his own. Thanks for the kind thoughts and prayers.) But I don’t want the year to end without extending my sincere thanks to all who work for and with The Heartland Institute for fighting this important fight in 2013 despite the personal costs, the long hours, and the mean spirited and demoralizing assaults on our characters.

Being a force for good in a world besieged by evil is not easy. But it is a high calling, maybe the highest calling most of us will ever answer.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!