Recently, I was reading testimony given by Bush administration whistleblower Rick Piltz about the ongoing National Assessment process, in which the U.S. government, either cheerily or reluctantly (depending on the administration) sets out to inform Americans as to their local and regional climate risks. During the Bush years, as I reported in my book The Republican War on Science, there was an all out war on the in-government scientists trying to produce this legally required document. Lawsuits were filed, a disclaimer put up on the government website housing the document (indeed, it’s still there), and before long nobody in the administration would even cite the government’s own work.

It’s in this context that I found Piltz’s testimony so refreshingly…frank. For what he tells the scientists preparing the next round of the assessment for 2013 is this: No matter how good your science is, it will never be good enough for those who disbelieve it. The blush is off the rose; this is the new reality; this is how it works:

The US Congress’s most ardent global warming sceptic is being accused of turning the row over climate science into a McCarthyite witch-hunt by calling for a criminal investigation of scientists. Climate scientists say Sen. James Inhofe’s call for a criminal investigation into American as well as British scientists who worked on the UN climate body’s report represents an attempt to silence debate on the eve of new proposals for a climate change law.

If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again.  The denial machine is running at full throttle — and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.

A survey results of federal scientists showed 46 percent felt pressure to eliminate the words “climate change,” “global warming” or similar terms from communications about their work. The scientists also reported 435 instances of political interference in their work over the past five years.

Ross Gelbspan, a renowned climate-change author and one of the founders of DeSmogBlog, is at the Sundance Film Festival this week as a star in the documentary Everything’s Cool , a “toxic comedy” about global warming coming to America.

CBC's news magazine show the fifth estate slammed Dr. S. Fred Singer and company out of the park last evening with the " Denial Machine" , a 40-minute documentary that gave context to the current climate change debate.