I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I have no letters or honours appended to my name. I, and millions more, are a part of the herd, and we rely on qualified, verified, honest, leadership to ensure we're headed in the right direction. Our society has developed many methods of sensing the truthfulness of the data we're given, and the scientific method of peer reviewed, repeatable results of verified data is a major one. What Mann et al did is the equivalent in my view to scientific genocide - they purposely modified or created the data to provide a fore-ordained (by them) result. They purposely denigrated, derided, and shut out anyone who didn't follow their lead or questioned their results; destroyed the data contrary to their precepts, and made any peer-review of their findings unavailable or unreachable.
If that is true, then they should be stripped of any position and titles they hold including their educational certificates, and put in solitary confinement until they die. Take from them what they crave most - the adoration of those around them, and let them stew in their own pitiful self-worth.
The herd I was referring to in this case was the scientific community, but as a rule, it pays to not get between the lemmings and the cliff.
In a nutshell, although some things are counter-intuitive, most science is just common sense with the application of a little special knowledge, some gadgets to get information, and a few fancy terms.
Most ordinary folks are perfectly capable of understanding the concepts if they don't let the terminology get in the way, terminology which exists because it is simpler (and cheaper) to come up with a name for a process which might take two pages to explain than spend all that extra money on printing costs in the journals.
Science has never been so cut-and dried that there has not been dissent.
I recall a professor of mine talking about fistfights (in the 1950s) between geologists and geophysicists over the then fairly new theory of contitnetal drift (plate tectonics)--pretty much accepted now, and well supported by evidence from the past and present.
Those who are holding with the current beliefs and theories in science place their careers on the line along with their credibility. Some of those positions are considered "safe", some are not. Unless an area is one of your specialization, often not taking a stand is the easiest course of action.
But when governmental policies which are as broad in scope and sweeping in nature as those proposed over the Anthropogenic Global Warming issue, with the potential to seriously affect not only the economies of the freest nations on earth but the entire course of human history, only those who have no knowledge of the issue should fail to take a stand, and those who have the education to study the issue should do so. That does not require a doctorate, and almost anyone who really wants to learn about almost any topic can become very knowledgeabe, even if they do not have a string of letters after their name to show for the education they have obtained.
I, and tens of thousands of colleagues did examine the issue, often independently, learning as much as we could, examining the data available, the data collection methods, the conclusions drawn from that data, and came to the conclusion that the available data (in some instances flawed at collection) did not support the conclusion that human activity was affecting the climate in a harmful way on a global level.
It is not an act taken lightly to have one's name associated with those who find themselves taking a contrary position to a widely accepted and popularized scientific theory. The closer one is to the specialty, the more one places one's credibility and career on the line.
For those who are in academia, the results can be even more disasterous than for those of us in industrial positions.
As for those who intentionally misled the others in their discipline to draw the conclusion that AGW was real and needed drastic governmental action to stop it, they will lose the one thing which makes a scientist respected: credibility. They should be released from positions of influence and suffer all the indignities due them.
If their actions can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt to be criminal in nature, they should be treated appropriately.
The policies proposed and even those already implemented because of their fraud will have cost the economies of participating nations a fortune.
Those who were misled will suffer plenty of embarassment, but can hopefully recover from that and will become better scientists as a result.
Those who took no stance will neither suffer nor gain.
Those of us who took a stand against the AGW theory and the proposed implementation of governmental policies may gain some credibility, but the lions share of that goes to the standard bearers who did the grunt work, kept a high profile, and kept the issue alive.
'Murder will out!" as Chaucer wrote, and the threads of this apparent conspiracy are unravelling now, to the great relief of those of us (scientist and otherwise) who have seen that the dire predictions of the alarmists did not match reality, but the destruction of economies would have surpassed the predictions of dire consequences.