Never mind the myriad times right-wing radio pundit Rush Limbaugh has previously officially declared anthropogenic climate change a hoax, or nothing but an opportunity for a global communist uprising, the conservative talker said on his radio show last week that the diplomatic cables pertaining to climate leaked as part of the most recent Wikileaks dump were evidence enough for him that the whole thing has been exposed as a fraud.

Citing a post and some conjecture about the cables by climate skeptic Anthony Watts, Limbaugh said:

"I know for a fact that global warming, climate change, whatever term they attach to it, is nothing more than an attempt to create socialist nations as far around the world as they can and to separate us from our money.  That's all it is and now the whole thing's been exposed as a full-fledged, 100% fraud."

The handful of leaked cables relating to climate change mostly pertained to the UN climate talks last year in Copenhagen. If anything, the cables should a glimpse of the kind of strategic communications that take place in the background at any high-level meeting, hardly "more" evidence for Limbaugh that global warm is a conspiracy and a fraud.

Is it newsworthy that the U.S. wasn't looking to extend the Kyoto process and its associated mandatory cuts in carbon emissions for the industrialized world? Not particularly, especially considering the U.S. is the only industrialized country not to ratify the treaty. The U.S. was doing its best to drum  up support for a Copenhagen Accord and using carrots and sticks to do so.

Is it surprising that diplomats from one country meet with diplomats of others to forge relationships and strategic alliances during large multinational summits and conferences? Not at all. For example, at Copenhagen and again at Cancun last week, the "BASIC" countries of Brasil, South Africa, India and China made it quite clear they had a strategic alliance and were not willing to move on certain points unless they got concessions of their own.

"You could say they coordinate or maybe they share information," said Nathan Hultman, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, who attended the summits in both Copenhagen and Cancun. Hultman said nations are usually in communication with each other outside of the much larger conference setting.

"[T]his is not scandalous," he said, "this is how negotiations work."