CLIMATEGATE, EPISODE THREE
The mystery man (or woman) who released the original emails, and second batch of emails, which led to Climategate and Climategate 2, has now released the password which allows the people who have the password to look at the entire file of 220,000 emails.
To see the responses of the Skeptical community, see the comments at:
Australia: Jo Nova:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/climategate-iii-the-password-is-out/#more-27517
USA: Watts Up With That:
Great Britain: Bishop Hill:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/3/13/climategate-30.html
Canada: Climate Audit:
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/13/more-news-from-rcfoia/
Actually it will be a while before there is any real news, in the form of emails to look at.
UPDATE: My reflections while waiting for the emails to be released:
What troubles and also fascinates me is the fact that Alarmists simply do not understand they have been victims of a hoax. Sometimes I go onto a site (such as the New York Times,) and just lurk, reading all the comments, and trying to figure out how Alarmist’s brains malfunction.
As best as I can tell, Alarmists simply appeal to authority, because they lack the powers of concentration which allow one to think for themselves. They likely are superior to me, in terms of measuring who has status and who to cozy up to, however that means nothing in terms of figuring out whether a fact is factual or falsified.
When it comes to looking plain facts dead in the eye, and evaluating, Alarmists seem utterly lost. It seems they have never actually thought for themselves, and instead have rushed to be on the side of whatever was popular, and seemingly the side of the “winner.” They do not determine for themselves whether an idea is truly a “winner,” and instead simply do what they are told.
This is like rushing to be on the dry side of a leaky rowboat, without ever facing the fact a leak needs to be plugged. As the water starts to get deeper in the bottom of the boat, it too rushes to the high-and-dry side, because the high-and-dry side sinks when everyone crowds to that gunnel in their desire to be safe. Then, when they become aware that side is sinking, they stampede to the other side, which brings the rush of water after them.
If you ever played around in a leaky rowboat as a child, you know what the eventual result is. The craft sways more and more drunkenly, until the rush of water is so extreme that, despite the shift of weight to the other side of the boat, the lower gunnel sinks so low water starts pouring in over the side, and the boat founders.
In this boat-analogy the fact that needs to be faced is that there is a leak which needs to be plugged. In the Global warming reality the fact that needs to be faced is that a fraud has occurred.
Any sort of social reform built upon fraud is like a house engineered upon quicksand.
Sunrise's Swansong 
I definitely share your troubling fascination for the Alarmist mind. As you already know I was a believer once and only since about four years flipped to the skeptic side.
There are many things that come into play. I agree Appeal to authority is certainly an important one, but there are others. Confirmation bias is a major one. You are correct in saying believers feel secure because they have the security of the many. In this comfortable position they don’t have to look at the data or are discouraged to do so. Then it is easy to just pile up one evidence after another without even checking if it is still valid. Been there, done that. But yet it is indeed fascinating. That’s why I started my blog in which I try to explore how the alarmist mind works and how I went from a believer to a skeptic.
But look at it at the other side. Even I started to notice that things didn’t add up and in the end made the jump. If I can do it, others can do it too. Remember for example the ice age scare in the 70ties. When people realized it was not getting colder, but on the contrary getting warmer, interest in the coming ice age faded away. This could happen again if we are on a downward wave again, temperature wise.
There is a difference between the Ice Age Scare and the Global warming Scare, involving the degree to which it was plugged as a policy, and taught in the schools, and so forth. I imagine the post-scare hangover will be worse, and may involve backlashes we don’t foresee.
I’ll be thinking and writing a lot about this, I imagine.