Anyone who really wants to understand why the release of the Hadley CRU files is so damaging should read this piece about how "Climate change pushes poor women to prostitution."

The "evidence" is so ludicrously thin that I find myself wondering whether it was just decided somewhere by the Powers That Be amongst the AGW elite that they needed to cash in on the prostitution racket meme. I don't know why (maybe it's just the word), but "prostitution" has such shock value these days that if you can find some way to hook up your favorite issue with prostitution, you can move mountains. Seriously, it may be the world's oldest profession, but it has an ability to resonate and influence public opinion where all else has failed. For example, despite ACORN's documented history of voter fraud, mortgage fraud, and the worst sort of political corruption, the public did not care. But the prostitution scandal could not be ignored, even though the prostitute and the pimp were not real, but conservative actors in a sting video. That ACORN's workers had offered to help them commit mortgage and tax fraud would have been considered insignificant by itself; what finally led to serious damage for ACORN was the fact that they were willing to assist an underaged prostitution ring.

Similarly bloggers who engage in prostitution and write about it have an edge on regular bloggers who write about their work. Hell, were I young and hot and female and willing to sell my body, I'd probably be able to boost traffic to this website.

I'm not complaining, mind you. Just commenting on the way the world works. It doesn't take a genius to understand this. And while the Global Warming people are clearly not geniuses, they're obviously smart enough to understand the dynamics of the "p" word.

But I want to look at the alleged facts.

The effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines into dangerous work, and sometimes even the flesh trade, a United Nations official said.

Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.

"Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection," Mukherjee said during the Wednesday launch of the UNFPA annual State of World Population Report in Pasay City.

In the Philippines, small brothels usually pop up near the coastal areas where many women perform sexual services for transient seafarers. Often, these prostitutes are ferried to bigger ships by their pimps.

Since when does speculation that something might happen become a statement that it has happened? Are the Hadley CRU scientists moonlighting at making up Phillipine flesh trade statistics while they're trying to prove the earth is "hotter"? (Hot? Hmmm... maybe there is link after all.....)

And if they're trying to glom onto the ACORN prostitution meme, why isn't there a video? You'd think that with all the money at the UN's disposal, the least they could do would be to come up with a single prostitute wailing about how the hotter climate made her sell her body.

There's not one iota of evidence, not even a measly unproven allegation of a correlation. Instead, they shift gears into overpopulation:

Based on the UNFPA report, there are 92 million Filipinos in the country as of 2009 and that number is expected to balloon to more than 146 million in the next 40 years.

Of the 92 million Filipinos, about 60 percent are living in coastal areas and depend on the seas for livelihood, said former Environment secretary Dr. Angel Alcala.

Alcala said that "we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our marine environment."

But as the sea's resources are depleted due to overpopulation and overfishing, fishermen start losing their livelihood and women are forced to share the traditional role of the man in providing for the family.

None that I can see.

Beyond that, all there is is a claim by a biologist who says that "some women often pick out shellfish by the coastlines, which exposed to storm surges" and that "women who can no longer endure this work often go out to find other jobs, while some are tempted to go into prostitution."

A biologist says some women are tempted, and that's considered scientific proof?

It's probably worth noting that Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann has been arguing that hurricane frequency is linked to climate change based on what he calls "proxy analysis," although it is considered "unclear whether rising temperatures are increasing the frequency of the typhoons and storms that regularly batter the Philippines."

Considering "Climategate," (coming as it did on the heels of evidence that there is no increase in temperature) it's unclear that there are in fact rising temperatures, and if there aren't, then asserting that they are increasing storm frequency (when that too is not proven) constitutes using an unproven hypothesis to support another unproven hypothesis. It sounds about scientific to me as most conspiracy theory thinking. But it illustrates why it is so easy for these people to insist without evidence that Global Warming causes prostitution.

This stuff would be comical if the UN bureaucrats behind it weren't demanding US taxpayers' dollars. What I think reveals the almost comical desperation at work here are the "five measures to mitigate climate change and overpopulation" which are apparently being seriously proposed:

The UNFPA suggested five measures to mitigate climate change and overpopulation:

* Bring a better understanding of population dynamics, gender and reproductive health to climate change and environmental discussions at all levels;

* Fully fund family planning services and contraceptive supplies within the framework of reproductive health and rights, and assure that low income is no barrier to access;

* Prioritize research and date collection to improve the understanding of gender and population dynamics in climate change mitigation and adaptation;

* Improve sex-disaggregation of date related to migration flows that are influenced by environmental factors and prepare now for increases in population movements resulting from climate change; and

* Integrate gender considerations into global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Anyone's favorite pet theories can be bootstrapped into an international cause via Global Warming. Obviously, when they say "reproductive health and rights," they mean abortion. But if the abortion rate goes up in targeted countries like the Phillipines, then the other side will be able to claim that climate change causes increased abortions!

Don't you see? Global Warming now means that everyone wins.

We are all sex workers now!