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Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study
w1z4rd writes "According to an article in the Guardian, scientists and economists have been offered large bribes by a lobbying group funded by ExxonMobil. The offers were extended by the American Enterprise Institute group, which apparently has numerous ties to the Bush administration. Couched in terms of an offer to write 'dissenting papers' against the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, several scientists contacted for the article refused the offers on conflict of interest grounds."
Just because ExxonMobil paid someone, does not mean the arguments the scientist made are not valid, although they might as well be; same goes for the people who worked at the IPCC report. Let's stick to the actual arguments and data, instead of making cheap ad hominem attacks.
If a report were issued that global warming was not manmade and a thinktank offered a similar reward, would you also call it a bribe?
If (and this is a very strong IF) they do this right, what they are doing is using money to accelerate the scientific debate. If there are errors in the report that other scientists can find, there is now incentive to find them and weed them out. It's the scientific process pushed forward by money.
The downside of it will, of course, be that a lot of "scientists" will make wild claims in an attempt to collect on this cash and muddy the waters. But I think in the long run this might actually speed up the process by which we arrive at a definite conclusion to the debate and finally start seriously working on solutions.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
This is just propaganda from the liberal controlled greeny environmental industry, making shit up to slander the good name of an honest, productive and responsible corporation. Everyone knows global warming scientists are rich as Midas from all the money funneled to them by their commie-pinko-socialist masters, of course they don't need to take money from an honest corporation! Just think, this poor industry, barely making ends meet, scrapes up a little money to try to help fund some REAL SCIENCE, and these vicious intelelctuals turn on them like a pack of wild dogs. /right-wing-parody
Anyone want to place a bet on how many of these 'ideas' are going to become official talking points on Faux News?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Instead, we see Exxon offering money for the predetermined outcome of 'scientific' research. And that, my friend, is why I feel compelled to keep "making cheap ad hominem attacks." Because Exxon is pissing science down their leg and the public is paying attention to it when they shouldn't. Who's offering the $10,000 for the report proving global warming is our fault?
My work here is dung.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Now before we all cry bloody murder, why are we calling this a bribe? There was a report released on global climate change. One company is hoping that there were shortcomings and inaccuracies in that report. That company doesn't have the scientific capability to refute the findings, so they are hiring scientists to document any and all shortcomings for them.
As far as I can tell, there is no proof that they asked the scientists to lie. Unless, of course, you have already made up your mind that global warming is a fact and any attempt to refute it is corrupt and evil.
The company involved is obviously biased, but I don't see an attempt to refute a study as evil in and of itself.
No, it doesn't mean their scientific findings aren't valid. But it sure the hell does mean they're financially motivated.
And the climate scientists who created this report aren't idealogically motivated? I'm sure some are. Some probably aren't. And scientists who respond to the $10,000 bounty may or may not be motivated. Frankly, I don't care about motivations. If you put out a bounty for an open source project, no one gets upset. Why should this be any different? If the scientist trades his/her credibility to create a fraudalent attack on the climate report that's unethical, but the fault of the scientist - not the bounty. ANd I have no doubt the life of such accusations will be short-lived.
If ExonMobile itself wants to offer bounties for this research I really don't care. Let the scientists try to do the research. They will either come up with a valid criticis, or they won't.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
There is no impartial scientist to be found. As earth is a closed system -- we're all here for the duration -- we all have a vested interest in the future. It makes little difference whether a study is financed by a corporation like ExxonMobil or by a green group with deep pockets; both have agendas, and in the final analysis, either the scientific methods are sound, or they're not, regardless of who is funding.
The problem up to now has been the tendency of many to assume that a) because a study is endorsed by scientists, it must therefore be valid, and b) that if it is financed by a green organization or a government, it is therefore more trustworthy than if it were funded by a multinational corporation. Both assumptions are false. Of all the scientists on the planet, only a very small percentage are competent in the the analysis of climatological data, and of those, even fewer are knowledgeable with respect to the long term studies involved. As to funding and impartiality, every group I can think of has an agenda here, be they environmental groups, governments, or corporations.
What is clearly needed is a rational study by qualified scientists, and discussion and even attacks on the conclusions drawn by other groups of equally qualified scientists. This is essentially the kind of thing that is done to keep scholarly journals on track. Articles are refereed by people with knowledge and experience in the field.
Finally, one of the chief problems in trying to analyze the existing data is that we possess reasonably accurate data for only a very brief period of time, and from those data, we hope to extrapolate global long term trends. In undertaking that task, trends are extrapolated forward and backward, and assumptions are stacked upon assumptions. The further we get from today, in either direction, the less reliable are those assumptions. And let us not forget that we are still unable to reliably predict the weather more than a few days in advance, yet we have sufficient hubris to believe we can predict 100 years forward.
--- Bill
What you're saying makes perfect sense concerning the debate amoungst scientists, but when it comes to the popular debate, large amounts of funding will result in a proportional amount of material. Since the population at large don't have the wherewithall to analyse the findings, they look instead to the volume of the work produced and the reputation of those producing it.
In the abscence of the capability to analyse the science itself, it help to know where the funding comes from. If the science is then picked up by a scientist who's sources appear not to be compromised, then it is reasonable to assume that it was sound science in the first place. This filter layer is the meaning of peer review. In the abscence of this filter layer, it is reasonable for the population to know that the funding is selecting for particular conclusions, thus possibly prejudicing the data or the analysis of that data.
Knowledge of funding is part of the mechanism by which the non-scientist protects him or herself against junk science.
Wikileaks, no DNS
If you could scientifically (key word) demonstrate that humans made no significant contribution to global warming (within a certain margin of error, of course), you'd have no problem getting grants - especially from the current administration. (OK, maybe not "no problem". You also have to be able to write halfway well. Let's just say it'd be easier than if you were just a conformist scientist who didn't produce any novel research.) They do ultimately control the purse strings, and if there was some grand conspiracy going on, do you really think that Bush and friends wouldn't be using their influence to end/replace it?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Really, what do you expect exxon et al to say, do... look at the tobacco lobbies and their efforts to discredit studies and such that say cigarettes are not addictive using their own lobby-funded studies. In the rest of the world, and I would say most of the US, global warming is not controversial. Do wing nuts prop up their people to go on camera and say "it ain't happening". Sure, but so did the tobacco people. Most thinking people can see past this type of stuff and not get swept up in the propaganda wars. Unfortunately many do get suckered in by it. They have a lot of cash to throw at ads and lobbying these days due to the price of oil, and they want to keep that cash flowing. Like the addictive tobacco controversy... this one is dying. Expect to see more thrashing from the lobbies as it goes down for the count.
I just have wonder what is wrong in Exxon-Mobile. Every other major oil company in the world has admitted that global warming is for real and it's probably caused by man. In example Jorma Ollila who is the chairman of Shell has said it an interview that global warming is real and the only way to tackel it is to reduce carbon emissions. He continued and said that when he came to work in Shell, he was amazed by the concern that Shell employees had about global warming. So the question is what is wrong in Exxon-Mobile? Are their executives so locked into an equation (oil = money) that they have forgotten that it's really (oil = energy = money) and that a company can have other forms of energy sources than just oil?
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
Although the anonymous coward choose a foolish group to link to there are lots of intelligent environmentalists who disagree with the current view of "Environmentalism"...
Dr. Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace, left Greenpeace in 1986 after he saw Greenpeace became more concerned with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization rather than environmental issues. He had this to say on Global Warming recently "most difficult issue facing the scientific community today in terms of being able to actually predict with any kind of accuracy what's going to happen". While acknowledging that the increase of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels, he claims that as of 2006 it cannot be fully proven that this is the reason the Earth has been warming since 1980. He stresses that it is scientific evidence, not consensus opinion, that would prove or disprove this relation."
link
From Here:
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I always hate it how whenever Exxon-Mobil does something ridiculous, "oil companies" (collectively) get blamed -- Exxon-Mobil being one of the few dinosaurs left who still denies global warming (and does so quite actively). Meanwhile, companies like Shell and BP fund research into carbon sequestration and are among the world's largest investors in wind and solar (both in commercial production and research). But they're "oil companies", so they get lumped in with Exxon's BS.
Interestingly enough, I have it on good authority that when Exxon scientists have met with members of NCAR, they privately admit that anthropogenic climate change is quite real.
I once listened to a Philip Glass record for an hour and a half before I realized it was skipping.
And the climate scientists who created this report aren't idealogically motivated?
That's a hefty charge to be leveling against climatologists without any proof.
The point is that you are giving so called scientists a financial motivation for making one conclusion over another. This is nothing like your OSS bounty comparison.
If ExonMobile itself wants to offer bounties for this research I really don't care.
I don't either but that is not what ExxonMobil is doing. They are not offering bounties for research, they are offering bounties for specific conclusions.
Time makes more converts than reason
Yes, but did the provide it on a "if your results match this, you get money" basis, otherwise you don't?
Science can be financially motivated, it's hard to keep it from being so, since it's run by people who need to live in a world where you need finance. However the answers should not be financially motivated
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
"You can't make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it," Upton Sinclair
The difference is whether the money is offered to do pure research into the issue, whatever the result, or whether it is offered on condition that the results further a specific viewpoint.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
From any other scientist who accepts a grant from a company - or from a government?
Clear, Dark Skies
You're saying that paying scientists to come to your conclusions, on a subject as important as climate change, is morally on par with paying programmers to write open source code?
They are paying for any papers that will cast any sort of doubt. This means "clutch at straws to find any possible way to cast uncertainty on this report, and we'll reward you handsomely". This is not moral in any way. This is like MS paying a bounty on an open source project so that it adopts an MS standard; it's abuse of the system for the companies own gain.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
Maybe in a perfect simulation of a perfect world. But the history backs up the common sense: oil companies pay for science that serves only their agenda, which is to cover up the true costs of their industry to protect their maximum profits at everyone else's expense.
Pointing out real bias is not "ad hominem". Corporations are not "hominems". Diluting the obvious interest conflict demonstrated in oil companies buying scientists to write against the IPCC report is work for the oil companies. And pitting the extreme, unaccountable oil companies' self interest against the factual analysis of the IPCC report is pretending to "balance" the facts against propaganda.
Let's not game the system any more, now that the seriousness of the threat is finally being widely analyzed and reported after generations of lies, coverups and propaganda all serving the oil companies at the expense of everyone else.
--
make install -not war
If you're paying for a project, you're paying for results. If you're paying for a report written a certain way, you're paying for propaganda.
Put another way, software has hard specifications, while science only has "the truth" (or a working model, anyway.) If you are specifically offering money for someone to produce a report that supports your view, that is not science.
If a bribe is given to a policeman, both he and the person offering the bribe are committing a crime. It's a recognition of the fact that it takes two to tango, as it were. This situation is directly analogous.
If the bounty was for someone who could prove (ha!) whether global warming was caused by human sources, then I would agree with you. But what they are looking for isn't the truth; in fact we know beyond any real doubt that humans have an effect on global weather. There can frankly be no question about this. The only thing there is question about now is the extent of that influence. So this reward constitutes a bribe, nothing more, intended to cause the expression of falsehoods. Well, it does constitute one other thing - an attempt to confuse the public, to keep them in disarray so they don't unite against the oil companies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You complain about ideological motivation, yet you yourself have fallen victim to it. Your ideal says that scientists should not be subject to the reality of human nature, greed being part of that nature, and that those who take advantage of it should not be held accountable for their part.
That is absurd. If someone wants to kill a man, and hires a hitman to do it, you can bet he is going to jail for conspiracy to commit murder (well if he's caught anyway).
I'm not saying that bribing a scientist is the same as murder. I am saying that paying someone to misrepresent the truth doesn't let you off the hook, just because the payee was willing to do it.
http://www.unfocus.com/
While I agree with your point, there is a lot of pressure on scientists to conform with the "Global warming is caused by humans" meme. If you do not agree, you are likely to be cut off from good positions and grants.
Personally, given observed warming on mars, jupiter and pluto and numerous ice ages and hot ages in earth's history, I think we are presuming a bit much about human impact.
This bit by exxon does stink a bit. This global warming stuff is "soft" enough that it can be manipulated by how you ask the questions. If it was hard science, it wouldn't matter who did the research.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
And the climate scientists who created this report aren't idealogically motivated? I'm sure some are. Some probably aren't. And scientists who respond to the $10,000 bounty may or may not be motivated. Frankly, I don't care about motivations. If you put out a bounty for an open source project, no one gets upset. Why should this be any different?
The scientific method relies upon hypothesis and testing, then publishing and interpreting the results of that testing and it is reviewed by peers. If you are only paid when the results of your testing indicate a particular item, which may or may not be true, you have direct motivation to break the scientific process. Your analogy involving open source bounties is different. Say someone offers a bounty to find security holes in product X. That is paying people to do research and find some hole, and there are always going to be holes. It is not paying them to prove a specific hole exists (result), which would be undermining the scientific method. In the case of global warming, you're starting with an answer "global warming is not man made" (result) and trying to find a reason. Sure there are lots of potential reasons why this might be the case, but none of them are science because you did not follow the scientific method. They are also a lot likely to be correct answers for the same reason. With a bounty on security holes in some project you're looking to find something, but not provide evidence for whether holes exist or not, simply to find any that you can. Whether or not a given hole exists and is exploitable can still be a scientific process.
Let the scientists try to do the research.
Part of the failing of the US education system is that people refer to researchers or engineers or technologists as scientists, when in truth a scientist is someone who uses the scientific method. The reason for this misapplication is because science comes up with lots of useful solutions and thus has a lot of credibility. The fact is, tis lobbying group is not offering to pay scientists, because the offer precludes people acting in that role form participating.
Dude! Ice that has existed for thousands of years is disappearing now. Arctic and antarctic species are in danger of extinction. Land masses that have been covered with ice since before the dawn of man are now available for farming! There's some real obvious signs of things that are just not right. Forget about the other obvious things like acid rain killing the fish... we somehow addressed that concern did we?
This isn't guilt for existance, it's guilt for being sloppy assholes who care little about the world we live in. There are ways to live and be clean about it. It's possibly "expensive" or otherwise a departure from what we are accustomed. So what?
I feel guilty. I can't afford to live in ways that are cleaner or I most certainly would. I can't do any of those nifty money-saving things like power from the sun or wind and earning money back from "the grid" because I live in an apartment. I cannot afford to buy a new, more efficient, car let alone a hybrid or electric. I can only WISH the people who make their money selling stuff to the world's population would care enough to take a hit from retooling and selling us stuff that's better for the world.
The alternatives are there. They just don't want to do it.
Well, many companies will control what can be published from the research they pay for, but when it comes to the government, that is not the case at all. They give you money to do research in a particular area. They do not give you money to reach particular conclusions. If they knew the conclusions you were going to reach, they wouldn't be funding you. Now do you see the difference?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy." Definitely sounds like "Exxon offering money for the predetermined outcome" to me. Oh wait, they want the strengths and weaknesses.
But it's all academic (pun intended) anyways. If you question any aspect of any of it, your credentials are pulled. What a great atmosphere to foster discussion and research in.
I don't think that anybody is implying that scientists are choosing a position based on celebrity or _personal_ wealth. But let's face reality here. They aren't going to risk being ostracized from the community by disagreeing with the MAN-MADE global warming hysteria. Being a scientific skeptic of MAN-MADE global warming effectively excommunicates them.
Yes, it's getting warmer. Is it natural or man-made? What will the overall effects be and how will we adapt? Those are the questions that nobody has any real answers to. I can't believe that climatologists have anything other than the foggiest idea of what will happen. Some ice will melt, some places will get drier, some will get wetter. These are the same people who predicted that the 2006 hurricane season would be the worst ever. The hard fact here is that no matter what the temperature is doing, people are afraid of change. Something different? Must be bad!
This is nothing more than fear mongering and taking advantage of fact that most people can't think of anything that encompasses a time-scale larger than a generation. If we were in the middle of the last ice age, I'm sure the same people would be telling us that we'd all drown or burn to a crisp.
Whether the money is tied to the result implicitly o explicitly doesn't really matter.
It matters if the result is tied to money at all. Any research that starts with a conclusion which it tries to find proof for is not following the scientific method and is not science. If some government grant was worded such that is is contingent upon proving some conclusion, that is not science either. To my knowledge this is the only case where funding was offered for research starting with a result. I've seen other cases where companies paid for research, but reserved the right to publish the results or not, and then buried science that disagreed with their predetermined opinion, but I don't know of any other attempt to so openly buy an unscientific study and pass it off as science.
According to Greenpeace's 2006 Annual report, they spent 4.3 milliion Euros on their 'climate' campaign.
This is pure advocacy advertising money, by the way, unlike Exxon which actually has to sell a product.
How is it that (Company A) offering $10,000 for proof of one side of an issue is irredeemable evilness, but (Advocacy Group) spending $5.6 million is a justified righteous crusade?
-Styopa
Who's offering the $10,000 for the report proving global warming is our fault?
There are billions of dollars being spent on studies to show that global warming is our fault. http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/289.pdf While the study does conclude that "Additional work is needed to explore the individual relationships between individual funders and particular recipients", it does say that "A cursory glimpse of the list of recipients of those private funds reveals that the vast majority are spent by groups favoring restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions"
While that does not mean that all of these studies showing the effects of global warming are false, it does show that they are just as financially motivated. Only about $50 million is spent each year by private foundations for research by universities and non-profits, but those funds are quite important to the bottom lines of those universities.
When you are paid by a company called "Green Earth" (fictional company I think) to research global warming, you can be pretty sure that they will stop that funding if you keep saying that global warming is not a problem and we should start drilling for oil in Alaska.
But it sure the hell does mean they're financially motivated. Here's what should happen: Exxon should hire scientists to research this. If the report comes up against global warming, the scientists get $10,000 grand and stay employed. If the report comes up proving global warming is our fault, the scientists get $10,000 and stay employed.
There is nothing wrong with funding a study with a particular purpose in mind. The problem only comes when they falsify data to prove something that is false. Very little research would be done in this country if no one was allowed to have an agenda.
That is why all studies need to be peer reviewed. Almost anyone doing research on anything has an agenda, and it usually is money. If I am trying to invent a more efficient solar cell, I have an agenda to sell those solar cells for money. But first I need to prove that it works to other scientists (or more specifically to investors).
ExxonMobil is not doing anything wrong by offerring $10,000 for research. They will be doing something wrong if they find someone willing to fabricate information. I have no love for Exxon, and I am pretty sure they would do that if needed. That would be news worthy, but this story is not. It is just FUD from the global warming crowd.
--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
I don't understand the emphasis on MAN-MADE as a reason to not take action. Even if global warming is not a MAN-MADE cause (which personally I find unlikely), is it something everybody wants to risk? Clearly pumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere is not good. We are smart enough to figure out better and cleaner ways to produce mass energy. Why don't we just clean up now regardless of the cause for the sake of the environment? In 50 - 100 years, it's going to be too late to be decide, "oh wow, it really was MAN-MADE, better start taking action now!".
The whole debate seems pointless to me, but I very well could be missing something.
When RSA puts up a bounty for breaking crypto, they do so because that answer is vitally important, not because they want to be wrong. Exxon is doing roughly the same. They are putting up a bounty on this work because it vital to their business interests that this data be correct. If there's any way to assail climate theory that suggests that warming is anthropogenic, then they want that to be found, and those who established the opposing theories should be thrilled to have such an effort undertaken. Recall that this is not football (of the world or U.S variety). Nor is it a debate. This is the scientific method at work, and the more highly skilled people are highly motivated to produce valuable research the better. What bothers me is the tendency to ignore the science and focus on sources of funding; "desirability" of results, etc.
Here's the thing. If the people submitting to Exxon/Mobil are submitting made up bullshit then it shouldn't withstand review and become a laughingstock. If nothing else, that should help to strengthen the human derived global warming stance.
From where I stand though, it looks like both sides are playing fast and loose with the science to date. I guess I'll go read the new report and see if it says anything new.
You haven't shown how TFA is any different than the peer review that was done (or should have been done) by the IPCC. Should the publishers of any study be able to define who the reviewers will be? That seems wrong. Or are you saying that all peer reviewers need to come up with alternative hypotheses and go out and do their own testing before they can be said to have reviewed anything?
TFA says that they're looking for someone to review the paper, and to comment on its strengths and weaknesses. They're not asking for results that contradict it (although one might reasonably assume that such results could be used as support for weaknesses of the study).
JOIN US FOR PONG!
Exxon-Mobil is not offering a bounty to anyone who can disprove human-caused global warming.
Certain scientists were approached privately and offered an exchange: They write a paper disagreeing with the UN climate study, and Exxon will pay them $10,000. The scientists were not asked to prove or disprove anything, simply to express a certain opinion.
Basically, Exxon doesn't know or care if the scientist is correct, or has scientifically proven that humans didn't cause global warming - that's not a requirement for payment. All that's required is that the scientist express the opinion that Exxon-Mobil wants.
Therefore, the entire issue has very little to do with science or the scientific method, because that's not what's going on here. If Exxon were offering funding to researchers who were testing and repeating existing climate change experiments and findings, it would be a little sketchy but we would have to respect their findings and deal with them through further research and peer review. However what Exxon is doing has nothing to do with new research or even testing existing findings, it is simply an attempt to get someone credible to express Exxon's opinion.
Well, imagine that you're a scientist being paid by the Sierra club to do global warming research, and you turn around and say to them "well, sorry guys, but it turns out all this global warming is actually just a product of increased solar activity". Or you're a scientist hired by greenpeace to research the dangers of nuclear reactors, and you turn around and tell them "gee guys, it looks like Nuclear power is actually the most viable and least polluting source of energy we have!". What do you think will happen?
Regardless of the fact that they never told you what conclusion they wanted, it seems likely that, were you to reach these conclusions, you would not be in their employ for very much longer. In fact it seems quite likely that your research would be quietly buried, and your funding revoked due to "budgetary constraints". So the end result is the same. If you work for an organizations which has a vested interest in reaching a specific conclusion, then you have a monetary incentive to reach the conclusions that they want. Period.
"There are billions of dollars being spent on studies to show that global warming is our fault."
No, there is money being spent on studies to find out *if* and *why* the climate is changing. This is not the same as paying someone for a *specific result*.
-- Cerebus
> Here's the thing. If the people submitting to Exxon/Mobil are submitting made
> up bullshit then it shouldn't withstand review and become a laughingstock.
This has already happened, but scientists are typically less confrontational or maybe just less socially cruel than most of us. I don't think they laugh so much as they simply ignore obvious shills.
> If nothing else, that should help to strengthen the human derived global warming stance.
Peer-reviewed research has already been on the job for years. Today's IPCC paper ups the ante to 90% certainty. That sounds strong enough to start demanding more from our politicians.
> From where I stand though, it looks like both sides are playing fast and loose with
> the science to date. I guess I'll go read the new report and see if it says anything new.
I don't know what you've been reading, but from my POV the battle has been scientists vs. corporate power for many years now. To the extent statistics have been abused, I believe they've been twisted and cherry-picked almost exclusively by those bent on disproving global warming. I'm sure we could find examples of kooks on the left stating worst-case scenarios as fact, but the other side has been flatly denying data and the opinion of respected authorities in climatology.
Ask me about my sig!
And just who is funding the global warming proponents? I ask this question regularily
.. .. while other scientists whose opposing theories hold just as valid are ignored
when one of these GW articles pop up on Slashdot and I invite everybody and all to do the
research and to find out.
The scientists who propose global warming theories out there are for the
most part likely to be sincere in their findings - but they are also the most
likely to be funded by the UN "Agenda 21" crowd through their network of Sustainable
Development cronies
at best, more often ridiculed and jeered by the publicity that same funding money
also buys. A less __selective__ reporting would not just unearth one single case of the
undesired sides shortcomings but in all fairness report on the funding that is
going to both sides, both the official as well as the underhanded. (As an exception
the official funding is far more interesting in this case).
Sustainable Development is going to be the pivot element of the UN global governance
that has come knocking and a lot of effort is being invested into it to make the
sustainable development - global warming paradigm package stick no matter what the opposition
to the scientifism it is based on.
Here are a couple of things people might want to check out who want to learn more
about this...
Here are a couple of points to google for "Sustainable Development" "Property rights"
"Agenda 21" "Joan Peros" (also try this on http://video.google.com/
Senator Inhofe, who posted the extremely partisan page you linked, keeps saying that.
He's got a lot of great stuff, like "The well-heeled environmental lobbying groups have massive operating budgets compared to groups that express global warming skepticism."
Right. Well heeled-green groups have more money to spend on lobbying than the FUCKING OIL INDUSTRY.
Excuse my capitals, but that's hilarious.
I'll believe otherwise when one of these "scientists" comes up with a working simulation that supports their pet cause(s) of global warming where 'turning the dials' of our interactions (C02 contributions, etc.) creates negligible effects.
Even without fabricating information, it is easy enough to say that x, y or z "might" be causing global warming, or give your opinion that "we" aren't causing it. There's no science involved. It is not FUD to state that this appears to be just another attempt at the continuation of existing policies - repeat lies often enough and people will believe them, or at least delay action so you can continue showing increasing Quarter-on-Quarter earnings.
So yes, ExxonMobile is doing something wrong with this effort.
Galileo's many discoveries, especially the universe revolved around the sun and not the earth, put him at odds with the papacy and many universities. He was pressured into silence for almost two decades. Towards the end of his life he faced the Inquisition, was compelled to abjure, and spent his life imprisonment under house arrest.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
cash to right wing orgs are bribes?
It's ok for government agencies to fund reseach limited to proving global warming, but not for disproving it.
Nice double standard.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
"Predictions are not based on just extrapolating a past trend, you know. They also involve modeling the physical processes involved in climate. You can't just point to some part of a time series where there was a variation from the normal and claim it is inherently unpredictable. On the basis of time series analysis alone, it would be. On the basis of physics, it's a different matter."
OK, do a physics experiment to prove the significance of anthropogenic global warming. Oh. You can't do that? You have a simulation instead? And why should I believe your simulation? What if it doesn't model all the physical processes involved? What if it models them incorrectly? How can you possibly validate it? I know! Let's feed it with some past conditions and see if it can predict what we already know happened next! Oh... it gets that wrong? But this time, just coincidentally with a Kyoto treaty that targets the developed world and exempts the undeveloped world, it works. It's got physics. So, although it fails to retrodict the past, I should surrender to Chinese and Indian economic hegemony immediately anyway instead of waiting for them to overtake us normally... It's got physics.
That's OK, I've got a devil-mask here that keeps me safe from witches. I understand. If only more people did.
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phunctor backs away slowly
$10K is a pretty damn paltry bribe. $100K research grants are pretty common for those in the sciences, with $1M+ programs not unheard of. As for personal salary, a PhD college professor in the sciences is easily at $100k+/year when you include summer salary.
But then they normally have to do some research. Here they only have to sit down an evening to write an essay.