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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."
Can someone publish the names and phone numbers of these scientists so I can lobby to get them into top positions in government?
Work smarter, not harder.
I don't imagine there's anything to be done about the company, but I'll wager those scientists who rolled over for cash are going to suffer greatly among their fellow researchers.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I wonder if ExxonMobil is actually still funding the American Enterprise Institute. Late last year they announced their intention to stop funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and I was assuming (I know, dangerous) that they were going to stop funding all similar institutes. Here is their official try-to -please-everyone-without-admitting-any-guilt statement for those who are interested.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
$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.
If you are going to bribe someone, make sure you at least get in the right ballpark of "interesting". Trash my carreer for $10K? Don't make me laugh.
Test your net with Netalyzr
...that every single move taken by the tobacco industry in the last 15 years is going to be repeated in exact fashion by the oil industry?
- This particular case is exactly the same as the tobacco industry paying to have scientists say there was no connection between smoking and cancer (or any of the other ailments).
- The paying off of lobbyists is normal, but was made infamous by "big tobacco". Now it's "Big Oil" making sure senators get to make frequent holidays in the Grand Caymans.
- Some might even point out that all of the gas guzzling autos are the cool toys for the younger crowd...just as people might say Joe Camel was targeted at America's youth. I, of course, would not make such a brash statement; but only to say some might.
There are plenty of other examples of the pattern being repeated, but I'm too tired to write them all out. Short version, the only thing that's changed is the product
- Nobody would know what RTFA meant if it didn't need to be said all the time
This kind of attempt to brible people to peddle an agenda should carry consequences similar to that of obstruction of justice like tampering with a witness. This situation is tampering with science -as best understood. And the "scientists" who support or "cherry-pick" their data should be held to the same standards as front-people are held accountable if they (mis)-represent a product they know to be short of what is claimed --as it is in some states.
If these people get paid to mis-represent data (differing from soomeone who is simply on the misguided path in their scientific quest), the scientists in question if paid to support only a particular (biased) outcome, should be held to some account. With fines and depending on severity disqualification from their profession.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Last year, the Sierra club provided more than 90 million dollars to climate scientists. What does this mean? Who knows. Both sides of the discussion are paying scientists to create global warming studies. Whether the money is tied to the result implicitly o explicitly doesn't really matter. It is sad that we are at a point where we can't have a legitimate scientific inquiry into this area because of the shady tactics of both sides. Its also sad that some politicians have decided to make political hay with unrealistic plans and promises. In 1997, the Senate vote against Kyoto was unopposed- no many of those same senators are saying its the president's fault for not implementing climate control. With an issue this charged and controversial, I have doubts we can reach an effective solution, at least in the political arena. Our best hope? Use the market. Toyota is rapidly passing GM in no small part because of the strength of its hybrids. Now, GM and Ford are reacting by offering more environmentally aware options. Look at BP and GE's ad campaigns- they both stress environmental concerns. Whether their actions carry through, we don't know yet. But at least some of the companies are recognizing the importance of the enivornment to the consumer. If we, as consumers, continue to push this issue through our purchases, some real change can be made before the politicians can decide on legislation.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
As opposed to scientiests who depend on grant money that only comes in if they say the exact opposite.
;-) The scientific community has been quietly (and largely un-funded) been studying the problem of "global warming" and man's effects on it for over 100 years! The first well know scientist I'm aware of to really bring this forward was Svante Arrhenius. Here is an article he published on the topic in 1896. Far from raking in the money because of his research as you suggest, this Nobel prize winner was widely critisized and had a lot of trouble getting any presigious posts because of his views.
This should be added to the list of well known trolls!
It seems there are those (cannot imagine who they could POSSIBLY be) who want to convince the public that agreeing with or studying global warming is some new get rich quick scheme for scientists
Since him, thousands of other scientists have toiled in obscurity studying this field. Over the MANY years, these largely annonymous scientists have managed to compile and report on their data which points in some troubling directions for our future. Because of this, one would hope more and more money will go toward thier research (sadly today more money still goes toward trying to debunk them by organizations with VERY conflicting agendas).
Yes, there are some bad "scientists" out there which will sell themselves to any religious cult or multi-billon dollar company out there, but these are the VAST minority. You think scientists (especially climate scientists) have choosen that field for the celebrity and wealth that awaits??? Seriously???.
Please! Just please, let this stupid troll arguement die!
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Increase in tropical storm intensity likely
Does the report give any basis for this claim? There are politics on all sides of this issue, because there is nothing better than a crisis to give power-hungry bastards like Al Gore and George W. Bush the excuse to enhance their position. The only differentiator is their crisis of choice. The debate about what to do about anthropogenic climate change is at real risk of being lost in the noise made by anti-scientific hysterics on both sides.
I raise the question of tropical storm intensity particuarly because there are some fairly strong claims by some very respectable scientists who are tropical storm experts that there is no evidence for nor expectation of increased tropical storm intensity:
All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.
Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Funny you should compare Big Tobacco with Big Oil's tactics.
You mean the same Cheney/Bush who, when he took office in 2000, created his own automotive energy project, moved the existing hybrid vehicle project( 7 years old ) into this new project, axed the old project, created and funded a hydrogen/hype vehicle project, then axed the hybrid vehicle project? The list goes on and on about the deals Cheney and Bush made which stalled or killed off efficiency projects and labs while making sure their buddies in the oil industry would grow their profits. Remember during the 2004 election campaign when Bush made a visit to a renewable energy lab in Colorado? It was found out a week earlier that he'd cut their funding and they were going to layoff over 40 employees right before Bush arrived. They got special funding in a matter of days before Bush arrived but the funding was only going to last about 1 year....
So this is not surprising. What gets my goat is that all the Republicans were just acting like lemmings and allowing Cheney/Bush to do whatever the wanted. Only now that he's a lame duck and the public FINALLY figured out Iraq is a screw-up, are some Republicans making statements against their( Cheney/Bush ) policies.
What a wonderful spineless group bunch of lemmings they are. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Would it be a 'bribe' for me to hire a criminal defense attorney and experts to poke holes in the prosecution's case if I were accused of a crime? That's how I see what's being described here. This is a company being accused of environmentally inimical behavior and wanting to find out if there are flaws in the case being made against it.
To that end, I have sold my car in 2003 and living without one ever since. That's rather difficult, as I live in Toronto uptown, but I found that I can easily rent (Enterprise is my favourite) when I absolutely need to; my life and my health have improved and am generally happier this way, not to mention that it's much cheaper. I also try to avoid buying gas from Esso (for the few times I need to rent), because I disapprove of Exxon and what they stand for.
That being said, I believe that Exxon is doing a public service by spending their money this way. If I were a scientist offered money to play the devil's advocate, I would jump at the opportunity. This is because good ideas and good science do not come from unanimity. Dissent, if taken seriously, can only improve the scientific discourse and is the best sanity check against groupthink.
Maybe it's because I lived my formative years in a communist dictatorship, or maybe it's because I loved debating and miss judging those university tournaments, but I often found that I learned the most about a subject by listening to dissenting opinions - opinions I disagreed with.
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important." -BRussell