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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."
- Probable temperature rise between 1.8C and 4C
- Possible temperature rise between 1.1C and 6.4C
- Sea level most likely to rise by 28-43cm
- Arctic summer sea ice disappears in second half of century
- Increase in heatwaves very likely
- Increase in tropical storm intensity likely
It's a 20 page report and I know we're all really busy but I think this is the first document one can read and really catch up on what's been decided recently in the scientific community.I haven't seen anyone discredit this panel or this document yet. What I have seen is criticism from right wing papers about this report either being "unsurprising" or "offering no hope, grim." On the other hand, leftist papers have been in a sort of "we're doomed" sort of mode. I haven't really seen anyone stepping up to the plate and telling the public that it's on our consciouses now. We are responsible--if you have the money, start paying more for green products or products from carbon neutral companies. Increase incentive for companies to be carbon neutral. Right now, as a consumer, I don't know how I would figure out if the car I bought comes from a more or less environmentally friendly company. Consumers need to start driving this change because it sure the hell isn't going to be our ignorant president.
Also, Zonk, I think you mean Mr. Chase knows why, Salmon P. Chase is on the $10,000 bill. Offering nominal fees for paper and pen to write reports is one thing but when the incentive is a large percentage of my yearly income, I think Exxon should be ousted as scientifically backwards assholes.
My work here is dung.
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 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.
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...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
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.
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
When a scientist takes money to report a specific result, that's a bribe.
How about when a scientist is funded to point out the ways in which another (paid!) scientist's conclusions may be either wrong or taken in a politically-driven context that's all about fear? When a scientist is paid to challenge widely-held beliefs that happen to be peculiarly embraced by one end of the political spectrum, and used as leverage to push legislative agendas that are more about redistribution of income or other unrelated non-science-ish stuff, we usually call that... science. You should be delighted that scientists are being offered money to publicly challenge the conclusions of other scientists. If the challenge is weak, the other scientists' findings are strengthened. If the challenge prevails, then it was essential that it was done. What's not to like?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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?
Yes, of course. Scientists should never be paid to come to specific conclusions.
It's the scientific process pushed forward by money.
No, it's the scientific process being corrupted by money.
I guess they took the expression, "the marketplace of ideas" a bit too literally.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
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
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
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.
Several European oil companies (most notably Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum) have gotten involved in other energy sources than just oil (hydrogen, solar, wind and others).
However, the US oil companies (such as ExxonMobil and Chevron) refuse to acknowledge that any energy sources other than oil even exist and are fighting tooth and nail all alternative energy sources and anything that would show that humans are killing the planet with fossil fuels.
Why aren't the US companies following the lead of the Europeans and trying to become world leaders in the new technologies before someone else (such as Shell or BP) beats them to it?
The problem with most institutions like CEI is that when they fund the research, they typically add a clause that says that the results of the research cannot be published without their explicit authorization. (This happens in other fields, as well.) This is most likely not the case with either Branson or the Sierra Club. If it is, I'll gladly call shenanigans on them, as well.
Also, Senator Inhofe is not exactly the best source for such information. His position on the relative importance of the environment is well documented.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Accepting a grant from a company is not the same as accepting results from a company.
Someone posted the difference between legitimate and illegitimate scientific funding yesterday in the comments on Slashdot. Legitimate funding is when you pay someone to do research in a specific area (eg. climate change). Illegitimate funding is when you pay someone to research a specific conclusion (eg. climate change is right/wrong), because then you're assuming the conclusion.
Simply because Exxon offered them money to produce a specific outcome, rather than giving them money to research a hypothesis. BIG difference.
The left one? Please don't tell me you took the left one.
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?
The environmental groups would be perfectly happy to learn that climate change wasn't a problem, if the research showed that. Why? Because they have a number of other active priorities too. There are issues of species and habitat loss which have nothing to do with climate change - and which were sufficient to motivate donations to the environmental groups before there was any hint of climate change. There are also issues of various sorts of pollution which are unconnected to climate change. The environmental groups are overwhelmed with good causes, and if they can get themselves out from under a few of them, they will still have more than they can handle, and still have vast fund-raising appeal. They have no vested interest in global climate change being as serious an issue as science says it is; they are following the science, not leading it. But since they do need to follow the science, they fund it. ExxonMobil by contrast has a strong interest in discrediting the science. Consider: This is deliberately-misleading propaganda. He's implying that there are two equal groups. There aren't: Within science, 99+% of credentialed professionals agree there's a major problem, thus the new international report. Yet the AEI, by commissioning statements of doubt, wants to achieve some sort of 50/50 compromise between doubt and belief. That's to say, they want to deny the near-certainty of 99+% of the scientists qualified to make judgments in the field, and return the issue in the popular mind to the "he said, she said" status that ExxonMobil has so successfully promulgated in the media, science-ignorant as the communications majors who do most of the reporting are.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Sure, in the strictest sense, there can be no completely disinterested person on this issue because we're all stakeholders of this rock we call Earth. That being said, there are some people who are far more invested in a particular outcome being true (or at least publicly believed) than others. You're kidding yourself if you think that "scientists" funded/employed by the most profitable industry in history (which has everything to lose, if anthropogenic climate change is real/accepted) are just as objective or impartial on this matter as regular scientists working off federal grants or university funding.
Secondly, the philosophy of science isn't as objective as you might think. Sometimes your methods can be right, your experiments verified and repeatable, but your conclsions dead wrong. This happens frequently and is what makes scientific progress so difficult. However, ill-intentioned people can devise experiments that intentionally lead to false or misleading conclusions. This is the essence of bad science.
The big hint, for laymen that this is taking place, is when such studies ignore the highly supported, well-documented claims of opposing theories and tend to focus on minor (often neglible) discrepancies or areas where there just isn't enough data to know for sure. Take Intelligent Design (ID), for example. Proponents of ID make no effort to debunk sequence homology studies or the fossil record, because doing so is extremely difficult if not impossible. Instead, ID supporters focus on a few select cases where the exact nature of biomolecular events is unknown (for now) and from that draw sweeping, and unsupported, conclusions about the entire theory of evolution.
You'll note that global warming opponents do the same thing. You'll see their papers study carbon sinks (which, even if true, might be neglible in the scheme of things) or how variations in solar output (something that isn't well understood at this point) might fit the data. But what you don't see are papers denying the fact that increased cabon dioxide in the air is anthropogenic or disputing the basic science behind greenhouse gases in general.
That's like saying that because its impossible to know which direction an individual atom in a solution might go from instant to instant that net diffusion isn't predictable. And yet, diffusion is practically a mathematical law, in practice.
Sometimes, things are far easier to predict in aggregate than they are individually. Take lifespan, for instance. Just because I can't predict, to the day, when an indvidual squirrel might die, that fact has no bearing upon my ability to make stunningly accurate predictions on the average lifespan of a group of squirrels. Furthermore, I'll remind you that the data for global climate change extends into thousands of years. It's not unreasonable to expect an accurate extrapolation for the next fifty or one-hundred years from that.
-Grym
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
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
One thing of note from the report, which I can independently confirm: Since the last interglacial period peaked out at 4 to 6m higher seas, and 3 to 5 C higher temperatures, then in the absense of evidence suggesting we should peak elsewhere, we should assume that the global climate will max out at similar levels, apart from any human infulence. (After that happens, maybe the IPCC can tell the politicians how to make new laws to encourage greenhouse gasses emission, to somehow keep the next ice age from coming along and killing us all.)
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