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Secretary of State
One of the excuses that global warming deniers use to repudiate the near-scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused in significant part by humans goes something like this: "scientists all need grants to continue research (those in government agencies like NASA and NOAA don't, but no matter) and so they are just playing along in order to get those grants."
Or something like that.
But in fact, the reality is that in this case science is taking its stand against the flow of money. The multi-billionaire energy industry stands ready to toss mega-millions at any scientist who is willing to drink their cool-aid and pretend that the readings are not saying what almost every climate scientist knows they are saying: that global warming is real and caused by us.
Just think of the examples of where private $$$ has attempted to cover over the true science of a controversy: Cigarettes and asbestos and PCBs and leaded gasoline and benzene and chromium 6 and beryllium and Vioxx and a million other things.
The fact that big business hasn't been successful in muzzling the truth in climate science is a testament to the principled work by the men and women who are studying this issue with professionalism and scientific integrity.
Vice President
Yes, because Global Warming in no way supports preexisting redistributive ideologies of the left. :rolleyes:
Science will continue to debate, and the climate will continue to change with or without human intervention. The key is to wean ourselves as much as possible from dependence on the Earth, and as a result reduce our impact on it, and make it easier to survive whatever it does.
Oddly enough, punishing anyone dependent on it only makes that harder.
Last edited by Commodore; 09-26-2010 at 08:47 PM.
Vice President
No it isn't. Big business will be more then capable in adapting and let's face it shaping future policy that reacts to climate change since they have an awful lot of money. Business will make fortunes adapting to and weathering any change that comes along and government will pay them some of our tax dollars to help them do so.Originally Posted by jpn
Vice President
And where do "preexisting redistributive ideologies of the left" get that kind of money? Who is it that can outspend the oil companies and the middle eastern oil kingdoms?
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Vice President
They don't need money. They need demagoguery, class warfare, and useful idiots.
They've got that in spades. And once they have that they take power, and then they take all the money they want.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
Climate science is against the flow of money?? Hardly. I remember reading somewhere that Obama is promising to spend 2.5 billion next year on AGW research.
There are plenty of scientists who question the predictions of climate change catastrophe. Can you name one that has had multi-millions tossed at him?
This retired professor should know how the funding game works. This is what he said:
"Skeptics about global warming are often painted as hirelings of the oil and automotive industries. Such claims irritate me. I have never earned a nickel as a consequence of my skepticism. Indeed, I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars by it. First, you have to understand how a large research university operates. The professors are expected to obtain research grants, and in the atmospheric sciences these grants come mostly from government agencies.
In the atmospheric sciences it is difficult to get grants unless you can somehow tie your work to global warming, that is to say, to scare science. Because of my reputation, I immodestly believe that I could have jumped onto the global warming bandwagon. But I refused to do so because I would have found this repugnant.
At some universities, professors get only a fraction of their salary from the university, the rest coming from contracts and grants. Research associates and research professors often must scrounge for 100% of their salaries.
Professors not only directly profit from their research grants (summer salaries), they also indirectly profit. If Professor X has grants amounting to millions of dollars, this gives him leverage. He wants more money so he threatens to leave and take his bags of money with him if he doesn't get a whopping raise. Or he plays one university off against another. He gets an offer from another university in order to pressure his present university to increase his salary. I have seen this done many times. The system of federal grants, which hardly existed before (World War II), has created a professoriate with greater allegiance to government agencies than to their universities.
Professors who get research money to work on aspects of global warming are not doing anything dishonest or illegal. This is not graft. But when it is in the best financial and career interests of professors to raise the alarm about global warming (or anything), we should be skeptical."
How to get to the bottom of the global warming debate - USATODAY.com
Vice President
Let me see if I've got this straight.
Only stupid people believe in global warming. And all the stupid people includes the national academies of science of all the developed nations. And someone, somehow, has used demagoguery and class warfare to convince them to believe in it. And it hasn't cost them any money to do so. But in the end these mysterious demagogues and class warriors are going to take all the money and power. And there's nothing all the smart people with all the money can do about it. The smart rich people can't even pay off the stupid scientists to support their righteous warming denial.
Have I missed anything?
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Secretary of State
This is funny. The best man from my wedding lo those many years ago runs a research group for Atmospheric sciences.
Most of what he does is research projects, paid for by the government, given the task of proving the theory of global warming.
Here's your money, here's what we want you to try and prove.
That is how it works.
A is A
Vice President
Very nice story. But Obama has not spent the money yet. Are you claiming that the admin run by two oil men was responsible for funding only research that supports human caused global warming?
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
The 2.5 billion isn't spent yet because it is promised for next year. How much is being spent this year? I don't know but I'll bet its one hell of a lot more money than the skeptics are getting. Governments around the world, of all stripes, are throwing money at AGW research, and you don't get any of it if you are a skeptic.
Vice President
This is Obama's second year and the national academies of science of all the developed nations on earth weighed in on this before he was elected so that doesn't answer my question or the OP. But that doesn't surprise me.
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Secretary of State
NATIONAL academies. Where do they get their funding again?
A is A
Vice President
Please. Try to pay attention. Why would the US government - which was being run by a pres and vp who were oil millionaires - funnel taxpayer money to pay for only research which supports man made global warning? Why would all the governments of all the developed nations in the world do so? If you are going to hand out tin foil hats you have to at least come up with a plausible motive for the conspiracy.
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
President
James Hansen, ketchup money. James Hansen has proposed a carbon tax as a way of redistributing wealth.
John Kerry & his wife Theresa Heinz gave him $250,000 for spewing ridiculous global warming propaganda.
Obama made him director of NASA.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
Are you saying that scientists who are skeptical of AGW theory get just as much government funding as those who support it?
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