Follow the money

Follow the money on both sides of this issue. The endless stream of government funding for research comes to those how predict doom and claim they have a solution. The fact that those who can most benefit from alarmism are the ones in control of producing the reports is a travisty. The IPCC 'peer review' process is a joke by any scientific standards.

You will be watching out for industry funding the sceptics while the IPCC picks all our pockets clean.

I would appreciate it if you could get back to me with some specific evidence supporting that interesting conspiracy theory. I have a couple of data points that really fly in its face:
- NASA, home of "alarmist in chief" James Hansen, has had its earth sciences budget slashed over the last several years
- "understand and protect our home planet" was removed from its mission statement two or three years ago
- the scientists who work on the IPCC documents do so on a volunteer basis.
- the IPCC does not fund any climate research of its own, period.
- the US gov't, prime source of research funding, is full of oil interests who clearly do not want to hear about global warming.
- an average petroleum geologists makes far more than an average climate scientist.

So, who is getting rich in the research circles? Because we all know that ExxonMobile is earning the highest profits of any corporation in human history.

The same Hansen who just happened to err on the side of warming with his Y2K 'mistake'? In my business, that would have gotten me fired.

Some of the big contributors, with vested interests in alternative energy and who contribute (or contributed) heavily, include (or included before the failure)
- Enron (Ken "let's buy up a bunch of alternative energy companies, then fund green groups and push for Kyoto" Lay)
- Duke Energy (now run by former Enron exec James Roges)who recently donated $2.5 Million to Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment to "address the problems of global climate change" after making similar purchases to Enron
- General Electric (who bought up much of Enron's alternative energy assets and others but now prides itself on donations to green causes).

Then there are money-hungry governments throughout the world who will use any available excuse to creat a new tax and line their officials' pockets - especially if they can do so in the name of saving mankind.

Oh, and let's not leave out the well-known Gore carbon credit credit associations.

There are plenty incentives for big money to be on the warming side of this issue, and make no mistake - they're doing their part. I get a chuckle out of how conflicts of interest can simply be ignored if they fund the cause.

Regarding Exxon's profit, it represents approximately 8% of sales. It happens to be a huge company, and the recent spike in oil prices certainly didn't hurt their bottom line. But 8% by virtually any accounting standard is not exactly an obscene profit.