The DI spends millions on PR for their absurd nonscience. The Bush administration pays "journalists" to pimp their policy proposals. And as ThinkProgress points out, oil companies have offered $10,000 to scientists who will go against the new IPCC report:
Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered. …
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.
I suspect that the emphasis will be on the weaknesses, of course, given that ExxonMobil gave millions of dollars to the AEI.
Even after ExxonMobil throws their record profits at this problem, the IPCC report is still expected to confirm in the strongest terms yet that the scientific consensus is that human actions are causing increased temperatures, and will continue to do so. In saying that this is "very likely" to be true, the IPCC will be placing its probability above 90%, pretty confident by any standard.
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The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review
This is a usage of the word 'independent' with which I am not familiar. If you've been paid $10,000 to express a particular opinion, in what sense is the opinion 'independent'?
Still, let's hope it starts a trend. I have lots of unpopular opinions. At $10K for each of them, I could afford to retire :-)
I really like your site. Ditto on the point of view. Much appreciated. Kudos!
Exxon Mobil may be wasting its money. Already, only 41% of Americans disbelieve that human activity is causing global warming. Those climate scientists! What do THEY know? Article (and a couple of other related stories) are here:
http://evolvinginkansas.blogspot.com/2007/02/public-skepticism-surround…
Oops. I meant "only 41% of Americans believe..."
Anyone who takes money that is contingent on the content of their published reports does not deserve to be called a scientist. That means there is noone who deserves to be called a scientist who argues that global warming is not caused in part by human activity.
Not that I'm going to do my own research to find out if this is accurate, but I could've sworn I'd seen an article (month or two back) describing Exxon's turn around claiming that no one could credibly deny global warming any longer. I think it even mentioned them cutting funding to anti-global warming researchers like the AEI. Just thought I'd throw that in there.