- scientists chasing after research grants and stipends
- universities, chasing after grants and researchers
- political interests, more interested in the political implications of ecology findings than actual ecology

Ike, you’ve engaged in a bit of begging the question.

1. Who is giving the scientists money?
2. Who is giving the universities money?
3. Who are these political interests and where are they getting their money?

If you truly believe in following the money, you need to start with where the money comes from that greases the entire political system.

It’s not coming from unions, or environment groups, or other minor financial players.

It’s corporate money — that’s what funds our entire political system, and pays for the candidacies of both Democrats and Republicans.

So show me the money that is going to “pro” global warming research — and how it competes with the corporate money that is in the system?

It instead comes from a new iron triangle of self-sustaining support:

- scientists chasing after research grants and stipends
- universities, chasing after grants and researchers
- political interests, more interested in the political implications of ecology findings than actual ecology

It really is the free market at work. With less science money to throw around, a proposal with “dire implications” gets a lot more notice and prestige (and funding) for a college than one without. Competition has bred us scientists with marketing savvy — only they have to lay their prejudices on the line before the experiments start.

There are hundreds of sites that follow the corporate money — but it’s virtually impossible to track down the fear-money, because the evidence is buried in denied proposals, and because reporters have never bothered to ask the question. It’s easier to paint Big Biz as the villian and be done with it.

I appreciate your candor, your bandwidth, and your willingness to host comment and dissent. As the kids would say, “U R teh R0xx0r.”

I know where the corporate money comes from.

Tell me where the “eco-fear” money comes from. Specifically. And how much of it there IS, compared to what’s in corporate coffers.

When the oil-funded research shows less of a carbon-consumption impact, everyone screams about the taint of bias.

When the eco-fear-funded scientist professes that the world will end in ten years, he’s hailed as a visionary. No one stops to consider how his noisy squeaks have been greased, and the squeakiest get greased the most.

The drumbeat of fear is being pounded to the point that some scientists are advocating dire global action while admitting the evidence isn’t conclusive. “It’s too serious to wait until we know for sure!” (I’m digging to find the direct quote to that effect.)

“No worse society can be imagined than one in which the respective experts in each field are given unrestrained power over the people.”
- Freidrich A. Hayek

I can identify with what you’re saying. When I was a reporter, I covered religion in Dallas. I covered the conflict between fundamentalists and moderate Baptists, as well as in other denominations, in a way that won praise from both sides because of the balance.

However, it’s different when you’re reporting on a subject like global warming. I don’t want to hear what some fossil fuel lobbying group has to say about it. I don’t want to hear what some political operative has to say about it. I want to know what scientists have learned — what their research indicates.

If you or Ike think for a MINUTE that the financial incentive for scientists to exaggerate global warming exceeds what corporations will pay to scientists to research and profess anti-global-warming hypotheses, you’re not following the money.

Read Richard Kluger’s analysis of how science was manipulated by tobacco industry, Ashes to Ashes, as just one example.