Thread: Calculate your contribution to destroying The Earth

Originally Posted by JMS

If I were you I would follow the money trail to have a better understanding as to who would gain from either exaggerated claims or just plain outright falsities!
Those who deny global warming, or are not prepared to accept it as presented, could be wrong, but they have nothing to gain by their stance!

I have to get back to work (can never resist a global warming discussion), but I have followed the money. It leads to the petroleum industry.

For example, you have Richard Lundzen, who has been making the rounds in popular press lately. He evidently receives no money from oil for research, but receives lots of oil money for what amount to endorsements. The Heartland Institute (Singer and Avery et al.) were paying $1k for a talk and $10k for a paper for a while. Lots of back-channel stuff.

A lot of the same people who are in the business of denying global warming are the same who were employed by the tobacco companies to deny smoking health effects (Heartland, Singer, Seitz, etc.). They are basically like professional witnesses for defense attorneys. They make their livings by injecting doubt.

In the end though, everyone who is doing this for a living has to be payed by someone. So there is a money trail leading somewhere from about every source. Kind of. Most scientists are not making very much money. You would think getting a Ph.D. would get you a big paycheck. Not so for most. Generally that is only a ticket to post-doc slave labor. It's the reason I aborted geology and went to engineering.

The nail in the denial coffin for me was just the scientific facts of global warming. The deniers promote arguments that look good, but fall apart on close inspection. The deeper you dig, the more overwhelming the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is.

Scott

P.S. About Fred Singer, from www.sourcewatch.org , a tobacco source checker:

Originally Posted by sourcewatch

In a September 24, 1993, sworn affidavit, Dr. Singer admitted to doing climate change research on behalf of oil companies, such as Exxon, Texaco, Arco, Shell and the American Gas Association. [10]

However, on February 12, 2001, Singer wrote a letter to The Washington Post "in which he denied receiving any oil company money in the previous 20 years when he had consulted for the oil industry. . . .

Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...try_Contractor

Just one tiny little example.

"...I have followed the money. It leads to the petroleum industry."

beezaur

So you are saying that the tens of millions algore has made from "Global Warming" came from the Oil Industry?

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

So you are saying that the tens of millions algore has made from "Global Warming" came from the Oil Industry?

I guess we could use this here too.
The Woolly-Thinkers Guide to Rhetoric

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

I'm outta here.

What made you change your mind?

X

FOCUS man, focus!
I WILL discuss practically any matter, but when you begin to get shrill, you've lost your audience! I'm outta here.
Then, more follows that sentence. So you see, I haven't changed my mind. You haven't got quite shrill enough, yet.

Mister X,
While you are here, maybe you can explain to us just why a British Court recently ruled that AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH can't be shown to British School children without repeated disclaimers to the effect that it is just so much hooey?
Please explain why algore will not debate Lord Munsen on 'global climate change.'
Albert Gore is a professional politician and as such, should not be taken seriously as a Climatologist. I don't take him seriously, at all.

EDIT: Perhaps "Hooey" was not the proper word. The disclaimer enumerates the "Inaccuracies" contained in the production, that are presented as truth.

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

FOCUS man, focus!
I WILL discuss practically any matter, but when you begin to get shrill, you've lost your audience! I'm outta here.
Then, more follows that sentence. So you see, I haven't changed my mind. You haven't got quite shrill enough, yet.

Sounds like a challenge to me.

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

Mister X,
While you are here, maybe you can explain to us just why a British Court recently ruled that AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH can't be shown to British School children without repeated disclaimers to the effect that it is just so much hooey?
Please explain why algore will not debate Lord Munsen on 'global climate change.'
Albert Gore is a professional politician and as such, should not be taken seriously as a Climatologist. I don't take him seriously, at all.

No I can't, I haven't seen the movie, haven't seen the court ruling.

X

This will give you a place to start:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/09/court-identifies-eleven-inaccuracies-al-gore-s-inconvenient-truth

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

"...I have followed the money. It leads to the petroleum industry."

beezaur

So you are saying that the tens of millions algore has made from "Global Warming" came from the Oil Industry?

I am saying that many of the denialist efforts lead to big oil. Even when guys from that side prove that their research is not being funded by oil, it turns out that they are receiving oil money through other channels, like giving talks or writing articles. In other words, the normal sources of funds for science do not fund denialist efforts; those efforts are generally funded by oil.

Often times (usually) the path is quite tortuous. You might have a highly successful scientist who has founded an institute. Oil companies don't usually contribute directly. They contribute to other institutes which then pass that money on to the scientist's institute. The scientist might then run around exclaiming, "I DO NOT GET MONEY FROM THE OIL INDUSTRY!!!!!" True, he might not personally recieve such monies. But his institute might be funded almost exclusively by money that came indirectly from the oil companies. The Heartland Institute is an example of that kind of thing, or at least was, before it stopped reporting its sources of funding a few years ago.

Actually it is surprising the number of times the tobacco industry comes into the picture. A lot of times you even have the same people involved now trying to debunk climate science who used to be involved in medical research stating that smoking was not harmful to your health. Fred Singer is one. There was a large "infrastructure" established in the smoking debate which now is being used for the climate debate.

Not all of the money comes from oil. Some of it comes from legitimately unconnected sources like individuals and political organizations. Or other industries. The cement industry is one who stands to suffer a lot under greenhouse gas regulation.

Of what significance is the fact that research gets funded? Nobody I know can afford to work for free. The scientists I know do it because they love their work, and find immense satisfaction finding out the truths of nature (it is quite addictive if you let it be). Generally governments will fund a lot of science for the sake of knowledge, but some of it is for practical reasons. A lot of environmental research is paid for because doing things cleanly is much cheaper than doing things uncleanly and then having to fix or deal with the results. Many oil companies (believe it or not) are extremely environmentally friendly about their drilling. The very last thing they want is a spill -- it could mean the death of the company.

To me then, the motives are more important than the fact that there is funding. Funding for the global warming side comes mostly because preventing disaster is cheaper than dealing with disaster. Denialist funding comes because emissions regulation could mean severe hardship for the industry or political organization.

I have never bothered to look at Gore's global warming-related income. Does anyone have any information?

Better yet, does anyone know how I can start raking in all that money that is allegedly available pushing climate science? I've been doing it for free to date

Scott