It's been pointed out to you that there is no 'well funded fight', except that plenty of government money is available to people who are looking for the 'right' answers.
You can argue on whatever other point you might like, but the fact is they mythical 'big oil' funding has been debunked many times over. Even the oil companies themselves fund more activities by strongly alarmist climate change people than they do for scientists who are skeptical of the catastrophic man-made climate change theories.
This scratching around for evidence is so manic it led to Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute committing identify theft and fraud to try and conjure up some evil plan from the Heartland institute. As it was the money he found wouldn't cover the canapes bill at an UNEP conference.
As pointed out, one of the most influential people in proxy temperature reconstructions is Steve McIntyre, who is retired and self funded, and does it out of a desire to make sure things are correct.
It's time to drop the 'half baked fringe conspiracy theory' that 'big oil' are somehow funding some sort of disinformation campaign.
It's also time to drop the '95% of climate scientists' meme, because it is the result of an unscientific online poll with a dismal response rate - the '95%' was 75 out of 77 scientists who self-identified as climate scientists taken from a poll of 10,250, of which there was 3,000 responses.
> climate change scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to increase funding
Conspiracy is the wrong word, but I don't know a single person who relies on funding to be interested in having it decreased. The simple truth is that funding should be blind, so that the researcher has no idea of who is paying for it. This applies to all disciplines, not just climate related.
In one corner, we have lawyers, lobbyists, and political groups whose sole mission is to cast fear, uncertainty, and doubt over claims of anthropogenic climate change. Every day they prevent action on CO2 emissions is another X $million made.
In the other corner we have people whose entire professional life is predicated on being right and carefully and systematically proving each other wrong. People who have repeatedly explained the basic physical mechanism by which CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, and shown that (and how) it accumulates in the atmosphere.
You seem to prefer trusting the lawyers, lobbyists, and political groups over the people whose entire culture is based in reasoned argument, systematic research, precision, accuracy, and integrity. I don't know why any reasonable person would do this.
"except that plenty of government money is available to people who are looking for the 'right' answers."
From the outset, you've flagged that you subscribe to the 'global warming conspiracy'. That a global conspiracy of scientists are co-ordinating a disinformation campaign to justify and increase funding. I mean, seriously, it's just absurd.
Although I think that sentence of yours brings the absurdity to new heights. Because why on earth would a government want scientists to give 'right' answers which have massive economic and social implications, and not in a good way? Your mental model of this issue really does not seem well thought out.
Your refutation of the scientific consensus on this topic is bizarre (you seem to think that the consensus is based on an 'unscientific online poll'!) Here's what the consensus actually looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...
I certainly agree with you that funding on any research should be blind, but the practicality of that in many situations means it's an idealistic position.
You can argue on whatever other point you might like, but the fact is they mythical 'big oil' funding has been debunked many times over. Even the oil companies themselves fund more activities by strongly alarmist climate change people than they do for scientists who are skeptical of the catastrophic man-made climate change theories.
This scratching around for evidence is so manic it led to Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute committing identify theft and fraud to try and conjure up some evil plan from the Heartland institute. As it was the money he found wouldn't cover the canapes bill at an UNEP conference.
As pointed out, one of the most influential people in proxy temperature reconstructions is Steve McIntyre, who is retired and self funded, and does it out of a desire to make sure things are correct.
It's time to drop the 'half baked fringe conspiracy theory' that 'big oil' are somehow funding some sort of disinformation campaign.
It's also time to drop the '95% of climate scientists' meme, because it is the result of an unscientific online poll with a dismal response rate - the '95%' was 75 out of 77 scientists who self-identified as climate scientists taken from a poll of 10,250, of which there was 3,000 responses.
> climate change scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to increase funding Conspiracy is the wrong word, but I don't know a single person who relies on funding to be interested in having it decreased. The simple truth is that funding should be blind, so that the researcher has no idea of who is paying for it. This applies to all disciplines, not just climate related.