re: #741 Bagua

You are missing the point, I’m not talking about profits, I’m talking about funding. The amounts of monies I’ve seen attributed to “big oil” funding the so called “skeptic” side is a small fraction of the vast monies that flow in to the AGW side, including research, and propaganda.

Dude, really, who do you think funds the groups that are out there saying that AGW is a hoax? Well meaning citizens donating their pennies to 501c3’s? It is the extractive industries who have a dog in this hunt. As Thanos notes, none of their funding goes to research, it goes to pay people to pick holes in the research. And when the body of knowledge firms up to deny the nits that are picked, more holes are poked and money is spent to ensure that those new nits are presented to the media as a “balanced view”. It is what the tobacco industry did for years until they ran out of nits to pick.

The difference is that smoking is an individual choice (I know, I are one), while the possibility that increased O=C=O in the atmosphere may be (and at this point, certainly looks to be) calamitous raises the bar on our acceptance of their actions. At some point, you just have to say “Stop it, unless you can show, by peer reviewed research, that we are wrong.” But that is not what Exxon, et al, are doing. They are just throwing wrenches. And they have huge sums to do it. And for them, it makes sense. In the short term, it maximizes shareholder value. In the long run, it’s probably stupid.