Let those global warming dollars flow

One of the weirdest (and by that I mean most ridiculous) claims I've heard from global warming deniers is the idea that somehow there is a cabal of scientists making up all the information we see about climate change.

First, scientists aren't very good at that sort of collusion. As Ben Franklin said, "Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead." Scientists as a rule tend to abhor misleading people or out-and-out lying. And those who do tend to be caught by the peer-review process.

Anyway, ignoring the idea that tens of thousands of scientists are playing a Jedi mind trick on the rest of us without a single one of them betraying the secret (and no, Climategate and its sequel don't count since that was all trumped up smoke and mirrors by the denier crowd), the real reason this claim is ludicrous is because of its supernova-bright irony: a lot of the deniers can be traced to having fossil fuel funding.

Or, as this infographic from Occupy Posters puts it so succinctly:

Mind you, this isn't supposed to be evidence that global warming deniers are paid frauds. It's simply using Occam's Razor, asking which makes more sense. Taken that way, it just shows the idea that scientists are on the wrong side of this is really silly.

Incidentally, guess who's funding Mitt Romney's campaign to the tune of tens of millions of dollars? Anyone? Bueller?

With the arctic melting earlier and deeper every year, with temperatures rising, with extreme weather more common, with glaciers retreating, with sea level rising, with droughts ravaging the US, reality is diverging more and more from the claims of the deniers.

Related Posts:

- Case closed: âClimategateâ was manufactured
- Climategate 2: More ado about nothing. Again.
- A case study of the tactics of climate change denial, in which I am the target