More Bumpf on Balling
In response to the critic who complained about our characterization of
Robert C. Balling as an energy industry apologist:
Said critic was unhappy that the SourceWatch entry on Balling didn't list a source for the information on who has been paying our skeptic-of-the-day. The source was probably our own Ross Gelbspan, who researched all this for his books, Boiling Point and The Heat is On.
Ross adds these as other sources of funding that Balling has accepted, eagerly or otherwise:
From 1991 to 1995, Dr. Robert Balling received about $300,000 from Cyprus Minerals, the British Coal Corporation, the German Coal Mining Association and OPEC. In his collaborations with Dr. Sherwood Idso, Balling has received about $50,000 in research funding from Cyprus Minerals, as well as a separate grant of $4,900 from Kenneth Barr, at the time CEO of
Cyprus. The German Coal Mining Association has provided about $80,000 in funding for Balling's work. The British Coal Corporation has kicked in
another $75,000. Balling also received a grant of $48,000 from the Kuwait
Foundation for the Advancement of Science as well as unspecified consulting fees from the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research. Balling's 1992 book, The Heated Debate, was subsequently translated into Arabic and distributed to the governments of OPEC. The funding for this edition of his book was provided by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research.
This can't be true, because I've read on the Internet that every "skeptic" is funded by ExxonMobil, and I always believe what I read on the Internet.
In all seriousness, thanks for the info. Do you plan to share funding information about all the scientists you cite, or just the ones who don't follow the Party Line? There is, after all, more funding (and more tantalizing opportunities for career advancement and fawning publicity) on the pro-AGW side, at least in the U.S.
Imagine the money Balling or Christy or Singer or Michaels or any of the other skeptics could get by renouncing skepticism and joining the cool crowd. Would make $200,000 over 13 years look as flaccid as a hockey stick.
If it's such a good gig to take money from the government and "give them what they want"--i.e., confirmation of what the government wants to do--why are so many scientists leaving the Bush Administration, and why do they get their papers changed by non-scientists, and why do they get fired and defunded when they don't deny human-caused GW?
I mean, the Bush Administration spending ALL that money should should have no trouble getting just the right message of GW skepticism it wants, shouldn't it?
Oh: you think BushCo BELIEVES in HCGW? How touching, how naive.
... then they'd actually have to do some research. You know, peer-reviewed work that actually advances (rather than obfuscates) our understanding of science.