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Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."

To read some of the press accounts of these gifts—amounting to about 0.0027% of Exxon's 2008 profits of $45 billion—you might think you'd hit upon the scandal of the age. But thanks to what now goes by the name of climategate, it turns out the real scandal lies elsewhere.

Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.

But the deeper question is why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them.

Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents leaked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.

Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?

Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. American states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.

And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls "green stimulus"—largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes—of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit handsomely.

Supply, as we know, creates its own demand. So for every additional billion in government-funded grants (or the tens of millions supplied by foundations like the Pew Charitable Trusts), universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs and dependents have emerged from the woodwork to receive them.

Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate-change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

None of these outfits are per se corrupt, in the sense that the monies they get are spent on something other than their intended purposes. But they depend on an inherently corrupting premise, namely that the hypothesis on which their livelihood depends has in fact been proved. Absent that proof, everything they represent—including the thousands of jobs they provide—vanishes. This is what's known as a vested interest, and vested interests are an enemy of sound science.

Which brings us back to the climategate scientists, the keepers of the keys to the global warming cathedral. In one of the more telling disclosures from last week, a computer programmer writes of the CRU's temperature database: "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"

This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble.

A former top climate scientist who had become of one the scientific world's most cited authorities on the human effect on Earth's atmosphere was sentenced to probation Tuesday after pleading guilty to steering lucrative no-bid contracts to his wife's company.

In addition to a year's probation, former NASA manager Mark Schoeberl, 60, of Silver Spring, was also fined $10,000 and ordered to put in 50 hours of community service. He admitted in the late summer that he had hid some $50,000 in NASA contracts for a company called Animated Earth, which was run by Schoeberl's wife, Barbara. Prosecutors alleged that Schoeberl tried to help his wife's firm for years. When his colleagues balked at giving no-bid contracts to his wife's firm, Schoeberl pressured them to steer money to his wife through indirect means.

Schoeberl was the chief scientist of the Goddard Space Flight Center's Earth Sciences Division and the head of the Aura Project, a NASA mission to study the Earth's ozone layer, air quality and climate. He has written extensively about the depletion of the ozone level, and the influence of humans on global climate change.

Animated Earth offers plasma-screen kiosks that carry satellite images of the Earth's climate and atmosphere.

"It's an important conviction because it vindicates the principle that federal employees have to act in the public's interest," U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told The Examiner. "The goal here, really, is ... to promote a fair field for contractors."

As early as 2004, Schoeberl began asking about ways to direct no-bid contracts to Animated Earth, he admitted in his plea agreement.

As the chief scientist at the Earth Sciences Division and leader on the Aura Project, Schoeberl had a lot of clout on the space agency's climate change contracting. He helped his wife draw up invoices for her work and wrote "sole source justification" forms for tens of thousands of dollars in no-bid contracts that went to Animated Earth.

If you can't do for family...

Schoeberl's help to his wife's firm

» Convinced colleagues to approve $20,000 appropriation in 2004

» Wrote no-bid justification after $60,000 contract awarded

» Wife's firm won $190,000 in no-bid contracts between fiscal 2006 and 2008
Efforts to reach Schoeberl's wife were unsuccessful.

Prosecutors confined their efforts to Schoeberl's business practices and not his scientific one, but it's been a rough couple of weeks for global warming. Officials at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England -- whose research has made up the backbone of world climate policy -- are still trying to explain e-mails that show staff suppressing evidence against global warming.

GE needs all the help it can get right now, with its stock hurtling closer towards $0 on a daily basis. The company obviously stands to benefit from infrastructure buildout, and from capturing its share of green (energy) dollars. The more wind-turbines we erect, the better for GE.

But there's a nexus between its green ambitions and its finance unit in the form of a new venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which will facilitate the trade of carbon tax credits.

Thus as Tim Carney* notes, GE has been lobbying heavily for a cap-and-trade system, rather than a straight tax system which wouldn't require a market. And of course they got their wish:

GE — a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which advocates cap and trade — leads the push for greenhouse gas restrictions.

In the fourth quarter of 2008 as the company’s stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.

Reviewing their lobbying filings, you might think you were looking at Al Gore’s agenda. GE’s specific lobbying issues included the “Climate Stewardship Act,” “Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,” “Global Warming Reduction Act,” “Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,” “Low Carbon Economy Act,” and “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.”

Of course, this market won't really get going until 2012, so hopefully GE will still be around in its current form to see all the lobbying pay off.

Cap'n Cat wrote:Can't put together any of his own thoughts, needs to cite obscure muckraking crap ad nauseam. Bad habit.

AZGrizFan wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:Can't put together any of his own thoughts, needs to cite obscure muckraking crap ad nauseam. Bad habit.

Classic donk diversion: Can't defeat the message, shoot the messenger.

Admit it, Cap. The GW crowd has been exposed. They've essentially poisoned the well, and can't be taken seriously, which is too bad since I'm sure there are many altruistic environmental scientists out there doing good work.

Cap'n Cat wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
Classic donk diversion: Can't defeat the message, shoot the messenger.

Admit it, Cap. The GW crowd has been exposed. They've essentially poisoned the well, and can't be taken seriously, which is too bad since I'm sure there are many altruistic environmental scientists out there doing good work.

Bitch, the mesaage is tired. One of my points. He's One-Issue Wanda.

travelinman67 wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:

Bitch, the mesaage is tired. One of my points. He's One-Issue Wanda.

There's a reason why, Cap. This "environmentalism as religion" crap is destroying every modern nation on the planet. It's been stated this past week that the GW scam is the biggest fraud to have occurred over the past century. But what's important is what motivated the lawyers, politicians and businessmen behind it was less than altruistic.

You find this topic droll, because you can't understand the significance of this travesty. It's your mindset.

You like to "destroy" norms...not just challenge them.

And while you have that liberty...

...few concur with you.

Ibanez wrote:Can I get an executive summary of Tmans posts? It's a post, not a fucking PH.d disertation.

AZGrizFan wrote:

Ibanez wrote:Can I get an executive summary of Tmans posts? It's a post, not a fucking PH.d disertation.

It's that exact lack of an attention span that the GW crowd has been banking on for YEARS.

"If we can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, we'll baffle 'em with mountains of bullshit!"

AZGrizFan wrote:

Ibanez wrote:Can I get an executive summary of Tmans posts? It's a post, not a fucking PH.d disertation.

It's that exact lack of an attention span that all politicians, regardless of the message or who's in power, have been banking on for YEARS.

"If we can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, we'll baffle 'em with mountains of bullshit!"

travelinman67 wrote: There's a reason why, Cap. This "environmentalism as religion" crap is destroying every modern nation on the planet. It's been stated this past week that the GW scam is the biggest fraud to have occurred over the past century. But what's important is what motivated the lawyers, politicians and businessmen behind it was less than altruistic.

You find this topic droll, because you can't understand the significance of this travesty. It's your mindset.
You like to "destroy" norms...not just challenge them.
And while you have that liberty...
...few concur with you.

Cap'n Cat wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
It's that exact lack of an attention span that the GW crowd has been banking on for YEARS.

"If we can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, we'll baffle 'em with mountains of bullshit!"

Neat, Z. A twelve-year old poster coulda written this.

kalm wrote:So the WSJ editorial board thinks GW is a myth? Well then it must be true.

I'll wait until a review of the damaging emails, taken within context is conducted.

kalm wrote: And then I'll wait until a legitmate scientific organization actually disputes that a crisis is occurring or until the Maldives quit sinking into the ocean. If there's scientific evidence to the contrary, some credentialied researcher or group out there that is not on the payroll of big oil stands to make millions by reporting on it.

Chizzang wrote: ...Next time I see you: Yer gettin' a big HUG from little Cleetsy just like below

Cap'n Cat wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
Classic donk diversion: Can't defeat the message, shoot the messenger.

Admit it, Cap. The GW crowd has been exposed. They've essentially poisoned the well, and can't be taken seriously, which is too bad since I'm sure there are many altruistic environmental scientists out there doing good work.

Bitch, the mesaage is tired. One of my points. He's One-Issue Wanda.

AZGrizFan wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:

Bitch, the mesaage is tired. One of my points. He's One-Issue Wanda.

Maybe you ought to have the same conversation with your sister, Single-Issue Sally, about his obsession with all things religion-related.

travelinman67 wrote: Big business is not the boogeyman.

What you should fear most, is your inability to detect demagogues, like Gore, Hansen, Mann, the U.S. Congress, and the MSM talking heads.

Like I said: Think for yourself.

travelinman67 wrote:

kalm wrote:So the WSJ editorial board thinks GW is a myth? Well then it must be true.

I'll wait until a review of the damaging emails, taken within context is conducted.

Why wait?

Set aside your bong for a week and read them yourself! Don't wait for some political apparatchiki to tell you what to think: Break the cycle. Think for yourself.

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

Clicking on the "PageXX" heading will let you scroll through the content of all the subordinate files.

Took me about 4 evenings of casual reading to go through them.

Most notable from an overview is the overt arrogance framing the context of their discussions. Unquestionably they hold an "us against them" state-of-siege mentality when discussing FOI or McIntyre and McKittrick's challenges to their assertions.

And don't forget while reading...

...these men are supposed to be "scientists" professionally educated and trained to embody objective, methodical discipline in their approach to problem solving.

Rather, the emails come across as sociopathic ramblings of soviet-era secret police.

kalm wrote: And then I'll wait until a legitmate scientific organization actually disputes that a crisis is occurring or until the Maldives quit sinking into the ocean. If there's scientific evidence to the contrary, some credentialied researcher or group out there that is not on the payroll of big oil stands to make millions by reporting on it.

Tens of thousands of scientists have refuted the IPCC's published conclusions in Assessment Report #4...publishing dozens of treatise on the AGW theory: I have linked to many of them in my posts.

You can find most of them discussed and linked in the archives at http://www.icecap.us.

kalm, I suspect you are very young, and either still in college or just graduated. What you don't recognize yet, is that you have become the product of your professors: educationally biased against capitalism.

Big business is not the boogeyman.

What you should fear most, is your inability to detect demagogues, like Gore, Hansen, Mann, the U.S. Congress, and the MSM talking heads.

Like I said: Think for yourself.

kalm wrote:

travelinman67 wrote:
Why wait?

Set aside your bong for a week and read them yourself! Don't wait for some political apparatchiki to tell you what to think: Break the cycle. Think for yourself.

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

Clicking on the "PageXX" heading will let you scroll through the content of all the subordinate files.

Took me about 4 evenings of casual reading to go through them.

Most notable from an overview is the overt arrogance framing the context of their discussions. Unquestionably they hold an "us against them" state-of-siege mentality when discussing FOI or McIntyre and McKittrick's challenges to their assertions.

And don't forget while reading...

...these men are supposed to be "scientists" professionally educated and trained to embody objective, methodical discipline in their approach to problem solving.

Rather, the emails come across as sociopathic ramblings of soviet-era secret police.



Tens of thousands of scientists have refuted the IPCC's published conclusions in Assessment Report #4...publishing dozens of treatise on the AGW theory: I have linked to many of them in my posts.

You can find most of them discussed and linked in the archives at http://www.icecap.us.

kalm, I suspect you are very young, and either still in college or just graduated. What you don't recognize yet, is that you have become the product of your professors: educationally biased against capitalism.

Big business is not the boogeyman.

What you should fear most, is your inability to detect demagogues, like Gore, Hansen, Mann, the U.S. Congress, and the MSM talking heads.

Like I said: Think for yourself.

But I’m not educationally biased toward capitalism in the least. In fact I never took an economics class in college.

Grizalltheway wrote:T, how come you're not in Copenhagen lighting tires on fire to protest the climate change conference?