Color Me Confused

Steve,

I found your comment on my last post more than a little confusing. Is it me?

With regards to funding, you are comparing apples to avocados. This makes no sense, since however much funding comes from "government organizations", none of it is spend on political campaigns and lobbying. Furthermore, there is no equivalency, repeat, none, between government financing of climate research and private funding of disinformation. On the one hand, research consists of going out in the field, accumulating data and then trying to put it all together. I was making the point that while the fossil fuel industry spends billions on research, none of that money is spent for research into global warming. And why is that?

Fred Singer doesn't conduct any research into global warming, neither does Willie Soon, Stephen Milloy, Sallie Balliunas, or any of the rest of them. Yet these are the kinds of people the industry pays to spread disinformation about the scientists who actually do genuine research. See the difference?

Finally, the funding of climate research - not to mention education - is without doubt an important and necessary function of government. If you take the time, as I have, to look into where this money goes, you will find that not one penny funds an advocacy group or "think tank". In fact, most of the money is spent on people and equipment to study the Earth's atmosphere, a subject about which global warming is only a small part.

-Chris