Quote:
Originally Posted by Phaethon
Quote:
Originally Posted by dok
The question has always been, as I explicitly said, who benefits? This idea that climate scientists are lying because they have some overwhelming incentive to do so is just silly.
On the other side of the ledger, we have the fossil fuel industry, which obviously does benefit to an incredible degree, in terms of profit, from inaction on climate change. We saw this story play out with Big Tobacco, and now we have fairly explicit evidence that the fossil fuel industry is following the same playbook.
If you want to bring up profit motive and natural human tendencies, it's very, very clear that those who deny climate change have a lot more skin in the game than those who support the scientific consensus.
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You raise a good point to discuss: what is the motivation of a scientist? I feel that the primary motivation is prestige. It's not money - clearly. It's also not fame - just how many scientists do you know by name? That seems only to leave prestige, especially among one's peers.
Agree? Disagree?
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I really wish you could manage to take a step back and see how hilarious this response is. I point out that the people who fund all the climate denial have an obvious, direct, enormous profit motive to do so. Your response is to say, "oh, good point, we should question the motivations of the
scientists." As if that's either (a) what I said, or (b) something that merits serious discussion.
Really, you have a VW Bus-sized blind spot on this issue. You seem almost constitutionally incapable of recognizing that the people who fund the fights against all these regulations (ostensibly on the grounds of questioning the science) have a massive, massive profit motive. Again, follow the money. This is big tobacco denying the cancer link, all over again.