Eleven Pipers Piping... but to whose tune?
Mon, 14 Dec 2015 10:53:00 GMT
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me – ‘eleven pipers piping’ – but whose tune are they dancing to?
The expression’ he who pays the piper call the tune’ is highly relevant to the climate change debate. It means that the person paying someone to do something can decide on how it is done, and it has been used by commentators at both ‘extremes’ of the climate debate to undermine their opponents’ arguments.
This was a key issue that emerged as a result of’ Climategate’, when the emails of academics at University of East Anglia were hacked and publicised. One journalist, Bret Stephens said ‘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’, and goes on to argue that since their own livelihoods depend on anthropogenic climate change happening, they will do all they can to ‘prove’ it.
This does beg the question of whether 97%* of all climate change scientists are corrupt? Since academic salaries are pretty modest compared to those in industry, it would seem likely that they would make more money dancing to the oil giants‘ tunes.
Multi-national Oil companies have been behind many of the climate change deniers. For example, Dr Willie Soon, who argues that the sun is the primary driver of climate change, has been funded to a tune of $1.2 m from companies, lobby groups and oil billionaires, all who have their own vested interest in debunking anthropogenic climate change. However, the oil companies have far greater reach than individual academics. In America, Exxon Mobil gave more than $2.3m to politicians and corporate lobbying groups that deny climate change and block efforts to address it. Greenpeace provide evidence that the company has used a further $30m on funding researchers and activist groups to promote disinformation http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/index.php.
If I was in it for the money – I know whose side I would be on!
Next time you are dancing – think about who is calling the tune!
*97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations endorse this position.
