

The Economics of Climate Change - envitar
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574559491076961008.html

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henrikschroder
I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded
since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's
pocket change.

My guess is that at the bottom of this there's actual data that shows worrying
trends that the involved scientists think are important to continue doing
research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished
it a bit to make it easier to "sell" it to the politicians in charge of
handing out the grant money.

But that there's some sort of malicious conspiracy to fool then entire world
that everything is going to hell? For what's practically pocket change that
pays the salaries of a large group of scientists? No, that makes no sense.

And what have they spent the research money on? Hookers and blow? Of course
not, it's been spent on climate research and taking us closer to understanding
what's happening and what, if anything, we can do about it. Spin-off effects
of this is that money has been going into research projects for cleaner
energy, more efficient energy use, alternatives to fossil fuel, and all these
things are undeniably good.

The media hype, that I could live without, and the Copenhagen Climate
Conference is becoming I don't know what, but I hope that cooler heads prevail
and that actual non-fudged data and science is used there, because there is of
course a lot of that, just because the leak showed one instance of bad data,
it doesn't mean that the entire thing is bad.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It might be pocket change to Google or J.P. Morgan. In the academic world,
those are career making amounts.

And big grants do give financial rewards to the PI. Say I get a $10 million
grant; my university will take about $5 million off the top in "overhead" (to
be spent on overpaid administrators, student stress counselors, the latino
student center, and maybe even education). I turn to them and say "give me a
50% pay raise or I leave". The university then compares the cost of a 50% pay
raise to half my grant, and gives me a 75% raise.

~~~
dhyasama
Saying science grant money goes to latino student centers jumps out as odd.
Where has this happened?

~~~
yummyfajitas
As I explained in my post, universities take about half of any grant given to
them as "overhead". Sometimes it goes down, but rarely below 25%. The overhead
is taken from the grant and put into the general fund of the university.

The general fund of the university is used to pay for things like football
coaches, the LGBT.* Formal Ball or rock concerts (note: these are all real
examples).

In theory, the overhead only pays for facilities and administrative services
necessary to use the grant (e.g., rent and electricity for a lab). In
practice, the overhead taken is vastly more than what such services actually
cost.

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smutticus
I get the feeling that the entire purpose of the CRU email leak is to create
FUD leading up to Copenhagen. What exactly was the motive of this anonymous
whistleblower? If the person who leaked these emails had the best interest of
climate research in mind why were they conveniently leaked right before
Copenhagen? I do not believe this leak was done in the interests of clarity
because I believe the timing of this leak was significant to the
whistleblower. I do hope this leak leads to more openness in climate research.
But I don't think openness was the motive of the leaker.

I also doubt any analysis of these emails and their conclusions so close after
the leak. It will take time and analysis to understand how the supposed
infractions and rigged data actually affected the dialogue surrounding climate
change. It's not enough to say someone fudged data. What we need to see is how
that fudged data affected the actual debate over the climate's change. And
that analysis should take longer than a week.

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Tichy
"But in this decade, according to one of the leaked documents, the total shot
up to £11.8 million,"

Holy shit, ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS??? They must be criminals. Nobody makes that
much money legally.

Just think how many weather stations, researchers and assistents you could buy
for that. Oh wait...

But yeah, research involves a lot of politics.

~~~
phenwoods
If only there was some organization on the other side that could afford that
sort of money. They'd easily be able to get scientists to produce the results
they wanted.

~~~
Tichy
Only like every oil company on earth? You don't seriously believe what you
wrote?

Not even sure if there are not skeptics on government grants - why shouldn't
there be? Do you have any insights into who is researching, and on whose
money?

However, a honest question: who benefits from belief in global warming, and
who benefits from belief in global not-warming? I have a hard time coming up
with big industries benefiting from global warming belief, but there might be
some?

~~~
phenwoods
Sorry, I was being sarcastic.

But it is one thing to suggest that a scientist's work might be influenced by
who's financing the work. It's quite another to suggest, as this article did,
that scientists would delibratly concoct a hoax just to secure more funding.

And if it really were the case that scientists are fabricating scares for a
few million pounds, why are thry not also fabricating reasuuring theories to
secure funding from those with an interest in maintaining the status quo?

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spamizbad
Reading that article I was actually shocked at how little money was being
spent studying climate change.

Meanwhile, being a "skeptic" is good money these days:

<http://tinyurl.com/22go3n>

<http://tinyurl.com/yzgojux>

<http://tinyurl.com/2kzqd7>

<http://tinyurl.com/2ozbrc>

<http://tinyurl.com/yhealhs>

<http://tinyurl.com/mrmb9j>

<http://tinyurl.com/yfq5tam>

<http://tinyurl.com/yhuhceh>

<http://tinyurl.com/yf8pekp>

(not spam, all links relevant in terms of providing some balance)

~~~
mhansen
There's no need for URL shorteners here

~~~
dejb
True but the links are quite relevant and telling.

~~~
nfnaaron
But they're still short and anonymous. Besides relevant and telling, they
would be more _appealing_ if they weren't shortened.

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peoplerock
"For the world's economy, of course, trillions of dollars are now at stake in
pursuit of emissions reductions based on the flawed science that these leaked
emails have helped lay bare."

From what I've read about them the emails lay _little_ bare about the science
- more about the politics of trying to keep down the FUD-slingers and easily-
publicized, some-what contrary findings.

Further, a huge increase in funding does _not_ constitute evidence that it is
being used for "flawed science".

The future of powerful data and analysis of climate changes is in sad shape if
(unsigned) articles in WSJ.com by persons of unknown scientific credentials
become the guides for world policy.

