The global warming alarmist community has for years smeared skeptics by claiming that they are funded by Big Oil. Is that true? Did the oil companies buy allies?
Unlikely. Many of us — probably all of us — came by our doubts that man is warming the planet through his carbon dioxide emissions on our own. All that is required is a little bit of reading and some independent thinking. What tends to happen in the professional ranks is that scientists who have uncertainties about the climate change story received research funding from corporations only after they had taken their position, which they arrived at honestly through their studies.
There is another side of this that is rarely heard, though, and that’s the story of who’s funding the alarmists. In many cases, the government is paying for the research that concludes we are overheating the planet. It’s the outcome that politicians and bureaucrats want, so they keep funding more of the same. It’s been said, quite credibly, “The dirty secret is that global warming is driven more by the search for funding than the search for scientific truth.” And it was, in fact, the Delaware state climatologist who said, “There’s a lot more money to be made by saying the world is coming to an end than to say that this is a bunch of hooey.”
So woe unto the scientists who don’t hold what is truly the Democratic Party line. No research grants for them.
Let’s track back now a few weeks and dig up the story about the group of academics who have asked the White House to prosecute skeptical organizations and corporations under federal RICO statutes, laws intended to cut down on racketeering enterprises run by organized crime. Who are these people who would criminalize free academic thought? Well, one happens to be Jagadish Shukla, a professor at George Mason University who, according to one lawmaker, “has reportedly received $63 million from taxpayers since 2001” to fund his own nonprofit, the Institute of Global Environment and Society.
Why is this OK? Why is it acceptable for taxpayers’ money to be used to fund the work of a man who wants those who believe differently from him to be prosecuted as criminals?
No — this is not OK. Taxpayers should not have to fund a witch hunt as well as the outside work of the chief witch hunter. (The Competitive Enterprise Institute calls Shukla the “lead signer” of the letter asking the president to prosecute.)
In his own letter, Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, told Shukla that his non-profit “appears to be almost fully funded by taxpayer money while simultaneously participating in partisan political activity by requesting a RICO investigation of companies and organizations that disagree with the Obama administration on climate change.”
Quite clearly, Shukla has his own racket enterprise going. And it sounds like it could use a little investigating. Could be there’s another alarmist scandal waiting to be uncovered.
