# What role does money play in the climate-change debate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 15, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893 "2014-01-15T18:32:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893/41 "2014-01-17T03:52:24Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > When even the [Cato Institute](http://www.cato.org/research/global-warming) acknowledges that human activity is a factor in global warming, that debate is over. > > We can argue lots of points, but whether humans are affecting the climate isn’t one of them. Doesn’t having Cato on your side make it time to switch sides? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893/42 "2014-01-17T03:59:21Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Doesn’t having Cato on your side make it time to switch sides? 😉 You jest, but one question many Republicans should ask themselves is why it is that the Republican scientists are the ones doing it. > **[Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science](https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=56795477&itype=CMSID&page=1)** > > Scientists > [@](#): > > Scientists used to be well represented among the nearly half of Americans who voted Republican. But that’s changed over the years, and one poll found that just 6 percent of scientists call themselves part of the GOP now. > > What happened? There might not be textbook answers, but there are theories. > > Barry Bickmore, a professor of geology at Brigham Young University and onetime Republican convention delegate in crimson-red Utah County in the nation’s reddest state, has pondered the issue at length. He contends his party is increasingly ruled by zealots and a demand for “ideological purity” that turns off scientists. > > He says most examples are in the environmental sciences. And he points to the time in 2009 when majority-party Republicans in the Utah Capitol put climate-science doubters on a pedestal — while rejecting the mainstream scientist view about the danger global warming poses and even taking a beef about a Utah State University physicist to the university president. > > “Scientists just don’t get those people,” he says of Republicans who adhere to party orthodoxy about scientific questions on climate change, evolution and other hot-button issues. “They [in the GOP] are driving us away, people like me.” > > He points to the 6 percent statistic from a 2009 Pew poll, and wondered aloud if any other voting group offered lower GOP support. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893/43 "2014-01-17T04:32:39Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > You jest, but one question many Republicans should ask themselves is why it is that the Republican scientists are the ones doing it. > > [Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science - The Salt Lake Tribune](http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56795477-90/science-scientists-gop-http.html.csp?page=1) :dubious: The republican party has been shedding members since the mid 90s. Most of the moderates have gone Dem, and the Rs that are left are radicalizing. (See: Tea Party and/or lipstick wearing bulldogs.) If “Republican scientists” are wondering why their party has changed, then they should do more than mark a straight R ticket when they vote and at least look at the world around them when they go to the voting station. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893/44 "2014-01-17T04:51:23Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > When even the [Cato Institute](http://www.cato.org/research/global-warming) acknowledges that human activity is a factor in global warming, that debate is over. > > We can argue lots of points, but whether humans are affecting the climate isn’t one of them. I wonder whether this apparent enlightenment doesn’t make Cato a potentially more dangerous political factor. When an institution like Heartland makes their idiotic pronouncements about the non-existence of AGW, they just reveal themselves as some combination of idiots, scientific illiterates, or just shills for the oil and coal industries. When Cato acknowledges AGW, and then states “Fortunately, and contrary to much of the rhetoric surrounding climate change, there is ample time to develop [mitigation] technologies” they are basically achieving the same result desired by denialist conservatives – stalling emissions regulation – and doing so with the appearance of even-handed sagacity. The reality however is that with CO2 at 400 ppm and rising fast – about 43% above pre-industrial levels – that assertion that we have lots and lots of time to sit around and ponder has no basis in science or in fact. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893/45 "2014-01-18T02:57:14Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > When Cato acknowledges AGW, and then states “Fortunately, and contrary to much of the rhetoric surrounding climate change, there is ample time to develop [mitigation] technologies” they are basically achieving the same result desired by denialist conservatives – stalling emissions regulation – and doing so with the appearance of even-handed sagacity. The reality however is that with CO2 at 400 ppm and rising fast – about 43% above pre-industrial levels – that assertion that we have lots and lots of time to sit around and ponder has no basis in science or in fact. I’m certainly not going to argue against the fact that they are going to do their best to make sure we completely ignore the effects of the warming, as I know all too well about the Koch brothers. I was simply pointing out that when even they acknowledge the fact that AGW is real, that particular aspect of the debate is over. End of story. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893/46 "2014-01-19T20:41:35Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > If you’re talking about the scientific debate itself, your premise with industry money is a little out of date. Virtually all of the big corporations that were funding research to discredit climate change in the 90’s and 2000’s have more or less realized that particular tactic is not going to work and have moved on. They still spend lots of cash trying to affect the political parts of the debate using lobbyists and PR firms, but the days of big corporations acting as sugar daddies to climate scientists with more bills than scruples are mostly over. There probably is still money out there available for that sort of thing from smaller companies and political groups, but definitely far less than there once was. Cite? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-role-does-money-play-in-the-climate-change-debate/678893.md?page=2)