I have no objection to being paid and would prefer to be paid rather than to be doing this gratis. Throughout my life, I’ve made a living by earning money. However, my climate research has been done at a very considerable financial sacrifice because I could otherwise be making money. I notice that lots of academics funded by NSF are doing very nicely, thank you very much.

While I have made the financial sacrifice, I don’t believe that I have an obligation to do so. If, in the future, someone believes that it’s worthwhile to fund this research, it would not be “bought” research. I’d still say what I thought. If someone paid me some money for a presentation, it in no way begins to compensate me for the cost of not being at the table to do mining deals in what’s been a great market for speculative stocks.

I believe it was John A who initiated this particular thread by saying:

No-one has a greater vested interest both professional and financial in the veracity of the Hockey Stick than Bradley himself and the environmental pressure groups that pay for RealClimate’s hosting and bandwidth.

Coop is just playing along.

Why are you AGW folks so stuck on who is paying the bills? Could it may be, possibly be, just might be, because you find it so much easier to attack the messager rather than engage with the message?

Who pays Steve’s salary is as immaterial as who pays your salary or mine. What you are doing is called an “ad hominem” argument, which happens when someone can’t or won’t deal with the message, and so they attack the messenger.

This is what you are doing, and while I am happy to see you post, I would request that you post about the issues and forget about the personalities. The important question is, is Steve right? Please try dealing with that.

Suppose Steve were paid 100% by Exxon (he’s most definitely not, but suppose he were).

So What?

Would that make him wrong? Would that change the truth of what he says by one iota? Clearly not. If Steve is right he is right, if he’s wrong he’s wrong, whether he is paid by Exxon or by Greenpeace.

Posting questions such as yours just tells people that you are not interested in the issues, but in besmirching someone’s character in an attempt to discredit them.

Sorry, but that doesn’t work here. I invite you to post about the issues, and I strongly discourage you from trying character asassination … it doesn’t work on this site, we know who we are, and guess what?

We don’t care! We care about the issues!

w.

Are you a contributing writer for the George C. Marshall institute?

If so, have they paid you for your contributions?

Yes it is all taxpayers’ money, however you and I as individuals can direct our money as we see fit. Once the money gets into the hands of our governments, we basically have no control over how it is spent.

Your other point on reducing reliance on imported energy is a rather complex issue. The folks who brought us AGW are the same folks who for all intents and purposes stopped us from building nuclear power plants which neither produce CO2 nor rely on oil imported from Russia, Saudi, or Venezuala. On the positive side, technologies which were far too costly with an oil price of $20 – $30/barrel are now economical with oil selling above $50/barrel. Here in the US, the demand for hybrid vehicles exceeds the supply and used SUVs are becoming tough to sell.

Ignoring AGW for a moment, surely recent events have show that heavy reliance on oil is a dangerous position to be in. Growth in the UK economy is forecast to fall because of higher oil prices and inflation is at an 8 year high, again largely due to higher oil prices. I believe the situation is similar in the USA. Here in the UK we are becoming more and more reliant on energy imports from such stable places as N. Africa and Russia. I would be quite happy to see more of my taxes going into research into alternative energy sources. If thats because of AGW scarmongering so be it.