re: What are your reasons for believing climate change is "a hoax"

Exxon is at least now doing some cool stuff regarding carbon capture. Using molten carbonate fuel cells to concentrate the CO2 from a power plant for easier storage and generating additional electricity from the process.

Of course, it's a high temperature process, so there's still the run of energy required to operate it. Still, a nice outside the box approach from Exxon.

I still hold out hope we'll get CO2 electrolysis down to low enough temps and high enough efficiency to use that CO2 and turn it into syngas and possibly liquid fuels. Gets around the energy storage problem of renewables and in theory could be utilized in the existing infrastructure to move and use liquid chemical fuels.

To me, global warming is a science problem that science will go about fixing.

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Climate change denial research is not "conservative" and your implication that it is is an insult to conservatives

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Hi Cathy

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The fact that you believe this is more of a problem

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Interestingly, you've done nada, zilch, zero to rebut this.

But hey. To repeat.

Here's a simple question for the OP.

If I studied climate science and got my PhD from a top school in the nation......then, 5 years later, said, "I hypothesize that predictions about Global Warming are incorrect based on XYZ.........I want to study to see if XYZ is right".

What are the odds of me receiving funding from ANY source other than an obviously agenda driven source to check on my hypothesis?

When you answer that honestly, you know the problem.

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What I'm trying to say is, while most scientists get into the field because of an underlying curiosity about the world we live in.

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Sure, makes sense.

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That being said, money (not politics) really ends up drives a lot of the research today. Now, I don't know a lot of (any) "rich" scientists. 

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I think what we are trying to say is that that the federal grants are the primary funding source, meaning that the feds drive the train on research requirements. I don't mean that scientists are all millionaires because they get sweetheart grants from the fed.

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Most want enough money to keep their labs and their research going. Lots of universities where this research is being done evaluate folks on how much $$ they bring in and the number of papers they produce. So, in order to stay employed, it behooves folks to continue to get grants and write papers

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I think this is pretty widely understood. Do we agree then that research grants are the lifeblood of the scientific community, and that fed money is the majority of that lifeblood, and that scientists are required to pursue it to survive? If that is true, then it would explain why there are pronounced trends in research topics and methodologies. Incentives matter, a lot. The State produces perverse incentives.

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So most scientists end up supporting the left, not because of a political agenda to prove the right wrong, but because the left supports public funding of research significantly more than the right. 

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the left supports government funded research more than the right. That distinction is very important, because there is a very powerful difference between research conducted with government money and research conducted as a part of normal market activity.

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It is my limited experience working on a few small grants ages ago, that most (state/federal) agencies that provide funding really don't care WHAT the results say, they just want the contract fulfilled and the deliverables produced. That way the administrators and bureaucrats can check the boxes and get their budget appropriations for the next year and keep the cycle going. 

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Well, they do care, even in your example. They have an incentive to obtain research on topics that are politically and professionally beneficial to themselves, just as a scientist has an incentive to do the same. That's the dangerous aspect of state funded research, and why we are generally wary of any conclusions reached through such a perverse system.

BTW, found an interesting article that states that "base science" research money is primarily derived from the market instead of the fed for the first time since WWII. years ago, Powerman swore to me that that was impossible because "no market has an incentive to spend money on that".

Science Magazine.

Basic research funding now primarily generated by markets

thought you might like this, considering your opinion on the matter.

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Chances are probably better than you would think

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Nope.

Alas, you wisely made no attempt to rebut because you know you can't.

I think we've pretty much seen in this thread that the sum total of your argument is "more experts agree with me".

You clearly have no knowledge or for that matter, even ideas of your own to contribute to the subject.

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I think we've pretty much seen in this thread that the sum total of your argument is "more experts agree with me".

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I'm asking why people would believe something that is in contradiction with the experts on the matter

I phrased it as believing in a conspiracy

So far it looks as if I'm right

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I'm asking why people would believe something that is in contradiction with the experts on the matter

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Then disregarding them all as motivated by politics and declaring victory because more people agree with you.

That's pretty much the sum total of your contribution.

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So far it looks as if I'm right

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You don't actually possess the skills to know if you're right. Other than your ability to count. You COULD be right. But, you, Pman, have no way of actually assessing that.

Your opinion is exactly equal to the opinion of a HS drop out who agrees with the same people.

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Who is Jagdish Shukla?

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And guess what. I don't know him.

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Then disregarding them all as motivated by politics and declaring victory because more people agree with you.

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Pretty much no one here agrees with me that's for sure

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You COULD be right.

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What we haven't seen are many rational reasons for people to believe in the conspiracy

It's just like any other conspiracy theory. It's stupid.

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Actually, those aren't my only options

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Sure

But of the 2 which seems more rational? And why is it so difficult to answer?