What is brought to mind from this is Pavlov and his dog, on a dog pound scale. Armed and Dangerous says this
…error cascades are all too common where science meets public policy
Cannot one see the obvious? Where there is policy, there are governmental monies. Where there are governmental monies, how can an academic with his career ahead of him or her not salivate at the prospects of all but unlimited money? I am reminded of so many dogs who will eat till they get ill, if enough food is put in front of them. Pavlov ad infinitum et absurdum?
Is there a need to go into the subject further? There is only the need to discard the myth of the ivory tower as a place of non-interest as to where the next meal (think grant money) might coming from. We only need to thin of academics as normal human beings, instead of angelic discoverers.
With governmental monies, instead of a single morsel with its signal light, there is a conveyor belt possible, not to mention so many more morsels right as the first light is lit. A comparison night be a kid on Christmas morning before the tree with its piles and piles of presents. But we are talking of visions of a possible never-ending Christmas tree – the proverbial money tree.
What academic with his career ahead of him has the will to stand before the money conveyor belt and turn away?
Even those whose papers’ findings disagree with global warming manage to put in the text somewhere some assertion that “this is not to insinuate that global warming is not happening; we all know it is.” Or “It is not yet clear how this is to be understood in an ever warming climate due to man’s CO2 emissions.” Armed and Dangerous points out that this is “preference falsification, the act of misrepresenting one’s desires or beliefs under perceived social pressures.”
In the review * on “Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification”, is this assessment:
A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.
A more concise summary of the global warming “largely contrived” “structure” could hardly be possible. Can anyone say “Climategate”? A “minor event” which activated “a bandwagon” of “massive yet unanticipated change.” And it happened just at the moment (Copenhagen) when the aura of stability was to be carved into stone.