Your response to Mike Erchenbrecher about the funding issue is a perfect example of the hypocritic attitude of the greenhouse "skeptics." If you're so confident that your arguments are based on "solid science" that stand or (in most cases) falls on its own merits, why not add that Western Fuels Association (translate: the fossil fuel lobby) is a major contributor. At least real scientists almost always disclose financial support in their scientific papers.
Submitted by: Kees van der Veen, Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (funded mostly by the National Science Foundation)
Answer:
To once again restate our position, we feel that the debate over global warming should be based on the relevant science, not on matters related to funding. And we find no hypocracy in this position.
How can the correctness or incorrectness of a scientific theory or hypothesis be determined by knowledge of who funded the person who created it? It seems to us that an incorrect hypothesis is an incorrect hypothesis, independent of who funded the person who proposed it, just as a correct theory is a correct theory, irrespective of who supported the person who formulated it.
In fact, we believe that knowledge of funding is actually counter-productive when it comes to evaluating the validity of an idea. If, for example, we said that we were funded by Western Fuels Association, might that not lead you to reject our arguments out of hand, without giving them as careful an analysis as you might otherwise? And if we said that we were funded by the National Science Foundation, might that not lead you to more readily accept them? And for a greenhouse "skeptic," might not just the opposite be true?
In all of these cases, it seems to us that knowledge of who may or may not have provided funding to a person may well be detrimental to a truly objective and careful analysis of what that person has to say. Indeed, would it not tend to introduce the possibility of hypocrisy in the evaluator of the information more readily than would the withholding of such information? It seems to us that it is easier to be objective when there is no ancillary information that might introduce prejudicial thoughts.
In summary, we feel that everyone -- and especially "real scientists" -- should be content to evaluate our scientific ideas on their own merits. Hence, we proffer no information of the type you seek.