Shocking New Studies – “Skeptic” Scientists Funded by Big Oil. Water “very likely” Wet. Film at 11.

A popular climate denialist theme is that climate change is an “open debate”, and that scientists disagree on the main points that:

a) climate change is real, and is happening

b) we’re doing it

c) the consequences will most likely be dire

Since climate deniers are terribly embarrassed by the fact that the published science on the issue is so clear, it’s common to see lists of peer reviewed studies that, they tell us, disprove, or disagree with this or that aspect of the problem.  Once you knock out the papers that are clearly out of context, and in fact don’t really say what deniers say they say – you’re left with a body of work that is disproportionately the product of a very small group of scientists whose names keep popping up again and again on the Fox News/talk radio circuit.

I know you’ll be as shocked, shocked as I was to find that these scientists are often connected to Big Oil….

From The Carbon Brief:

… a preliminary data analysis by the Carbon Brief has revealed that nine of the ten most prolific authors cited have links to organisations funded by ExxonMobil, and the tenth has co-authored several papers with Exxon-funded contributors.

Once you crunch the numbers, however, you find a good proportion of this new list is made up of a small network of individuals who co-author papers and share funding ties to the oil industry. There are numerous other names on the list with links to oil-industry funded climate sceptic think-tanks, including more from the International Policy Network (IPN) and the Marshall Institute.