This has to be one of the more inane postings I've seen in a while here: 1. If you want to cash in on climate change, you'd actually be a skeptic. There's way too many people competing for university and foundation grants if you support this "radical" thesis. By contrast, if you want to be a skeptic, there's an array of corporate-fronted foundations that will bestow cash on you, so your thesis is internally illogical; 2. Oh, so ozone depletion isn't a concern anymore? Funny, we had a hole 1.5 times the size of North America last year over the Antarctic, and the Dobson unit measurements in some places well below 100. Well, why should we worry about a few million additional cases of potentially lethal skin cancer? You're right, just another fad by those greedy scientists. wil
-----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Cherubini Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 8:43 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Scientists versus activists Maiken Winter wrote: > How much more evidence do we need? Why is there such an incredible > resistance among scientists to get active? Because scientists are in business to perform research and publish or they will perish. In decades past, scientists who wrote grant proposals that showed how their proposed research was relevant to the envrionmental crisis fad of the time (e.g. impact of industrial and agricultural chemical pollutants on the environment, impact of GMO foods, etc) were more likely to get funded. In recent years, scientists who wrote grant proposals that showed how their proposed research was relevant to the current crisis fad (climate change) were more likely to get funded. When the grant getting advantage of linking proposed research to climate change wears off it, scientists will come up with a novel new crisis that helps keep the grant money rolling in. In 5-10 years the everyday discussions on ECOLOG-L will likely be about a new "crisis" and climate change will no longer be a dominant concern anymore just like concern over ozone holes, acid rain and GMO foods has faded away. Paul Cherubini El Dorado, Calif.
