Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Economics of Climate Change

online.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–19 of 19 posts

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#11

Post by dejb »

mhansen wrote: post #4
spamizbad wrote: post #3

Reading that article I was actually shocked at how little money was being spent studying climate change. Meanwhile, being a "skeptic" is good money these days: http://tinyurl.com/22go3n http://tinyurl.com/yzgojux http://tinyurl.com/2kzqd7 http://tinyurl.com/2ozbrc http://tinyurl.com/yhealhs http://tinyurl.com/mrmb9j http://tinyurl.com/yfq5tam http://tinyurl.com/yhuhceh http://tinyurl.com/yf8pekp (not spam, all links…

There's no need for URL shorteners here

True but the links are quite relevant and telling.

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#12

Post by Tichy »

phenwoods wrote: post #7
Tichy wrote: post #2

"But in this decade, according to one of the leaked documents, the total shot up to £11.8 million," Holy shit, ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS??? They must be criminals. Nobody makes that much money legally. Just think how many weather stations, researchers and assistents you could buy for that. Oh wait... But yeah, research involves a lot of politics.

If only there was some organization on the other side that could afford that sort of money. They'd easily be able to get scientists to produce the results they wanted.

Only like every oil company on earth? You don't seriously believe what you wrote?

Not even sure if there are not skeptics on government grants - why shouldn't there be? Do you have any insights into who is researching, and on whose money?

However, a honest question: who benefits from belief in global warming, and who benefits from belief in global not-warming? I have a hard time coming up with big industries benefiting from global warming belief, but there might be some?

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#13

Post by Tichy »

lionhearted wrote: post #8
henrikschroder wrote: post #5

I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's pocket change. My guess is that at the bottom of this there's actual data that shows worrying trends that the involved scientists think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make i…

> ...think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make it easier to "sell" it to the politicians in charge of handing out the grant money. This is precisely the kind of thinking that got the United States into the War in Iraq.

Isn't that how all politics are conducted? It would be non-trivial to come up with a better system, too.

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#14

Post by tome »

phenwoods wrote: post #7
Tichy wrote: post #2

"But in this decade, according to one of the leaked documents, the total shot up to £11.8 million," Holy shit, ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS??? They must be criminals. Nobody makes that much money legally. Just think how many weather stations, researchers and assistents you could buy for that. Oh wait... But yeah, research involves a lot of politics.

If only there was some organization on the other side that could afford that sort of money. They'd easily be able to get scientists to produce the results they wanted.

I'm pretty sure phenwoods was being sarcastic here, and his comment can be read as saying

"Many companies with much lose from CO2 induced AGW being true have plenty of money. If there was a scientific case to be made for it being false they would have been able to fund it."

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#15

Post by nfnaaron »

dejb wrote: post #11
mhansen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need for URL shorteners here

True but the links are quite relevant and telling.

But they're still short and anonymous. Besides relevant and telling, they would be more appealing if they weren't shortened.

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#16

Post by yummyfajitas »

henrikschroder wrote: post #5

I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's pocket change. My guess is that at the bottom of this there's actual data that shows worrying trends that the involved scientists think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make i…

It might be pocket change to Google or J.P. Morgan. In the academic world, those are career making amounts.

And big grants do give financial rewards to the PI. Say I get a $10 million grant; my university will take about $5 million off the top in "overhead" (to be spent on overpaid administrators, student stress counselors, the latino student center, and maybe even education). I turn to them and say "give me a 50% pay raise or I leave". The university then compares the cost of a 50% pay raise to half my grant, and gives me a 75% raise.

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#17

Post by dhyasama »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #16
henrikschroder wrote: post #5

I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's pocket change. My guess is that at the bottom of this there's actual data that shows worrying trends that the involved scientists think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make i…

It might be pocket change to Google or J.P. Morgan. In the academic world, those are career making amounts. And big grants do give financial rewards to the PI. Say I get a $10 million grant; my university will take about $5 million off the top in "overhead" (to be spent on overpaid administrators, student stress counselors, the latino student center, and maybe even education). I turn to them and say "give me a 50% pa…

Saying science grant money goes to latino student centers jumps out as odd. Where has this happened?

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#18

Post by yummyfajitas »

dhyasama wrote: post #17
yummyfajitas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be pocket change to Google or J.P. Morgan. In the academic world, those are career making amounts. And big grants do give financial rewards to the PI. Say I get a $10 million grant; my university will take about $5 million off the top in "overhead" (to be spent on overpaid administrators, student stress counselors, the latino student center, and maybe even education). I turn to them and say "give me a 50% pa…

Saying science grant money goes to latino student centers jumps out as odd. Where has this happened?

As I explained in my post, universities take about half of any grant given to them as "overhead". Sometimes it goes down, but rarely below 25%. The overhead is taken from the grant and put into the general fund of the university.

The general fund of the university is used to pay for things like football coaches, the LGBT.* Formal Ball or rock concerts (note: these are all real examples).

In theory, the overhead only pays for facilities and administrative services necessary to use the grant (e.g., rent and electricity for a lab). In practice, the overhead taken is vastly more than what such services actually cost.

Re: The Economics of Climate Change

#19

Post by phenwoods »

Tichy wrote: post #12
phenwoods wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there was some organization on the other side that could afford that sort of money. They'd easily be able to get scientists to produce the results they wanted.

Only like every oil company on earth? You don't seriously believe what you wrote? Not even sure if there are not skeptics on government grants - why shouldn't there be? Do you have any insights into who is researching, and on whose money? However, a honest question: who benefits from belief in global warming, and who benefits from belief in global not-warming? I have a hard time coming up with big industries benefiti…

Sorry, I was being sarcastic.

But it is one thing to suggest that a scientist's work might be influenced by who's financing the work. It's quite another to suggest, as this article did, that scientists would delibratly concoct a hoax just to secure more funding.

And if it really were the case that scientists are fabricating scares for a few million pounds, why are thry not also fabricating reasuuring theories to secure funding from those with an interest in maintaining the status quo?

Post reply on HN