Glancing at Damian Thompson’s blog, I see the well-known trope of climate change denialists — that those who advocate the reality of anthropogenic global warming are very well paid for their efforts. The implication is not just that the denialists are not themselves funded by special interests — though of course they are, and this tactic is pure Swift-boating: accusing your opponent of precisely the most shameful thing that you have ever done (in Bush’s case, cowardice sufficient to ensure it was never even tested under fire; in this case, taking bribes to lie) — it is suggesting that the purity of science is compromised by its funding.
What suddenly struck me as odd about this argument, deployed as it usually is by defenders of unbridled1 capitalism, is that it’s difficult, on the face of it, to think of any scientific feat that should be more or better paid than trying to save the whole world. If these guys are right — and they are — no researchers into anything should be paid more than those who warn us of an impending catastrophe while there is still time, possibly, to avert it. Under what crazed, dystopic regime can you only be right in a garret?
1 a technical term, referring to the sort of companies which are big enough to buy governments; not to be confused with free markets.