For the researchers, grant dollars and reputations are on the line. For reporters, global warming offers the thrill of covering The Biggest Story Ever Told, an appeal I could not resist. For politicians, it has offered an endless opportunity for grandstanding and power grabs. Convinced they are saving the earth—what could be more rewarding or important?—all three groups helped each other lose their minds.Alas, all too true!
A nerd friend of mine who works in the sciences confirmed part of this. To get an advantage in any grant proposal if you are working in biology, ecology, etc., you should somehow include "global warming." Suppose, she said, that you are a mammal expert and want funding for research about squirrels. Your application will have a better chance if you say you're looking at "squirrel behavior as it is influenced by global warming" than if you don't.
2 comments:
Granting agencies create the fashions, and they're not all government agencies, either. Much of our social engineering starts with big bucks from some major foundation. Another unstated funding requirement is that you should be trying to prove that you can do it better with a computer. If you want to study squirrels reacting to "climate change," you probably don't want to admit that real humans would be looking at the behavior of actual squirrels. Far better if you model the behavior of the squirrels at a distance in, say, a hypothetical way that can be improved upon by technology that does not yet exist.
I wish I was joking.
You can say that again! The dependence on computer models has always bothered me. It's NOT REAL SCIENCE based on observation and the scientific method.
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