Wanted: A Few Flat-Earth Scientists To Support Alaskan Oil Drilling

[Joanne98]

by Tom Kizzia
The state Legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon — researchers just have to fill in the science part.

A $2 million program funded with little debate by the Legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an “academic based” conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears’ survival.

Republican legislative leaders say a federal decision to declare the polar bears “threatened” by climate change would have troubling effects on Arctic oil development and the state’s economic future.

Last week a federal judge ordered the Bush administration to release its already-tardy decision under the Endangered Species Act by May 15. By law, such a decision must be based strictly on science, not on possible economic consequences.

Legislative leaders said they are frustrated that researchers skeptical of the doomsday scenario get marginalized as crackpots or industry shills by the media and scientific agencies.

“We want to have the money to hire scientists to answer the Interior (Department) scientists,” House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, said last week.

The $2 million is also to be used for a national public relations campaign to promote the findings of the conference.

Critics say it’s a waste of state money because all the hard scientific research points in the other direction.

“This truly is the conference to nowhere,” said University of Alaska researcher Rick Steiner, who has pressed the Palin administration unsuccessfully for five months to release any scientific backup for its position opposing the federal polar bear listing.

The time for debate is over, especially when the opposition is using “junk science,” said Melanie Duchin with Greenpeace in Alaska. “This is clearly the same sort of ‘question, deny and delay’ tactic used by Exxon Mobil and the Bush administration to confuse the public over the severity of global warming and stall any meaningful action to deal with the problem.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/05/8731/

[zbdent]

1. Only $2 million?

that shouldn't buy too many sane-sounding scientists willing to throw their credibility away for some short term gas money ...