Two well-known American climate sceptics, Michaels and Balling, point out that in all highly developed economies science if a government activity. There is insufficient gain for individuals or specific industries to provide the massive amounts of funding comprehensive studies of issues such as global climate change require. When government funds science, however, the research process becomes inextricably mixed in the political one. Science requires a lot of money and, in the public sphere, large amounts of dollars do not appear without political support. So an issue must become politicized for major research funding to materialize.

In the past 15 years total American federal outlay on global climate change research has ballooned from a few million dollars to more than $4billion. Much of the increase was initiated by vice president Al Gore, who took a keen interest in global warming. He stated for instance that global warming should be NASA s No. 1 scientific priority . In his book, Earth in the Balance , Gore clarified his broader environmental agenda:

We are now engaged in an epic battle to right the balance of our earth, and the tide of this battle will turn only when the majority of the people in the world become sufficiently aroused by a shared sense of urgent danger to join an all-out effort.

As Michaels and Balling explain, research requires money, and if the chosen career is climatology, there is only one real provider, the federal government. Scientific careers are dependent...