It's Big Oil Money!

I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is that annoys me most about the watermelon cry of, “They’re in the pay of big oil!” There’s the deliberate impugning of the source so as to avoid dealing with the argument, which seems par for the course with these people. This generally means that you need to follow-the-money to find people’s motives, yet now ignores the fact that the widest money trail leads straight to billions in government funding for those pursuing the AGW hypothesis. The bureaucrats and rent-a-scientists pulling down nice fat cheques at the IPCC and in government environmental departments aren’t going to suddenly decide that their cash cow needs to visit the abattoir.

However, I think that what annoys me about the “big oil!” claim is the sheer naivety of those making it. They seem to be making the assumption, despite daily evidence to the contrary, that government organizations, whether national or international, should be trusted more than big industries yet, if an industry’s accounts are dodgy they have auditors down on them like a ton of bricks. If the execs get caught massaging expense claims or with their fingers in the till, they get the sack and often end up in prison. Government bodies do what the fuck they like and are not even controlled by the market. Look at that shithouse the EU: twelve years now auditors have refused to sign off the books because of the obvious corruption there. And what happens with the IPCC when it gets caught massaging the figures? Nothing. What happens when it is quite obvious it’s cooking the books? Nothing.

It must be part of the watermelon mindset. They’re statists and believe everything will be fine when the state controls everything, when the socialist utopia has come. And it probably will come, a step at a time, each step a good intention.