So one idea propagated by denials like Patrick Moore, is that climate change researchers are just lying or exaggerating the climate threat so they can get more funds for more research.
This argument seems to open up a Pandora's box. After all, if climate scientists are doing this then surely it must happen with others. Could AIDs researchers be lying about the threat of HIV some they can get more funding. Heck, any time scientists suggest that something is a health/environmental problem, they must be treated with suspicion.
"You can't trust anyone now a days- and that's the truth!"
Frankly I think these accusations are just a cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion and that most of the individuals hurling them don't even believe them. Those few who do probably are so greedy themselves that they can't understand that there are many people, not only scientists, who have higher motives than money.
Some of the key points as I see them are:
1. Grants seldom alter the personal income of scientists. The many scientists in "hard money" positions have their salaries determined and paid by their institution. They do not get paid more if they get a grant. Grant money does not go into their own pocketbook but goes instead to pay for supplies, equipment, the salaries of their helpers. etc. Some scientists are in "soft money" positions which exist only if they get a grant. But even here one grant usually maxes out their institution-mandated salary and they do not receive any more personal money if they get additional grant funding.
2. Lying to get more grants to do more research to publish more lies makes no sense at all. What would be the point? Obviously scientists want to do science, and that usually means getting grant money to pay for supplies, equipment, the salaries of their helpers. etc. However, doing science means at a very fundamental level finding out the truth. There are exceptions,
but in the 40 years I've been in science easily over 95% of the scientists I've met do science to find the truth. Most scientists could have become lawyers, or accountants, or bankers, or medical doctors, or politicians for that matter if they simply wished to make money. But they went into science because they were curious about how things work. To find out the truth is... What on earth would be the point of getting a grant, buying equipment and supplies, hiring helpers, coming to work long hours each day and weekends, sweating through the experiments, supervising others, getting and analyzing the results, and working out the conclusions, if one is then just going to lie about it all? It would be the definition of a useless, meaningless life. Working in Burger King would be far more rewarding.
3. If scientists only cared about money, why wouldn't research denying climate change also pay out? Couldn't they get paid even more by the vast industries and wealthy people who would fund them to conclude that there is no human-initiated climate change?
The last point is what I find most amazing about these accusations: the accusers are saying that scientists are willing to sacrifice their integrity and honor for the relatively minute amount of money that they can obtain in grants to study climate change, and presume that they would only get grants if they confirm that climate change is happening. But these same accusers instead trust the large companies and wealthy individuals whose huge profits, and personal income of their management, depend to a significant degree on denying human-mediated climate change.
Bottom line in these accusations: you can't trust scientists. But you can trust Exxon and the Koch brothers. Sure.
