El Opinador Compulsivo

La segunda parte del artículo de Thomas Sowell que publiqué ayer. Si un experto recibe fondos de compañías privadas para estudiar y prepara informes sobre el “calentamiento global” y el cambio climático”, están vendidos a los viles intereses de las petroleras y el lobby de los que están destruyendo el medioambiente. En cambio, si reciben fondos públicos y de organismos ambientalistas, son perfectamente honestos y balanceados:

It is a classic notion on the left in general, and of environmentalist zealots in particular, that no one can disagree with them unless they are either uninformed or dishonest. Here they dispose of scientists who are skeptical of the global warming hysteria by depicting them as being bribed by lobbyists for the oil companies.

While such charges may be enough for crusading zealots to wrap themselves ever more tightly in the mantle of virtue, some of us are still old-fashioned enough to want to know the actual facts.

In this case, the fact is that the American Enterprise Institute -- a think tank, not a lobbyist -- did what all kinds of think tanks do, all across the political spectrum, all across the country, and all around the world.

AEI has planned a roundtable discussion of global warming, attended by people with differing views on the subject. That was their fundamental sin, in the eyes of the global warming crowd. They treated this as an issue, rather than a dogma.

Like liberal, conservative, and other think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute pays people who do the work of preparing scholarly papers for presentation at its roundtables. Ten thousand dollars is not an unusual amount and many have received more from other think tanks for similar work.