[quote=Phaedrus] Follow the money? Are you saying that in jest? ...... just who do you think can really afford the bribery?[quote]

This type of fraud is not confined to climate 'research'. Since you mentioned the fast food industry, here's one that they would have loved if big tobacco and big agra hadn't already covered it. Big tobacco used 'science' for 40 years to ward off responsibility for nicotine addiction and lung cancer.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15783

We could do this all day. The simple answer to why there are constant conflicting 'studies' about everything, is that 'science' isn't pure as long as scientists have to scrounge for grant money, or please a funding entity such as a college or government agency.

Look to nature for the answer. Hiking on a 350' hill in Red Wing, MN overlooking the miles wide valley of the ancient glacial River Warren now occupied by the much smaller Mississippi far below. (an aerial view I borrowed from the web is below) I notice a deposit of fossilized seashells on the outcropping where I sit for a minute. I realize how different the world was not so long ago.

We are like fruit flies on an orange, living out our 3 day life span thinking the orange has always been like it is now, and that it will never change. I admit it's a little unsettling to realize that the Earth and it's climate has always changed and it always will no matter what we do or who we pay.

We will adapt, evolve, or die out as a species.