[dejb]

> I say profitable because it's hard for contrarians to get grant money as they are generally believed to be 'quacks'.

The energy sector and other carbon emitters would have enough available money to make the government grant money look like small change. Imagine how much it would be worth to them to discredit man made global warming. I'm sure they do fund many of the contrarians one way or another. But the fact that they aren't able to fund reputable research that supports their position really does say something about how quacky the contrarians are regarded as being.

[Padraig]

Indeed. Here's an example of it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagen...

[alexgartrell]

The difference is one is ethically shady (ignoring tree-ring data from 'arguably invalid' time periods), and the other is morally reprehensible (being paid off by corporate goons).