[viggity]

Directly it may only be in the millions, but think about how many research assistants that they've had, plus all of their computer equipment, plus the money it takes for their offices/labs, plus the conferences they go to. Billions might be off, but tens or hundreds of millions seems reasonable.

I also think the author is grouping in a lot of extra climate scientists in with this group, which isn't technically fair but I personally don't think it is so unreasonable to think that this is a somewhat common practice in any collegiate research (let alone climate research). You can't get grant money if you don't show results. I think the one area where you'd have less of this influence is academic medical research - because double blind studies is a standard practice in that field.

[tome]

You can hardly accuse people of the theft of millions or billions if what they've done with it is buy research equipment and fund conferences.

They've appropriated it for their own ends, sure. But that's what academia everywhere does without having to give much of a justification.

[dantheman]

If you lie/commit fraud to receive something it's theft. If they data was honestly misinterpreted then of course it's not, it's just a mistake. Also, this has nothing to do with current case, I haven't looked at it so I don't know what they did or did not do.