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The author, Robert M Carter argues against Anthropogenic Global Warning and his book is called Climate: the counter consensus. In it he makes two related claims: that the cumulative funding on climate research bureaucracy and advocacy by western governments exceeds $100 billion and the current rate of spending is in excess of $10 billion per year. In his words (I'd quote the page but I can't fathom how to extract it from my Mac Kindle app):

...global warming alarmism is fuelled by an estimated worldwide expenditure on related research and greenhouse bureaucracy of more than US$10 billion annually.

and

...an estimated expenditure since 1990 of around $100 billion ($79 billion in the USA alone)...

Have western governments spent $100bn on climate change and are they spending $10bn a year?

Sklivvz
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matt_black
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    "related research and greenhouse bureaucracy" seems like a pretty vague term, and therefore probably impossible to verify without additional source information. Furthermore, that $100bn number, as I read it, could go for funding on both sides of the debate, making it an even less interesting claim, IMO. – Flimzy May 08 '12 at 02:38
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    That’s comparing apples and oranges: on the one hand, we’ve got cost of lobbyism (like the Unabomber posters … what a hoot’n a half!) and on the other hand research, spanning decades. That said, yes, this number seems prohibitively large, and I’d be interested in finding out whether it’s true, and if so, what it’s composed of. – Konrad Rudolph May 08 '12 at 08:41
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    @Flimzy The term is not so much *vague* as deliberately *pejorative*. But the claim is clear: government spending on activity related to climate change is large. There should be good public sources accounting for most of that spend. – matt_black May 08 '12 at 10:08
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    @matt_black I understand that authors need to make a living by selling books, but the only reason I would pick up a climate change denial book is to look at the references in the back of the book. Non-fiction authors should cite their references publicly so their obvious FUD claims can be exposed for what they are. – maple_shaft May 08 '12 at 11:13
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    This is going to be impossible to analyze unless we know where Carter claims to get his figures from. Can you quote us whatever reference (if any) he uses for these figures? – DJClayworth May 08 '12 at 13:10
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    $100 billion over 20 years isn't really that absurd of a figure. – Ryathal May 08 '12 at 14:26
  • @Ryathal You may be right, but I'd like to see some reliable estimates all the same. – matt_black May 08 '12 at 15:56
  • @ maple_shaft I'd check the references for mainstream climate books as well and check what they leave out. Michael Mann lost a lot of brownie points for me in his latest book by using denier-style ad-hominem attacks on everyone who disagrees with him and being an unreliable source for what his better critics actually said. This is not good even if he is on the side of the angels. Also, Carter's book is fairly technical and not (mostly) the sort of malicious rant that devalues the word skeptic. But his reference on public spend is unreliable. – matt_black May 08 '12 at 16:03
  • @matt_black: I don't think the claim is clear at all. What constitutes an activity that is "related" to climate change? – Flimzy May 08 '12 at 17:01
  • Matt, I've simplified your question (pretty majorly). I believe it's now less of a discussion and more addressable by Skeptics. – Sklivvz May 10 '12 at 09:30
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    @Sklivvz I see the point of your changes and I don't have any strong objections. But I think the information excluded did add some relevant context about claims often made about the amount of money spent by climate skeptics opposing the consensus (an argument often used in rhetoric by people Like Mann). Perhaps such context is better in comments, though. – matt_black May 10 '12 at 11:50
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    @Flimzy You are right that the boundary is a little unclear, but there are some big categories that should be unambiguous. Money going on climate research is clear, money going to the IPCC is clear and, at least in some countries, governments have paid for publicity campaigns specifically on the topic of climate change. I'd settle for a clear itemisation of the big and unambiguous spending categories. – matt_black May 10 '12 at 23:15
  • @matt_black: That sounds much more reasonable to me. – Flimzy May 10 '12 at 23:20
  • Those figures [$100B/$79B] seem remarkably similar to [this claim by Nova/SPPI](http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/accusations-that-climate-science-is-money-driven-reveal-ignorance-of-how-science-is-done/), which is at least sourced, though delusional. – Craig Stuntz May 25 '12 at 19:49
  • @CraigStuntz That looks like the basis of an answer. I'd say a critical analysis of those numbers would get a vote or two as a good analysis. PS I suspect this may be the original source, which would merit double points if they were available. – matt_black May 26 '12 at 00:58
  • That SPPI report ( http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf ) just covers spending in the US alone, which it says reached $7B/year by 2009. Which makes $10B/year for the *entire world* quite plausible, but it'd still be nice to have specific numeric estimates on spending in Europe/Canada/Australia. – glenra Jun 05 '13 at 15:48

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