Money talks in the global warming debate

I think one has to be in the right frame of mind to get a laugh out of Dan Riehl's fascinating coda to the global warming debate. But after spending the weekend immersed in the grim implications of Vladimir Putin's speech at the Munich security conference (see the following Pundita post), I consider the pay-per-scientific opinion machinations to be comic relief. Of course it's not a funny subject:

Amid unfounded and frivolous charges that the Bush administration and the American Enterprise Institute are involved in pay for play science on Global Warming, it seems Theresa Heinz Kerry previously directed an unrestricted cash gift of up to a quarter million dollars to a nuclear scientist become climatologist, now leading the charge of doom-sayers on Global Warming. Additionally, one scientist recently quoted by the New York Times now appears to be disagreeing with his own extensive research and an exclusive preview of a soon to be published research paper from another Harvard scientist raises serious questions about a key item Global Warming proponents have recently enlisted in their cause. [..]

The piece gets even more interesting as it goes along. The clash of opinions on global warming is just why Pundita has been unable to think up policy advice on the matter.