Actually, it's not the slightest bit hard: > Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one

Actually, it's not the slightest bit hard: > Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s. Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870393940457456... There is no rational way one can claim that dramatizing your findings doesn't increase your exposure and make you more likely to get grants, and there's no rational way to claim that scientists don't really, really want grants. There's also no reason to believe scientists/policy promoters aren't just as passionate about their goals as Exxon executives are about theirs. And, no, scientists' chief goals are not the clear and unvarnished pursuit of truth. Scientists are people who want to be recognized for the amazing truths they've uncovered. If, after 30 years, you find that the evidence of your research does not support any significant insights into public policy, then a scientist, like any other person, will feel that their life has been wasted. Worse still is when the expectation has been set up, by 30 years of press and publicity, that their studies did matter and were of the most urgent importance. Losing that would be almost impossible to endure. And there's zero reason to believe scientists are able to endure this more than anyone else. (It would be amazing if scientists had the ability to say "Hey, this path didn't lead anywhere, but I contributed to our understanding of the world by cutting off these possibilities". Sadly, scientists are human just like the rest of us. Science is the worst way to apprehend the world, except for all the others.) Remember, no one is claiming that climate scientists are in a conspiracy to trick people into thinking there is global warming when they don't think there really is. That is a pure straw man by pro-AGW folks. What many people do feel is that numerous factors, including the natural vanity, zeal, and self-importance of the small community of climate scientists, are causing them to overstate their findings.