P.J. O'Rourke on government "science"

...you, Mr. President, said that scientific progress "result from painstaking and costly research, from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit, and from a government willing to support that work."

Thus it was that without King George's courtiers winding kite string for Ben Franklin and splitting firewood and flipping eye charts to advance his painstaking and costly research into electricity, stoves, and bifocals, Ben's years of lonely trial and error never would have borne fruit. To this day we would think the bright flash in a stormy summer sky is God having an allergy attack. We would heat our homes by burning piles of pithy sayings from Poor Richard's Almanac in the middle of the floor. And we would stare at our knitting through the bottoms of old Coke bottles.

We'd probably have telephones and light bulbs if President Rutherford B. Hayes (a Republican) had been willing to support the work of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. As you say, Mr. President, "When government fails to make these investments, opportunities are missed." (Although the light bulbs would now have to be replaced by flickering, squiggly fluorescent devices anyway, to reverse global warming.)

Jennifer Marohasy » Economist Reports on Climate Conference in New York

SPAIN has business leakage, California has banned all coal-based electricity, cap and trade creates vested interests in property rights – these are some of the issues economist Alan Moran reports on in his summary of the recent Climate Change Conference in New York.

Dr Moran also notes that scientists at the conference did not agree on whether there is likely to be global warming or cooling in the near future or on the key drivers of climate.