Cal Thomas: Scientists 'Can't Get the Grants if They Don't Toe the Line' on Climate Change

While it is not uncommon to see those who are climate change skeptics challenged in the media for having a pro-business financial interest in voicing their views, on Saturday's Fox News Watch, conservative columnist and regular panel member Cal Thomas made an observation that cuts in the opposite direction rarely given attention in the mainstream media -- that there are financial incentives that can also pressure scientists to voice agreement with the climate change theory that blames human activity for affecting climate patterns.

After panel member Judith Miller argued that Climategate should have inspired more public debate among scientists -- which could then have been covered by the media -- Thomas responded:

Well, one of the reasons it didn’t happen, of course, is because of the oppression of much scientific opinion. I’ve talked to scientists who say they can’t get the grants if they don’t toe the line. And many in the media don’t ask those kinds of questions, and so they feel, you know, shut out and shut up.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Saturday, December 12, Fox News Watch on FNC:

JON SCOTT: Which brings us back, Judy, to the Climategate memos. I mean, that didn’t get a whole lot of coverage.

JUDITH MILLER: No, it didn’t. And it was covered here, it was covered in other media that were connected with, were associated with being, kind of, climate change deniers, but the people who should have been looking at it, there should have been a really fervent debate within the scientific community that we could have covered as journalists, and that really didn’t happen.

CAL THOMAS: Well, one of the reasons it didn’t happen, of course, is because of the oppression of much scientific opinion. I’ve talked to scientists who say they can’t get the grants if they don’t toe the line. And many in the media don’t ask those kinds of questions, and so they feel, you know, shut out and shut up.