Just yesterday I weighed in on the recent global warming report and today I saw something that makes me believe the "oil cartels" must be getting a bit nervous. A thinktank funded by ExxonMobil offered scientists travel expenses, $10,000, and "additional payments" to poke holes in the report. To anyone who has been paying attention it shouldn't surprise you that the thinktank has close ties to the Bush administration. In fact, according to Ben Stewart of Greenpeace:

"The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

I wonder if this will really help get people, particularly in the US, to change their lifestyles a bit and help out. Or, at the very least, convince people that a Manhattan-type project is necessary to fuel new energy research. Having worked a bit in alternative energy systems I'm thoroughly convinced that we can move past the fossil-fuel age if we're prepared to do so. It just takes people actually doing it as a whole. I think the consequences of not doing so have been pretty well laid out, so no one can say they didn't know what was coming in the future if changes aren't made.