Sallie Baliunas and the Dangers of Think Tanks :: Global Warming

Sallie Baliunas and the Dangers of Think Tanks Public policy makers increasingly rely on the research of think tank scholars to guide their policy decisions. But who checks the accuracy of think tank scholar research? Unlike academic journal publishing, which follows a rigorous system of peer review and editorial oversight, think tanks publish opinion pieces without regard to the peer review process. Their policy publications are not based on pure academics, but on a complex interaction between academic, political, and economic interests. In Washington, there is no time to focus on the academic details. As Eric Altermann points out in his book What Liberal Media?, think tank scholars â€Å"are expected to spend at least as much time networking with reporters and government staffers as on research.†1 Efficient dissemination of information is as important as the information itself in the think tank business of knowledge. Sallie Baliunas of the Marshall Institute fits Altermann’s think tank scholar profile well. Regarding her involvement in the global warming debate, she has spent less time on the scholarship of global warming and more time advocating the idea that it is simply a myth. She is a senior scientist at the Marshall Institute, which supports her writing of articles against the Kyoto treaty (â€Å"Bush right to oppose [Kyoto] treaty†)2 and the promotion of the idea that global warming is a natural process caused by increased radiation from the sun (â€Å"The Sun Also Warms†).3 Though she has published relatively little in academic journals on the issue, articles such as these are numerous in conservative political forums, such as the website TechCentralStation.com, â€Å"where free markets meet technology.†4 Though she is not considered a global warming expert by professional climate scientists, she is oft quoted by the anti-Kyoto folks as the expert voice that pr oves global warming is a hoax (see any article by Charli Coon of the Heritage Foundation5 or by Chris de Freitas6). Her global warming research has been funded, in part, by corporate oil interests. Think Tanks Baliunas’s association with think tanks does not make her scholarship automatically suspect. However, think tanks dwell in the grey area between scholarship and advocacy, and one must ask in which category Baliunas belongs. Think tanks cannot claim to be completely unbiased, because the majority of their funding comes from corporations, whose interests are not usually only academic, but also economic. Baliunas is an â€Å"Enviro-Sci Host† for TechCentralStation.com, a website sponsored by AT&T, ExxonMobil, General Motors Corporation, Intel, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nasdaq, National Semiconductor, PhRMA, and Qualcomm.