Generally, you can find the most progressive people in America's universities, especially in the science departments. This is not always the case, particularly in a Red State like Arizona, at its largest university, ASU. It appears that this is just one of the many targets of the Koch Brothers to alter the reality of fossil-fuel pollution by taking over America's Universities. ASU's director of Climatology director of the MAS-GIS program. is a well-financed man-made climate change denier, Professor Robert C. Balling.
Balling is the author of many books on the 'hoax' of man-made climate change such as The Heated Debate: greenhouse predictions versus climate reality and The Satanic Gases: clearing the air about global warming, funded by the Cato Institute, 2000. It is not terribly surprising that this man exists, but what's troubling is that he's in charge of a department at a large university while being antithetical to science education. Balling signed the Leipzig Declaration in 1995 which means he does not support the Kyoto Protocol. Think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, The Heartland Institute, and Australia's Institute for Public Affairs called them "noted scientists."
Where this man has garnered funds for his 'research' reads like a who's who in high pollution corporations.
According to Harper's, Balling has received more than $200,000 from coal and oil interests over the past six years. Specific incidences include significant levels of funding since 1989 from the Kuwaiti government, foreign coal and mining corporations and Cyprus Minerals Company (totaling $72,554). (Kuwait has opposed the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The Kuwaiti government paid for a release of Balling's "A Heated Debate" in the Middle East, a project originally funded by the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science granted Balling $48,993 and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research granted him an undisclosed amount. British Coal Corporation gave him a total of $103,544 and the German Coal Mining Association gave him $81,780 in two separate grants. (Ozone Action, NCPPR directory)
Not all professors at this school are drinking the Koch Kool Aid. For example, there's Billie L. Turner II, an environmental professor who disparages evil climate-change science-deniers, especially those who worked in the Bush Administration. His accomplishments in his fields of study are very impressive, so we can't write off the whole university just yet.
Plus the ASU Physics Department has the unparalleled Lawrence Krauss, the physicist who partnered with Richard Dawkins to make the film, The Unbelievers. He wants to take all the 'god' out of our discussion on evolution by explaining how something CAN come from nothing.
Seriously, there shouldn't be science-deniers in charge of the science of the climate and geographic MIS at a school like ASU. Arizona State receives billions of dollars in research grants, especially their engineering and science departments. Can we put money to good use on science that is not considered 'junk science' please?
