The thing that I question is why is this requirement for this fiscal balancing only required for giving money to poor people? In 2018, the US Government added $2 trillion to the US national debt to give a 5k/capita/year subsidy to the top 5% of earners.
If we're already in the business of chucking money at people in fiscally irresponsible ways, I don't see why changing the target from "rich people" or "oil companies" to "everyone" is suddenly a problem.
> I think climate change is a problem (not a crisis) but it's important to note that if a scientist questions climate science, he becomes a pariah.
People who have never done science really like this idea of the general scientific community being some sort of secret society that agrees to support eachothers ideas.
If you put 5 scientists in a room, you can't get them to agree on >anything<. The idea that disagreement is enough to get you outcast from "science" is complete nonsense.
I know scientists who are climate change skeptics. However, what gets published ("the consensus") isn't the same as "what scientists think".
This isn't only true in science, it's true in virtually all parts of human societies. It's hard to go against the grain and you're naive if you think doing so doesn't blight careers.
Well for one thing it's a waste of time to work on research that won't advance your career.
Also, I'm not saying "heterodox scientists have secret, bulletproof analyses to disprove climate change," I'm saying that there are significant incentives against publishing climate-crisis-skeptical research. I'm unsure how anyone can disagree with that. Acknowledging it doesn't mean denying climate change is real or accepting that its risks are exaggerated.
This is a pretty serious misunderstanding of the claim you're responding to. It's not that scientists in general agree about everything in general. It's that certain hot button issues become politicized in such a way that prevents real scientific skepticism / decent on those subjects in particular.
