The Lewandowsky mess

Skeptic blogs have been having a field day with the ridiculous survey and "academic study" by Australian social science prof named Lewandowsky.  Examples here and here.  Russell Cook makes a good point that doesn't get enough notice.  At the summary of his post he writes:

It is eerily too easy to spot Ross Gelbspan’s associations with practically any given person who claims skeptic scientists are corrupt.

And Gelbspan, as I’ve pointed out earlier, has never proven he has any evidence to support his accusation that skeptic scientists are paid to manufacture doubt about man-caused global warming.

It certainly appears that what we have instead is around two decades of efforts by enviro-activists to manufacture doubt about the credibility of the skeptics. So, how many more attempts to smear skeptics can be thrown on this pile before the whole thing collapses?

It is axiomatic that alarmists like Mikey Mann will claim that vast sums are spent by evil fossil fuel companies to corrupt the science and the debate.  They've never produced any evidence to support their claims, but they aren't in the habit of providing evidence for much of anything they claim.