bibixii929

There's little reason to believe many high-profile climate deniers are acting in good faith, especially those employed by think tanks and other PR organisations.

As the questions are political, you need rhetoric. As unfortunately as it may be, it should be obvious by now to everyone following politics that being "polite" is not a winning recipe in the game.

> And indeed, the "climate-change denial" campaign is basically a clone of that.

It is interesting to note that not only is the campaign a clone, but it is in part headed by the same people [1] who were involved in the tobacco business.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

I imagine the blog post already assumes some familiarity with the people concerned, as this particular circus with arguing about global warming has been going on for a long time by now.

Most likely it is meant to imply that scientists have retreated from saying "global warming" exists. This is of course false, and that's why it's a dogwhistle and not said directly.

I've given up checking the manuscript proofs, it's a waste of time. The real paper as it was intended is available on arXiv.

Universities and foundations, etc.

https://arxiv.org/help/support/faq#2B

https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/arxivpub/arXiv+Budget...

That does not speak well of the publisher. Of course with Elsevier, just add it to the pile...

Sure, authors can suggest reviewers, but the editor cannot always assume the list is reasonable. This is one of the things where a good editor with understanding of the field can in principle "add some value".

A role not mentioned above is the editor.

By this I don't mean a copy editor, but the person who decides who to send the manuscript for review, and makes the decisions on whether the manuscript is rejected, accepted, or more review is needed. Doing this job properly basically requires a researcher with experience in the field the journal is about.

It appears there are many journals where no editor is employed full-time by the publisher. If all of them are unpaid, then indeed the journal operation should be cheap.

There are however some journals (iirc Nature and APS journals are like this) with professional editors employed by the publisher.

If things go as they should, PhD may not be a bad deal at all.

It's also useful to note that the money and working condition issues are country and field dependent. For instance, in many European countries PhD students in many STEM and also humanities fields are most often employed full-time with standard work contract(s), with OK salary (but less than in industry), and full benefits with excessive unpaid overtime in principle forbidden, small or no tuition, etc.

The situation with academic career prospects after PhD as I understand however is that situation is similar to US everywhere, and going eventually gets tough after that point, and most people are culled before finding a "permanent" position.

That is a very field-dependent experience, and probably unusual even in your field. In many STEM fields, there is essentially zero chance of obtaining a TT position directly after PhD.