Why do Republicans so easily attribute despicable motives to climate scientists? [View all]

[Jackpine Radical]

Why do they assume that 98% of climate scientists are engaged in some great conspiracy to perpetrate a massive hoax on the world?

The answer is fundamentally simple, I think. They're projecting their own lack of conscience and greedy natures onto others. They find this easy to do because, being themselves bereft of compassion, empathy, concern for the universe outside themselves, and a love of objective knowledge, they cannot understand how others might be thus motivated. Humanitarianism is for suckers. Since scientists are presumably too smart to be suckers, they must be driven by base and self-serving motives.