On Tuesday, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers accused climate scientists of corruption, saying that because they “work for the government,” they could lose their jobs if they didn’t say man-made global warming was real. In an interview with CNN’s Ali “Clean Coal” Velshi, Myers responded to a New York Times article that television meteorologists widely believe that man-made global warming is a hoax, in stark contrast to actual climate scientists. After admitting that “man has a lot to do with” the rising global temperatures, Myers went on the attack:

I also think it has something to do — follow the money a little bit. Meteorologists aren’t paid by the government, the ones on TV, the climatologists are. If there’s nothing to talk about, will their jobs really be all that secure? So, follow the money a little bit, I think you’ll find 10% and 15% and every little corner has to do with it.

Watch it:

Myers’ implication of a widespread conspiracy to doctor science for cash seems odd, coming from someone who almost without doubt makes considerably more money than any climate scientist on the planet. The television industry — unlike scientific research — is driven by pursuit of controversy, not accuracy. Myers, who has a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from the University of Nebraska, had been a denier of man-made global warming as recently as 2008, telling Lou Dobbs, “To think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant.”

Myers also raised two other classic canards of climate conspiracy theorists — that the sun is responsible for global warming and that climatological models can’t be accurate if meteorological models aren’t. Rather than retreading the reasons those are debunked fallacies, I’ll just direct you to SkepticalScience.com (“It’s the sun” and “Scientists can’t even predict weather“).

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Employers in the U.S. created more jobs in March than at any time in the past three years, showing the recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s is broadening and becoming more entrenched.

That’s Bloomberg reporting on new data from the Labor Department, which showed that “payrolls rose by 162,000 workers, the third gain in the past five months.”

Since bad economic news would certainly be bad for a climate bill, this must be seen as good news.   I have repeatedly written about studies showing how clean energy legislation will create 1.7 million jobs and opportunities for low-income families, including lower energy bills.  And Nobel prize-winning NYT columnist Paul Krugman has explained why climate action “now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump” by giving “businesses a reason to invest in new equipment and facilities.”

But the conventional wisdom, or rather, the conventional ignorance, is that a climate bill will hurt jobs and the economy — even though that isn’t what the public believes, as many recent polls make clear:

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This week we learned that Koch Industries outspends Exxon Mobil on climate and clean energy disinformation.  And we saw that a Smithsonian exhibit funded by David Koch whitewashes the danger of human-caused climate change.

Yet this is but the latest effort in a nearly quarter-century effort to misinform the public by the billionaire polluter, as Lee Fang reveals in this Wonk Room repost.

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Q1 CleanTech Investments soar 83% from Q1-09

In another sign of a rebound for green technology, global investors poured $1.9 billion into green tech startups in the first three months of the year, up 29 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 and an 83 percent rise from the year-ago quarter, according to a report released Wednesday by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte.

“The bounce back in venture investment from lows in early 2009 has continued, with the first three months of 2010 representing the strongest start to a year we have ever recorded,” Sheeraz Haji, president of Cleantech Group, said in a statement.

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Let’s start with Toles [send me links to any others you see]:

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