I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends. Good night.

— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) May 20, 2014

That was Pat, probably after a couple of drinks.

It's kind of hard to understand how Pat links those who acknowledge climate change as fact to racism, and nowhere has Pat managed to make that link.  I guess he's trying to ruffle feathers like a 16-year-old Internet troll.

But Pat's notion that climate scientists are using global warming alarmism as a means to feather their own nests is common among climate change denialists.

This view seems to be based on the idea that there is an immense amount of grant money available to scientists who perpetuate the "hoax," that this grant money makes these scientists rich, and that this incredibly corrupt and dishonest group of people has decided that this is a more lucrative path than, say, convincing the billionaire Koch brothers, who have spent a lot of money supporting climate change denialism, to put them on their payroll to take the opposite position.

This is an unlikely scenario. It isn't clear just what the financial interest would be in supporting this supposed hoax science. Perhaps Big Solar is behind it all, but it strains credulity to imagine that Big Solar has more sway — and more financial resources — than Big Oil in this policy debate. As author Scott Westerfeld quipped, "Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies." I suppose it could be true.

That the scientists are likely honest and as correct as they can be about the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its likely impact on global temperatures admittedly does not lead automatically to specific policy conclusions. Perhaps any realistic policies to reverse the warming trend, especially absent global coordination, will be too costly with little chance of success. Maybe it's just too late.

But either way, Pat Sajak is kind of a dick.