Reflections on burgess: Conflicts of interest, institutional neutrality, and democratic accountability

The politicization of scientific institutions and the resulting loss of public trust undermine the potential role of science as an enabler of democratic accountability. This comment extends Burgess's characterization of politicized scientific institutions by describing how research conflicts of interest in climate science created synchrony between political advocacy and business interests. Collegial tolerance of these open-secret conflicts suggests that ideological cohesion shapes judgments of professional conduct, not only of research findings. As a consequence, the climate risk financial regime is brittle and heavily dependent on political power to shore up assumptions, while the same insularity has shielded from scrutiny advocacy that has possible national security implications.