What % of Earth Science professors have ties to the oil/gas industry?

[Simfish]

My impression is that very few of them do in my department. In fact, these days, it seems that many Earth scientists are often the most vocal environmentalists.

But were they more common in the past? Was there ever significant conflict between Earth scientists due to this?

 

[darksociety]

My impression is that very few of them do in my department. In fact, these days, it seems that many Earth scientists are often the most vocal environmentalists.

But were they more common in the past? Was there ever significant conflict between Earth scientists due to this?

In Canada, at least, there are significant formal and informal partnerships between industry, academia, and government.

It's not also really a problem since all parties are interesting in getting the most accurate result - better research equals better economic opportunities. My own thesis was on a gold property featuring significant support from the company that owned it and the provincial survey. At no point was the science ever influenced to come to one conclusion or another, beyond what the data told us. In the end I came to a pretty grim conclusion about the deposit, and it's up to the company now what they want to do with it.

 

[DrClapeyron]

Depends on what they research. Some one who studies baslatic moon rocks will probably have very few ties to the oil industry where as someone studying formation hydrodynamics using seismic strat will obviously have funding coming through an oil company.

By the way, I hated the fact that my school's department was called "Earth and Atmospheric Sciences". Obviously not all geoscientists study the Earth, and I can't understand why someone would think the atmosphere is not part of the Earth. Is it the moon's atmosphere?