“The funding of an array of think tanks and institutes that house climate skeptics and deniers also worried Britain’s premier scientific body, the Royal Society. It found that in 2005 Exxon distributed nearly $3 million to 39 groups that ‘misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving climate change.’ It asked Exxon to stop the funding and its protests helped force Exxon’s recent retreat….

In his recent book Heat, George Monbiot gives the example of the TV presenter and botanist, David Bellamy, who is also a climate skeptic. He told the New Scientist in 2005 that most glaciers in the world are growing, not shrinking. He said his evidence came from the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland, a reputable body. When Monbiot checked the service they said that the Bellamy claim was ‘complete bullshit.’ Glaciers are retreating….

But perhaps the oil companies’ PR campaign is not the main reason for the success of the climate change deniers. There are at least three others. First, the implications of the science are frightening. Shifting to renewable energy will be costly and disruptive. Second, doubt is an easy product to sell. Climate denial tells us what we all secretly want to hear. Third, science is portrayed by the free market right as a political ‘orthodoxy’ rather than objective knowledge….

The tide slowly turned on tobacco denial and the science was accepted in the end. But climate is different. There are no ’smoke-free areas’ on the planet. Climate denial may turn out to be the world’s most deadly PR campaign.”

– David McKnight
August 2, 2008

“Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.

… CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

– Dr. James E. Hansen
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
June 23, 2008

National Academy of Sciences
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
British Royal Society
British Meteorological Office

And there are dozens more.

The claim that a few wing-nut skeptics know more than these prestigious organizations is only part of an ideological belief system, not science.

FOR MORE INFORMATION –

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here