"Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers"

I recently read that more people in the UK were questioning the science of global warming...

From The Independent - UK:

An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.

The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

Many of these critics have broadcast material from the leaked UEA emails to undermine climate change predictions and to highlight errors in claims that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Last week climate sceptic bloggers broadcast stories casting doubts on scientific data predicting dramatic loss of the Amazon rainforest. All three stories, picked up by mainstream media, questioned the credibility of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and queried the way it does its work. A new attack on climate science, already dubbed "Seagate" by sceptics, relating to claims that more than half the Netherlands is in danger of being submerged under rising sea levels, is likely to be at the centre of the newest skirmish in coming weeks.

The controversies have shaken the IPCC, whose chair, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was last week subjected to a series of personal attacks on his reputation and lifestyle.

A poll this weekend confirmed that public confidence in the climate change consensus has been shaken: one in four Britons – 25 per cent – now says they do not believe in global warming; previously this figure stood at 15 per cent.

Professor Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and former chair of the IPCC, said yesterday that the backlash is the result of a campaign: "It does appear that there's a concerted effort by a number of sceptics to undermine the credibility of the evidence behind human-induced climate change." He added: "I am sure there are some sceptics who may well be funded by the private sector to try and cast uncertainty."

A complicated web of relationships revolves around a number of right-wing think-tanks around the world that dispute the threats of climate change.

ExxonMobil is a key player behind the scenes, having donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past few years to climate change sceptics...

Atlas has supported more than 30 other foreign think-tanks that espouse climate change scepticism, and co-sponsored a meeting of the world's leading climate sceptics in New York last March. Called "Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?", it was organised by the Heartland Institute – a group that described the event as "the world's largest-ever gathering of global warming sceptics." The organisation is another right-wing think-tank to have benefited from funding given by ExxonMobil in recent years.

A large British contingent was present at the event, with speakers including Dr Benny Peiser, from Lord Lawson's climate sceptic think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF); the botanist David Bellamy; Julian Morris and Kendra Okonski from the London-based International Policy Network; the weather forecaster Piers Corbyn; Christopher Monckton, a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher; and Professor David Henderson, a member of GWPF's advisory council.