Startling, how effective the well-funded climate change denial machine functioned for so many years, and, even now, still functions.  Sharon Begley’s Newsweek article paints the full – not too sunny—picture. Just recently, after the verdict of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the evidence of global warming is “unequivocal” and with a 90% certainty caused by human activities, a conservative think tank funded by ExxonMobil was paid $10,000 to write articles undermining the report.

While climate experts in Japan and Europe have a broad consensus that burning fuels causes climate change, the naysaying lobby in the US has been strong. Undermining science has stalled actual action to reduce emissions. At least eight bills have been introduced in Congress, but their fate is unsure.

By saying “the science isn’t there,” or, “scientists are divided” lobbyists have been killing bills, and keeping the public from demanding concrete action. Although a few of the contesters did empirical research, the confused public didn’t notice, Begley explains. “To most civilians, a scientist is a scientist,” she writes.

The recent frequency of heat waves, floods, downpours and hurricanes, says Begley, “is enough to make you wish that climate change were a hoax, rather than the reality it is.”