Rather than following the money (which is both easy and logically useless), try refuting the arguments (which is both difficult and logically useful).

There are climate change sceptics who believe, in all honesty, that if there is any change then it does not result from human activity. Whilst some within this group are scientists they are usually from disciplines other than climatology or oceanography. Do you go to a doctor of climatology when you are ill? The scientific discipline is all important; many of the most vocal climate change deniers loudly proclaim that they are Doctors but fail to mention that their doctorate is in economics.

Then there are the other denial people who, in one way or another, derive income from the oil or coal industries. The Cato Institute, for whom Professor Lindzen writes, was founded in 1977 by Edward Crane and Charles Koch, the billionaire co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held oil company in the U.S. Sometimes you have to trace back a little; primary funding comes from an organisation that is itself funded by oil or coal. These links do not prove inaccuracy but they do suggest that those views should be regarded with extreme caution. For the latest science, one of the best websites is that of Real Climate, written by a number of climatologists from around the world, at http://www.realclimate.org/. This represents the arguments fairly clearly.

The problem with sequestration of carbon dioxide through tree planting is that trees don’t live for ever and land available for planting is limited by our need to grow food. In any case, the anthropomorphic addition of carbon dioxide arises from the release of carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago. Much of this was sequestered when the Earth’s climate was a great deal warmer that today, when sea levels were very much higher and long before human beings appeared. These are not conditions that we should reproduce.

However, the real issue is that energy use growth is outstripping production. Many argue that renewable energy cannot satisfy demand: it’s a strange and illogical argument for what do we do when they are all that we have left? Recently a Chinese state energy organisation stated that they needed renewables because there was not sufficient oil, gas and coal to satisfy demand. Surely we have to cut demand. We live on a planet with finite resources: that is the bottom line.