What is characterized as “the climate change debate” has too often disintegrated into an argument over whether the world’s climate is, indeed, changing, and too seldom featured an informed discussion over what the world’s great powers should be doing about it.

This is a huge credit to those interest groups that have attacked the science behind climate change. Fashioning themselves “scientific skeptics,” these well-funded advocates have struck a righteous pose as debunkers – as guardians against the environmental Chicken Littles who have noticed that the sky, if not falling, is moving around in an unsettling way.

They are not using science; they’re using a toxic concoction of public relations stunts.

These are not debunkers, testing outrageous claims with scientific rigor. They are deniers, shouting against a truth that they find economically unpalatable. They are not using science; they’re using a toxic concoction of public relations stunts of which any good PR professional should be ashamed.

But don’t take our word for it. Check out the best sites.

Here’s a list of choices, beginning with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – unquestionably the most reputable selection of real climate scientists in the world. The first group lays out the case for caution. The second group would throw caution to the warming wind. Read with interest and always consider motive.

Ask yourself two questions:

1. Why would 2,000 of the world’s top academics and meteorologists cook up a climate conspiracy? (And how do they make all those hurricanes?)
2. What have oil companies got to gain from denying there’s a problem?

And if you have difficulty making the link between the deniers and the oil companies, see www.sourcewatch.org.

Three sites we believe:

1. IPCC (UN)
   

   “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by
   WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. It is open to all Members of the UN and of WMO.”

2. The World Meteorological Organization (UN)
   

   “The UN system’s authoritative voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth’s atmosphere, its interaction with the oceans, the climate it produces and the resulting distribution of water resources.”

3. BBC News: In depth – Global warning?

A den of deniers:

1. Global Warming.org
2. Sovereignty International
3. Frontiers of Freedom
4. The George C. Marshall Institute