I have noticed a surprising number of climate sceptics on things like facebook and Yahoo Answers. Now, the surprise is not that some exist, but that so many are vehemently opposed to any suggestion that there is even the slightest possibility that we are altering the climate. Most don't even admit that there is any climate alteration in the first place - a flurry of snow anywhere on the globe is, to them, enough to show that Global Warming is a fantasy.

Now, from the general tone, language and references of these violent sceptics it is apparent that most come from the US of A and nearly all of those talk about misinformation and manipulation by liberals and left-wingers in an attempt to take over government & business. They seem to think there is a massive, organised conspiracy to falsify scientific data and rob them of all that is rightly theirs; and since most scientists are long-haired commy weirdos, they are in on it too.

I don't know if it is fair, but the mental image I get from their posts is of big, burly men in plaid shirts, carrying large knobbly guns and spitting torrents of tobacco. I often hear banjo music too.
ooof - shivers down the spine!

Perhaps is has something to do with the capitalist, consumer philosophy that current economic wisdom is based on. This has been pioneered by the US over the last 100 years or so and exported to much of the world with an almost religious zeal. It seems to represent, for some people, the essence of being American and the American Dream.

To accept the 'green' message is to accept that classical consumer capitalism is wrong: you cannot live a truly sustainable lifestyle in a system that demands constant expansion and therefore an ever-increasing drain on resources. It is like pyramid selling, which is well documented as making a few people very wealthy before collapsing. So for those people that feel the current economic situation is a core part of their American identity, telling them to plant a few veg in their yard is tantamount to treason or heresy

the Guardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/mar/09/denial-climate-change-psychologyhas a good article about the psychology of climate denial and why it is still so prevalent, although it doesn't go into the whole sister-marrying banjo thing.