Well, your scenario is exactly where you need to start using your real intelligence. Take for instance the conservative claim that climate scientists are just spinning their doomsday scenarios to get those "fat" research checks or to advance some other agenda.
Well, you do realize that claim originated from Frederick Seitz right? He was after all, the former president of the National Academy of Sciences, decorated by NASA and a few other organizations, president of a university and set up and funded a complete lab at another. It's not like that argument was pulled out of thin air and follow the money which is the modern version of it is only the same that was put forward by the AGW crowd and even you somewhat round about in your post. I mean if anyone who is a "denier" is a paid shill, it can work both ways.
This is where you brains are supposed to kick in when you realize that energy companies are willing and able to fund their research in a lavish style that government research simply can't and won't match.
No energy companies sponsored Seitz when he made the claim. Some of the groups that were ran with his quotes but that's nowhere close to what you are implying.
Further, your brains should be able to tell the difference between honest attempts at research vs. simple attempts to delay and undermine research.
Yes, like when the democrats checked to see when the hottest day of the year would be, turned the AC off, did things to make the room hotter, and then scheduled a hearing on global warming? And yes, that is what happened in 1989 James Hansen later said he thought it was perfectly acceptable to exaggerate because he thought the cause made it necessary or some shit like that. (Its been a while since I read the link and it doesn't resolve any more for some reason).
Oh, and I should note that Wirth left politics specifically to take a high dollar job at one of Ted Turner's charities.
So yes, don't trust everything you are told, but use your analytical skills to understand motive and source reliability.
Indeed, if I had the time to find and show the connections between the political solutions to global warming and the scams behind them, some of which is outlined in Al Gore's book earth in the balance where he chastises how the conservatives inveighed against 'atheistic communism', along with the original Kyoto accords and support for groups like Jubilee2000 and it's offshoots
Even more recently, this crap continues to be distorted for political gain.
So yes indeed, do not trust everything you are told. Use your analytical skills to understand motive and source reliability.
Nothing is as clean as you think it might be. Politics has co-opted this subject from the start.