Ever wonder how some people can still deny global warming [0]? It continues to shock me that deniers still refute climate change, even though most of the scientific community has made it clear that it's real and it's happening.

Newsweek [1]'s [2] latest cover story does an amazing job of exploring the climate change debate—and unfounded reasons that so many Americans either deny that climate change is happening, or insist that they still need further proof.

Titled The Truth About Denial [3], the article fleshes out how global warming [3] came to seem foggy, not fact-based. The minute a scientific study appeared, it was immediately refuted as a half-baked theory.

The reason? Because soon after scientists began to issue warnings, big business and industry groups formed lobbying groups to cast doubt on greenhouse gas facts.

According to Newsweek, the groups—representing petroleum, steel, autos and utilities, among others—planned to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact to sow doubt about climate research just as cigarette makers had about smoking research."

Taking a page from the tobacco industry's playbook, these corporations and organizations—dubbed the Carbon Lobby at WorldChanging.com [4]—paid think tanks and scientists to foster doubt and alternate theories about the issue.

Wow. If it sounds like a fantastic conspiracy theory, then it's one that most of us have witnessed throughout our lives. I find it both chilling and fascinating to discover how the issue has been spun for decades. And it also explains why climate change hasn't been viewed as a geniune threat until recently.

And even now, Newsweek has an online poll about the issue, and a surprising 38 percent (when I checked) still don't believe that climate change is a threat. The good news, though, is that around 60 percent [5] are worried. Hopefully, public opinion is starting to change [5] significantly.

If that happens, a writer at WorldChanging.com [6] noted, then large corporations will soon have to face public pressure to act responsibly and own up to climate change. Not doing so will become economic and political suicide. A corporation that ignores the issue will risk become villified.

One thing seems pretty clear to me: any company or group that has deliberately set out to obscure an issue that affects the planet's survival certainly deserves to be seen as the villian.