He sounded awesome there! I'm thinking of buying tickets to the Dusseldorf show, which is only an hour and 40 minutes from where I live. Tickets still available, at 110 euros a piece. It's also the last stop of the European tour, so perhaps they'll give it their best.

But climate change deniers are worse. Truthers and birthers don't have to ignore tons and tons of science in order to believe their bullcrap stories, they "simply" have to not believe the government (ignoring that there's no credible motive nor is it fathomable how so many people could be in on the respective conspiracies). Climate change deniers have to argue against the sort of basic statistics even a high schooler can put together.

Bernie has disavowed people acting violently at his or others' rallies, they are not 'Bernie People' and definitely not "The Bernie People", as there is no such thing. I have yet to hear Bernie say "knock the crap out of those protesters" to an audience of thousands, but guess who did?

That's mostly true for Europe, but the fossil fuel lobby in the US is tremendously influential, with the Koch brothers being one of the largest campaign contributors around (and Koch Industries of course being a major fossil fuel corporation).

I would've expected that to be true as well, and was ready to agree that financial institutions generally have the greatest influence over economic policy. But I looked it up, and it turns out, however, that electronics and telecommunication (again, talking about the US specifically) are actually the biggest lobbyists, followed by the pharmaceutical industry and only then do the banks and insurance companies come in.
Having said that, what are you basing that second part on? It comes across as total speculation on their motives, and I see absolutely nothing that would support that idea.

You could argue that there are more public grants for studies that confirm man made climate change, but it's undeniable that nearly all of the studies that deny climate change are funded by groups that stand to benefit from climate change denial. So I would say that it is likely easier to get (private) funding for a study that denies climate change than it would be to be one of the many, many studies fishing for a chunk of public or private funding.

The scientific method consists of a number of steps. Starting from the the definition of the question, over doing historical and background research to building a hypothesis in the first phase. In the second phase the hypothesis needs to be tested, which can be done in a number of ways. You could build an experimental setup that mimics the proces as outlined in the hypothesis, typically on a smaller scale; or alternative, you can test the predictive qualities of your hypothesis. Given that climate effects can't really be scaled down, climate change studies tend to focus on the latter.
Climate change is most definitely science.

What I don't understand is what would motivate the political class to push a climate change agenda. It almost certainly implies more subsidies and funding, negative economic impact and often a negative perception from a large section of voters. I don't think any government on earth is eager to spend more money on something that will empirically and noticeably have a negative impact on the immediate perceived quality of life.

How do you go from "because money" to something more defined?

Let's turn that discussion around though, and look at my home country for a minute. We have the second largest petrochemical cluster in the world (Port of Antwerp), second only to the entire state of Texas. The Port of Antwerp is in turn the largest economic center in Belgium. We have a center-right, liberal (as-in politically conservative) government, and overall the country is mostly right leaning and has been for the past three decades or so. In fact, the current government has been accused of following too closely in Tatcher's footsteps as far as economic policy is concerned. Don't you think if there was a reasonable case to be made against man-made climate change that our political class would have everything to gain from pushing that narrative? Yet, we have not a single political party that denies climate change.

I'll buy it if someone tells me that politicians are abusing scientific studies for their own agenda if that agenda would actually be to their own benefit. I don't buy it if you tell me that politicians somehow choose to push a narrative that effectively makes their jobs infinitely harder.

It's interesting to see the instant momentum behind the Libertarian candidate in the most recent polls. If this persists, it'll be curious to see who Johnson will be stealing the most votes from, conservatives or democrats...

If I were forced to make a guess I'd say conservatives are likely to lose more votes to libertarians (especially given that both names on the ticket are ex-conservatives), but I might be underestimating the importance of the religious right (although with a Trump candidacy, I find it hard to see bible belters coming out in droves to support of him).