The international global warming report that came out last week confirms that global warming is more serious than we thought and that human activity is probably the reason for it. Of course, there is a lot of money in pollution and the energy industry has a vested interest in fostering doubt where very little doubt remains on this life or death issue.

We know that the energy industry has sponsored reports and studies intended to refute the consensus on global warming. This time around, they're too lazy to write the reports themselves. Instead, they are offering big bucks for an intellectual whore to debunk the widely-accepted report.

A right-wing American think tank is offering 10,000 dollars (7,700 euros) to scientists and economists to dispute a climate change report set to be released by the UN's top scientific panel, media reported. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which receives funding from oil giant ExxonMobil according to the Guardian, sent letters to scientists in the United States, Britain and elsewhere offering the payments in exchange for articles emphasising the shortcoming of the UN's report.

AEI also reportedly offered additional payments, and to reimburse travel expenses.

The report, due to be released Friday in Paris by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), is likely to give a bleak assessment of the damage to the future of the environment.

It is the culmination of four days of debate between more then 500 scientists at a closed-door meeting in Paris, who have been poring over the first review of the scientific evidence for global warming in six years.

AEI's letters characterize the IPCC report as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and request articles that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs," The Guardian said.