Couple of thoughts:
A common theme among skeptics of man-made climate change is the "man made" part. This is coupled with suspicion about political motives to stifle fossil fuels, enact regulatory changes, raise taxes, etc. There seems to be plenty of examples of politicians trying to use local weather events to gin up tax or regulatory changes. Which is a bit foolish since trying to use a local weather event to explain climate change indicates how little they know about the subject.
But to the contrary, it was none other than Edward Teller (from the Manhattan project) who predicted in 1957 the effects of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Mr. Teller long preceded the current crop of politicians pushing for change, and his study of the properties of carbon dioxide were solidly rooted in research.
From Wikipedia:
"Teller was one of the first prominent people to raise the danger of climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels. At an address to the membership of the American Chemical Society in December 1957, Teller warned that the large amount of carbon-based fuel that had been burnt since the mid-19th century was increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which would "act in the same way as a greenhouse and will raise the temperature at the surface", and that he had calculated that if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 10% "an appreciable part of the polar ice might melt"
en.wikipedia.org
