There's a hell of a lot more money following from the other direction. There is no reputable science discrediting climate change. You're using weak arguments to justify not giving a shit about your own decisions. Even if climate change were not an issue, everything suggested to help fix it would be good for us anyway. Thousands of people die early every year from pollution in cities for example. We could fix that locally by making decisions you're saying don't matter.
The money spent on climate change by the government far surpasses any private funding. It's not even close.
I don't think the reference was to money spent on climate *research.* For example:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/09/secretive-donors-gave-us-climate-denial-groups-125m-over-three-years
$125 million isn't exactly chump change.
Actually, it is when compared to government climate funding.
"by the end of fiscal year 2009, the US government will have poured in $32 billion for climate research—and another $36 billion for development of climate-related technologies. These are actual dollars, obtained from government reports, and not adjusted for inflation. It does not include funding from other governments.
In 1989, the first specific US climate-related agency was created with an annual budget of $134 million. Today in various forms the funding has leapt to over $7,000 million per annum, around 50 fold higher:
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/massive-climate-funding-exposed/
Fair enough. $125 million spent on targeted information campaigns is less than billions spent on research and other programs.
A. Taking the numbers in your link at face value (their numbers are not too far from the CBO estimates, though lack some of the nuance such as the preceding spending on renewable energies starting in at least the 1970s:
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/111th-congress-2009-2010/reports/03-26-climatechange.pdf): less than half of the total amount is attributed to "climate change" while the rest went to tax breaks, technology and foreign assistance. The last three are a mixed bag as they have other possible benefits and parsing that out is a waste of all of out time and a tangent one more degree removed. Interestingly, according to that chart, the highest rate of spending appears to have occurred under GHW Bush, who publicly said that climate change was something we better figure out. An oil man Republican president pushing for climate research and action- my how times have changed with the notable exception of Pataki, perhaps.
B. We have a potential problem that has been identified that has potentially major global implications. What is the appropriate level of funding to figure that out? Some of these expenses ran through agencies like NASA to do satellite work (unless congress changes their mission statement to hamstring them from doing so). Those types of projects are expensive. Many the climate change research field data collection requires work in logistically challenging places like Antarctica or the middle of the ocean. It is wise to understand this and yes that will take money. On the flip side of impacts: here in Washington State our water supply is vulnerable to the effects of climate change through the observed and projected changes in snowpack. It is going to take some relatively large/expensive infrastructure to protect agriculture that is worth hundreds of millions per year in addition to municipal supplies. That does not include any of the other projected impacts in Washington state. There are many other impacts to be sifted through by region be it drought, flooding, melting permafrost (a royal engineering PITA), storm surge effects, sea level rise, etc. The cost of the impacts out strip the research dollars by a long shot. In summary, the research dollars are big, but commensurate with the scale of the problem. It should also be noted that those are not all "new" research dollars spent and some of that total is due to reallocation within agencies like NSF.
C. There is a difference between putting money into research, etc and putting money into what are effectively advertising campaigns. With some notable exceptions (Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson), scientists tend not to be the best communicators to the general public.
D. As a practical matter, those who have long-term skin in the game such as planners, insurance companies and even the oil industry are moving forward with the best available science.
E. Please be as skeptical of the "science for dissident thinkers" pages as you are of the other science information out there. I wouldn't take medical advice from a webpage that inflammatory (ie, the anti-vaccine movement pages, Dr Oz, Dr Mercola, etc), and I think that applies across the board as a prudent measure- especially if you are not trained in that exact field adequately to independently assess the information presented.