WASHINGTON — Coal-burning utilities are passing the hat for one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels. Pat Michaels-Virginia’s state climatologist, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute-told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists’ global warming research. So last week, a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign to help him out, raising at least $150,000 in donations and pledges. Hot Topic Goldilocks and the Greenhouse What makes Earth habitable? This LiveScience original video explores the science of global warming and explains how, for now, conditions here are just right. The Intermountain Rural Electric Association of Sedalia, Colo., gave Michaels $100,000 and started the fund-raising drive, said Stanley Lewandowski, IREA’s general manager. He said one company planned to give $50,000 and a third plans to give Michaels money next year. ‘We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists,” Lewandowski wrote in a July 17 letter to 50 other utilities. He also called on other electric cooperatives to launch a counterattack on ‘alarmist” scientists and […]