Traf/AP, I'm not expert, and the media is continuously full of junk science and fake news, but you should probably also read about that single incident of semi-manipulated stuff you mentioned (the hockey stick scandal thing), that came from 1 source, was quickly debunked and dismissed, and did not affect the other zillion sets of data, experiments, conclusions and predictions made based on the worldwide body of evidence, and the media went with cherry picked email comments between a couple of guys that were also misinterpreted and taken out of context. The conspiracy nuts also cherry pick and manipulate to suit their causes, and assume that scientists can't tell the difference between valid data, valid evidence, and the probably of the accuracy of their hypotheses, and BS/mistakes/fake science/junk science/advertizing/nonsense.
So far, science and the scientific method has done pretty well compared to leeches and praying and incense, no? Antibiotics, GPS, jet engines, hip replacements, HIV drugs, evolution, penicillin, electricity, relativity, mapping DNA, x-rays.....how about we fly the planes and let the scientists build them, and sort out wtf human activity is (probably) doing to the environment and wtf we (probably) should be doing about it.....
Climate study, like weather forecasting, is not perfect, and neither is medicine.....but do you go to a doctor when you need surgery, or just do it yourself? Yes, there are politics and money and corruption involved - just like health care and everything else. But in the end, science, which is always discovering, is open-sources, and assumes nothing is known for sure, always prevails...and junk science is always debunked.
All it takes is a quick read of 1 company email to know how easily any information can be biased. Believing in a worldwide, all-encompassing conspiracy about climate is pretty whacky. But that is not to say the "news" isn't full of complete baloney that drives scientists nuts, and quoted and much-distributed (by social media and new media) "studies" are rarely ever actually proper scientific evidence at all - just today's headline to sell ads. There is a supposed "study" - aka fake news - concluding everything and anything you want it to say. But that's just junk science and the real scientific consensus just ignores the people and conclusions that are not validated by the open-source system of science, the same way you ignore the Wednesday emails.
There are 1000's of incorrect beliefs not supported by science, and there are corrupt and bad scientists too, but science itself, as with health care for example, moves forward as a whole and has always progressed in the right direction, despite setbacks errors, bad people, money, etc...
It's fine to be a skeptic, but to be an armchair layman criticizing things like this takes more than some links to web sites that can say anything, post anything, manipulate anything, cherry pick anything and broadcast whatever they want to billions with zero credibility, consensus or foundation in science or reality....but people do love to latch onto this and FB the crap out of it all!
Alternatively, you can go with a common sense way of sorting out the facts from the fluff, which has a similar parallel at out work that you will surely notice, perhaps: If Donald Trump says it's true, then you know it probably isn't!