That statement seems accurate to me, but there's a lot wrapped up with it. What should have convinced people, decades ago, is the combination of well-attested theory and numerous lines of evidence. Anybody capable of being convinced -- which is to say, able to understand science and not ideologically blinded to it -- has needed no subsequent convincing.

There are a lot of people who don't fit that category, and if they are to be persuaded at all, it won't be by the means that are used to convince the scientifically literate. For the illiterate, they might well be tipped by one summer's weather or one hurricane's damage. That's bad science, but the voting booth doesn't care whether your reasons are sound or not. The New York Times is reporting on policy as well as science: what people are going to choose to do.

In that sense the statement is accurate. Those capable of being convinced by science are convinced; those who are moved by incorrect evidence have just received a big wad of it. The only ones who haven't reached the correct conclusion are driven by ideology, and won't be convinced by any evidence.

We can bemoan the fact that so much of policy is decided on bad grounds, but that seems to be a fact of life. Most people don't understand science, and manufactured doubt can be used to sway them from the conclusions reached by science. If you care about getting things done in a democracy, you have to take them into account.

That doesn't justify using the science badly, but that's not what's happening here. They're just reporting on the mechanisms by which people have reached their conclusions.