I think you and GP are both presenting a very narrow and biased view here.
The thing is, there’s a huge propaganda machine behind climate change. Backed by Hollywood, politicians everywhere on the left, universities.. there have been lots of distorted and hyperbolic claims made over years and years that didn’t turn out to be true. Lots of politicians making extreme claims that are just obviously false. I’ve personally seen nearing the order of hundreds of exaggerated claims that fall apart if you look in any detail, especially on MSM news sites.
Tons of pressure is put on scientists to match the narrative (multiple Climate scandals over decades where scientists were blackballed for misalignment or caught colluding to fudge numbers to paint a picture they admit they are trying to paint).
Just this year you have two books being published by left leaning scientists who basically say climate change has become a force beyond itself. Both cite data heavily. Both were attacked heavily by the press, or ignored. One was a former activist and leader in the cause originally, used to get a lot of attention and now has his posts literally deleted from Facebook.
To me it’s like this: when you hear the “dumb Americans” going on about climate change and you can’t believe how dumb they have to be to be skeptics... what you need to realize is they saw a lot of smoke, less fire, and they basically are tired of the left puffing the flames of everything they touch. Sure, there’s probably fire there. But how much can we tell? Our universities, the media, a lot of core institutions are actually not trustworthy. Skepticism is not irrational in the face of that.
I’m sure a lot of them would come around to admit some portions of climate change are legit, but it would take some really careful accounting. But they are in their own way calling out what they see as a bigger and more dangerous phenomenon: the distortion of fact gathering and science itself towards political gain. It’s an unfortunate reality. And really it’s hard to argue that isn’t true.
For reference, I am absolutely not a climate denialist but I would say I’ve burst my bubble that it’s so black and white after carefully looking at a lot of research. The main posts are likely true, the models have consistently overestimated our impact, and we focus on the wrong things more often than the real harms.
I totally get why people would be skeptical. Even smart people who have been right in contrarian ways have said exactly what I’m saying (look at Thiel).
So to simplify it down to “stupid righties” is always an error.