I believe they're using it as an example of a thing that people have very strong, immovable opinions about, making it difficult to discuss. It just so happens that in the case of climate change one side is just objectively wrong, and its opinions are factually incorrect... but that just underscores the OP's use that it's impossible to discuss in public with them. They hold strong opinions in spite of overwhelming evidence against them, indicating strong feelings that will dominate any conversation you try to hold.

I accept the reality of global warming (I'm almost a single-issue voter on the subject), but I look at it from a Bayesian point of view: if we compared two universes, one where AGW was real, and one where the scientific consensus was mistaken (not exactly unprecedented), popular opinion would probably vary by no more than 1% between the two.

Humans tend to start with moral intuitions and tribal affiliations, and then cherry-pick data to support them; that irrational force is at work even in the cases where tribal values-signaling happens to align perfectly with reality.

Have you ever wondered why it became partisan to begin with?

Lots of other issues are not partisan like "smoking causes cancer", everyone generally agrees that it does, even many years ago before the "science proved it".

There is some science that is so obviously manipulated by power and money everyone knows something is wrong, but can't do anything about it.

Yes, the perverse incentive of the oil lobby is transparently staggering. Even if one is charitable, that the lobbyists believe their own talking points, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it".

That said, it didn't help the politicization of the climate for Al Gore to have become its face, thus associating its brand with Democrats, for all his pleading that "this issue is moral, not political". He meant well, but it was painfully naive.

There are success stories in the past about how things have improved. And it seems like the only way was when leaders didn't frame the issue to focus on themselves or their party, but about the people and the country.

I believe in this case the partisanship comes from less from the topic itself, but if you look into the proposed solutions, they all tend to shift money and power in a single direction and don't have much to offer in regards of actually changing the climate.

I suspect that's a product of anything that becomes political: whether it's climate change or border security, the incentives are more towards theater than results, creating an attack surface for economic exploitation.

At this point, I think the most efficient (and least corruptible) solution is a carbon tax + dividend [0], AKA a Pigovian tax [1]. It's not as though markets don't work; the problem is that externalities, ecological ones in particular, are not priced into the system, meaning we're just passing the bill to our descendants, at a phenomenally high interest rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax

Do you think corrupt governments, that also happen to be the largest polluters in the world will participate with a carbon tax honestly and in good faith?

Yes, I suppose that is a risk; as with our (allegedly) progressive-taxation system, a carbon tax could invite loopholes and creative accounting, both in public and private sectors. It would take a significant groundswell of grassroots political will to apply a carbon tax fairly and universally; perhaps the dividend would make it a little more salient and less abstract, making it easier to calculate that company/department X is taking $Y out of each citizen's pocket, as opposed to more convoluted federal spending, regulatory capture, etc.

> It would take a significant groundswell of grassroots political will to apply a carbon tax fairly and universally;

This is where carbon tax falls apart. There is ZERO insentive for poor people in high polluting countries to make their lives worse for the benefit of the world. None.

Therefore, carbon tax will only ever be paid by the "rich", but then we /know/ the rich dodge taxes. So the carbon tax falls on the middle class in the rich countries.

Now the politics are more clear. Is it any surprise that the middle class don't want carbon taxes? Only the middle wealthy (doesn't affect their life much), the poor (they don't pay any taxes) and the rich (actors, politicians, etc...).

This is why Trump is popular, a whole class of people is being dumped on, it's not a conspiracy from the oil companies, it's ideology based on fantasies that dump all the costs on one group of people.

A new plan is needed, carbon tax will _never_ work.

It's a legitimate concern; but the majority of carbon-producing activity is on the production side, and can be taxed from the producer, or even as a "carbon TCO" VAT on the consumption side. While tax dodges are a risk (particularly in the open, as big corps lobby for exceptions), this makes it much more universal than something like tax havens for capital gains by a small number of the uber-wealthy.

I would consider the world-wide implications to be a bigger concern: if the tax is too high, some producers might feel incentivized to move operations to a country without a carbon tax. Though I generally think tariffs are a bad idea, a carbon tariff that essentially covers the difference (and goes to the same dividend pool) might not be the worst idea.