Also something subtle is that it is remarkably difficult to take the position of "I don't know what my standard of evidence to justify acting" and still look credible. Unless people stop and really think they'll basically write the position off as someone exiting the debate to leave it up to others.

As a practical matter there are people who will shout "climate change" as a cover for status plays. And unfortunately they seem to have determined that a high status display is making energy expensive. These people are much more of a risk than anything the climate is likely to throw at us.

It sounds a bit funny to say, but the bureaucrats who made Nazism and Communism function weren't unusual monsters, they were people made up of the same stuff as the current crop that governs us except with ideologies that didn't work out in practice. The risks of going in to the energy grid with a new ideology that sounds good are really quite high. They're perfectly capable of letting millions of people suffer horribly rather than admit a mistake.

People have sniffed big chunks of that out, they are very tuned to status games, but it is so hard to articulate without sounding crazy they don't bother and just end up looking silly when people keep bashing them with ever more evidence that the temperature is rising.