> "the current global climate change caused by humankind is a convenient backdrop for a variety of eco-warriers to advance non-scientific and innumerate 'solutions' which are more about making people feel bad about themselves than about tackling the actual problems"?

What about those extreme and useless people precludes us from finding real solutions to a scientifically proven problem?

Forget the hippies. They'll never get anything real done. But if you find a way to produce cheap power, everything will benefit. Better sustainability is a win-win.

I'm not sure why we need a scapegoat to prevent us from doing good things for the world and possibly making a boatload of money doing so (not that that's the goal, but I imagine it's the primary concern for people with such criticisms). It's completely counter-intuitive to me why people would fight this.

Perhaps in the same way,

"since 9/11 was a real terrorist attack, we MUST respond by invading this list of countries and enacting this list of restrictions on freedom"

is analogous to

"since global warming is really driven by carbon emissions, we MUST respond by subsidizing these industries, enacting these stealth taxes, and forcing consumers to engage in these behaviors"

On both sides, we've got the wacko conspiracy theorists. But we also have those who recognize the problem is real and want to push stupid solutions. That's another part of "drowning out the moderates".