[aeroman]

I would say we are largely past the second threshold too (that the warming is human caused). The last IPCC report had as the first statement in the summary for policymakers (from WG1 - the physical science group)

A.1 It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.

The previous report (from 2013) only said (and much further in)

Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system.

The equivalent statement from AR4 (2007) was

The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the TAR, leading to very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, ...

You could argue there is more of a question about what to do about it (e.g. try and mitigate climate change or just pay for the damanges). There is pretty good evidence at this point that mitigating the change through reducing CO2 emissions is a lot cheaper and comes with a host of other benefits (energy security, improved public health), but I can see wherer there might be arguments to have about this.

[belorn]

Looking at Europe for the last decade (and a bit more), the questions has only been about what strategy should be used, whom deserve to pay for it and whom should be exempted. The left and right has enough combat ground to fight over those issues that any question around the existence of global change, or if it is human caused, is just unnecessary.

[cloverich]

OP is talking about people who reject climate change. If you know many, youll likely note most do not deny climate change but instead deny that it is man made, which is an easier delusion to maintain.

[fc417fc802]

It depends on which subset we're talking about though. Some are quite well educated and (IME) lately have taken the position that sure, it's happening and sure, it's human caused but that mitigation is far too expensive and economically disruptive to justify. Thus that we should simply let things run their course and deal with any fallout as necessary.

[ASalazarMX]

.. "as long as that fallout doesn't affect us." might be the unspoken corollary.

If they think mitigation is bad for the economy, why would the uncontrolled fallout be any better?

[yongjik]

They are starting from the conclusion of "I'm not going to lift a finger to do anything related to the climate, and the society shouldn't, either," and then they're working backwards to find arguments that justify their position.

See how easily these people switch from "Nothing is happening" to "Oops it's too late to do anything."

[fc417fc802]

Your vehicle is traveling straight and there's debris in the road in front of you. If you swerve left there's an oncoming vehicle. If you swerve right there's a ditch and a power poll. You're going to hit something no matter what you do. Which is the least bad option?

It's entirely possible some of them are merely paying lip service and don't really believe that it will ever affect them personally. But taking them at their word they accept that they will be impacted one way or another.

I don't happen to agree with them but I still think it's worthwhile to understand other's reasoning. The dismissiveness that's all too common drives dogmatic behavior and polarization.

[Qwertious]

> If you know many, youll likely note most do not deny climate change but instead deny that it is man made, which is an easier delusion to maintain.

This is relatively recent progress. Go back a decade and people were straight-up denying that the climate was warming.