I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fossil fuels is a joke and anyone claiming “coal” or whatever is the future is simply a conman or a clown.

The skepticism is from people who are making money emitting CO2 and don’t want to stop making money in the same old way. It is well documented that oil companies have been sewing skepticism for decades, go figure.

"and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real."

There will always be outliers who don't believe something. But even for the people who do believe climate change is real, there is a huge variance of how we should address it. Most people have more immediate problems. Many take the same type of argument as the infinite population growth is good crowd - future tech will save us.

Something that would help a great deal would be some very public, clearly worded predictions about future events that should happen.

Climate scientists could help convince skeptics by correctly predicting future events. Skeptics could vet the predictions immediately to avoid late refutations. They’d look foolish if they tried to downplay the events if they didn’t raise concerns at the time they were predicted.

Looking fairly at things, predictions along the lines of ‘An inconvenient truth’ did not help. ( A UK high court ruling found at least 9 errors or exaggerations in the film. )

Demonstrating predictability should increase acceptance.

> If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real

The areas to be rendered “uninhabitable” in our lifetimes are all poor. Hence the disconnect.

> the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years.

It's the difference between Chinese planning philosophy versus the West's.

In most countries the public "believes" in climate change. But it don't matter: People still consume much more than the planet can bear. Because they like to consume. And because they don't want to change "if no one else does it" (tragedy of the commons). So you're asking the wrong question (maybe not for a US audience, I give you that). The real question would be: How to change the behavior of a population? My best guess would be: by reforming capitalism (and/or democracy), e.g. carbon tax (imo best way would be that there's a second currency next to money for the carbon effect of every good/service). But good luck with that.

Disclaimer: For myself, I do believe in personal changes, e.g. consuming less (red meat, flights, gas etc). Not because it makes a big impact but because that's just my personal morality and it makes me feel better to do it. On a societal level it's tougher because most/many people's brains don't work like that (I think).

if people have a hard time convincing themselves to brush their teeth, what do you expect from a whole civilization of those type of people?

>So, exactly what is the source of skepticism?

We should define climate skepticism, to avoid indicting a strawman. I'd start with my definition, as someone with unorthodox views on climate that often place me at odds with progressives.

It may be easier to start with the elements we agree on. Is the climate changing? Yes, obviously, visibly, measurably. Do human activities, including burning of coal and hydrocarbons, likely have a causal, contributory impact? Absolutely. Is the adoption of cleaner sources of energy: solar, hydro, geothermal, wind, nuclear, as well as investment in transmission and storage upgrades, a good thing? Unquestionably. Is climate change causing a growth in a class of threat to human life and prosperity (e.g. heat deaths, coastal flooding, extreme weather events, etc.)? Of course.

As for the areas where I diverge from progressives: Do I expect any amount of reduction in human activity, including reduction of coal and hydrocarbon combustion, reduction of overall energy usage, reduction of living standards and growth targets, to make any difference in the magnitude of the coming climate change at all in the long run? No.

The earth has both heated and cooled by orders of magnitude more than worst-case projections before humans started burning hydrocarbons.

Earth's climate is changing, yes, but historically, over the last 500 million years, the global average temperature has been as low as ~11° C at times; as high as ~34°C at others. You're reading that correctly: strictly natural processes that predate humanity itself have repeatedly changed the global averge temperature by as much as ~23°C. Ice ages occurred with zero human impact, just as the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum and global atmospheric CO2 levels exceeding 1000ppm occurred with zero human impact.

If you were to measure the full range of earth's climate variation over the history of the earth, and attempt to assign and attribute causality to all sources of that climate variation, you'd find that both the presence of all of humanity and the sum impact of all of human activity is an insignificant footnote. If this duration were a football field, humanity itself would be the last centimeter of grass in the distance of that football field; the period in which we've been measuring the climate is a thin slice of a single blade of grass.

The potential and capacity of natural processes to raise global average temperatures by 23° C has always been present, and nothing we can do will eliminate that potential and capacity.

The focus of human climate concern, accordingly, should be preservation of human life and wealth through adaptation to a changing climate, not futile efforts to prevent change itself, or an irrational alarmism that seeks to instill a widespread sense of anxiety over a process that cannot (and never could be) stopped, and for which the sum of humanity is not responsible for.

Build AC in Seattle. Set up better floodgates in New York City. Winterize the grid in Texas. Fix building codes to make houses more safe from hurricanes in Florida, and develop better solutions to stop the destruction of homes from wildfires in Colorado.

And yeah, do invest in alternative sources and production of energy. Energy is good. Energy is prosperity - it's causally linked to GDP, it's a direct requirement for quality of life / comfort / happiness. We need renewable energy. We need dispatchable energy. We need zero-emissions energy. We need energy that works at night, when it's cloudy, when we run out of oil, and when the wind's not blowing. We need better storage, better transmission. More energy, more sources, and lower costs for all of humanity.

We can't stop the world from changing, and trying to is foolish; we should accept that it is changing whether we try to prevent that or not, and focus on protecting and improving quality of life for all of humanity in the face of this always-changing environment on this little blue dot instead.

We can't slow down burning stuff for energy, this is politically untenable.

...so the answer is to accelerate the burning, but not for the sake of burning more, but to focus on getting to true clean energy sources which will allow us to economically unwind the mess before the whole house of cards collapses, i.e. fusion + global scale solar (maybe even space solar and microwave beam down) + boatloads of batteries.

Here are the positive points, relatively speaking:

- solar/wind/batteries have a fundamental economic advantage already, and there is further runway for gains in efficiency, yield, and cost reductions. All its competitors are, generally speaking, tapped out in terms of economic costs and efficiencies

- population declines are currently an inevitability of urbanization and techno-capitalism, less people, less pollution

- contrary to #2, it is likely that life extension will start to come into play for the billionaire class, and that will mean the rich elites DO need to think about the future

However, I agree, those are glimmers of hope in the grand scheme of the current system

What's that scientific saying about correlations and causations? But, yeah, let's all go back to middle ages pre-industrial economy just in case.