The partisan divide on denialism

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, the Right was as convinced as the Left that global warming was a threat.  The Right was in favour of a carbon tax, or at least, some sort of price for carbon emissions, while the Left rejected the idea of a carbon tax, preferring instead regulation.  Of course, regulation imposes costs just as a carbon tax does, but the costs with a carbon tax are explicit, not hidden.  And a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system would also take advantage of the efficiency of markets by encouraging the highest-cost emitters to change their ways.

Fast forward to today, and the Right is resolutely against any kind carbon pricing.  Worse, it denies that global warming is even happening.

Source: Vox

It's not just the US.  The gap exists internationally too, only it's not nearly as wide.  (The "Liberal" Party is Australia is a right-wing party)

Source: Vox

Why?

Well, I had one person say that climate change action is collective, so it's "sort of socialist".  But he wasn't terribly bright. 

I think the real reason is that oil and coal saw the danger to their businesses and profits that a carbon tax (and in fact any action to reduce emissions) posed to their sales and profits, and they decided to pollute the well.  They started financing politicians.  The Left wouldn't take that funding, so fossil-fuel companies targeted the Right.  Whatever right-wing politicians secretly thought about global warming, in public they repeated the lies that it wasn't a problem.  The oil and coal companies also funded denialist thinktanks, with bland, vaguely patriotic names like "The Homeland Institute", whose main purpose was to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).  These cynical manipulators managed to get a whole army of "useful idiots" to support them.  They started lawsuits, threatened climate scientists, and for 30 years have spread lies about the reality of global warming and the costs of mitigating it.

It's something I can't forgive.  Nor should you.