I’m just a software dev now. It’s mostly just people I meet, though I’ve done some lobbying too. Lobbying is a fascinating thing, because all the staff really wants to know is if this issue could help/hurt them in a campaign. I remember once when Zoe Lofgren told me that while she agreed with my issue, there was zero chance Congress would take it up without handling a bunch of barely related issues.
The lie mainly has to do with people wanting to see the direct cause. But there is never a direct cause to weather. There’s a probability of enhanced storm intensity, because we observe storms getting more intense. Was it that last storm? Maybe. But the answer I give is yes. Because in all likelihood, there is some influence.
But climate change is in fact real, has in fact caused damages. If you are concerned about immigration in Europe, consider that a drought led to a famine led to a civil war led to mass migration. Are there a lot more causes here? Sure. What was the cause? Probably a lot of things. But the weather was surely one of them, and models tell us extreme events become more common under a warming Earth.
Climate change has already affected your life. Statistically, it must be so! Just because I cannot say how exactly it has done so, leads people to discount me. So let’s just pretend I know how, so I have a bare chance of being taken seriously. Else my hedging be mistaken for lack of certainty, by confirmation bias of people who yearn for my uncertainty.
I see it as akin to novels. The whole point of fiction is to create empathy for another point of view, though the method is a thicket of lies. The truth can very often not be looked at directly. Tell a teenager not to worry about what other people think — see if they get it. Tell a person that being racist is dumb, and see no behavior change. But a story might work, as a magick spell to get one to feel empathy, a lie that reveals truth.