The problem is the media banality on climate change boils down to “believers vs. deniers.”
In this context voters in the US and around the world have the false notion that climate
and prosperity
are necessarily at odds.
And voters are coming down on the side of prosperity.
The voters have it right since the effects of climate change can’t be mitigated without Prosperiy.
Then, logically, we being a very prosperous nation, we should have the wherewithal to mitigate carbon releases and be a world leader on this important matter. Indeed, the U.S. has been in the past involved in a UN program to distribute simple solar cookers to rural people in Africa, which reduces carbon and also defoliation of especially vulnerable semi-arid landscapes. Public officials should get behind such initiatives, both in the third world and at home, and promote voter's knowledge of their benefits. Prosperity is of little value if our major coastal cities are swamped and our grain belts turn into desert. Much cheaper to promote clean energy, and offer economic incentives in places like Indonesia to retain rain forests, than to get New York and Miami and Houston to float. Prevention tends to be less costly than cure. Which frees up money for all the capitalist innovation you like.