I'm far from a climate change denialist and really believe, like Bjorn Lomborg, that

1. Global warming is real, and people are a major cause.

2. When considering the problems that global warming will cause, we shouldn't ignore the benefits of global warming, such as fewer deaths from cold. 

3. The oceans rose a foot in the last hundred years, and the world adapted, so the additional rise from global warming might not be as big a problem as people assume.

4. Developing economical fossil fuel alternatives is the only rational solution to global warming because countries such as China and India will use the cheapest fuel, period. If only the developed countries who can afford alternatives change their ways, it’s not enough to make a dent in the problem.

As Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) points out in the link above, Lomborg ends up taking a bit of a beating despite pointing out some pretty basic, defensible propositions.   I think the real difference, however is that for many folks, global warming is a moral issue, while for others, it's an economic one. As much as I shudder at the "conservative" label, this delta is, I suspect, one of those broad liberal vs. conservative things writ large.

If / when a "conservative" makes arguments like Lomborg's that global warming's harms may be exaggerated, or perhaps there's some level of it that we can live with, or perhaps other problems might be worse... All of that "rationalizing" is an affront to  liberal sensitivies because it's tantamount to saying "it's ok to further victimize the planet."  And thus we're deep into the heroes / villians morality play and the search begins for nefarious motives (e.g. "big oil is paying you to say that...").

Do so many liberals really frame something this complex as a moral / spiritual issue?  Well, the Nobel peace prize winning, celebrity climatologist in chief pretty much says so directly -

We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.

It's hard to find a more messianic pursuit than that.