(relatively low stakes, as in like not 9/11 or JFK level)
Mine: plastic straw (and now plastic cutlery) ban initiatives are directly funded by petrochemical companies. Plastic straws are one of the most common and useful types of disposable plastic an average American encounters every day, so banning them causes people a huge inconvenience and tarnishes the idea of other green initiatives (that might have actual teeth) as more nanny state "not allowed to have this"-ery (also has the side effect of making gullible libs think they're actually doing something to help the planet by using a reusable straw while they get their plastic container of meat products)
Ok, I think I get what you're saying, but the problem being framed as revolving around CO2 (or any greenhouse gas) is not some liberal brainworm frame job, that literally is what is causing the problem and CO2 is the form that most human-made carbon gets released into the atmosphere. There are worse greenhouse gases that are released from natural sources, like methane, but human industry doesn't usually deliberately release methane into the air since it is a valuable gas to capture and sell if possible, so CO2 is humanity's main contribution to the problem.
Deforestation and acid rain and drought might be tangible symptoms of global warming, they are not the cause of it, which is an overabundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It might be better to focus on them visually, but explaining the problem as "fight deforestation" somewhat minimizes the full scope of the problem.
I mean, most of the world doesn't have any issue understanding and believing this is a major issue except the USA, where oil billionaires just paid people to go, "nuh uh" on TV for the last 50 years.
Well yeah and no. Deforestation and desertification, air pollution (non greenhouse gas: soot, acid rain &c.) , loss of ocean life via plastic swirls and over fishing, urban sprawl etc. and many other things are all direct non GHG emission contributors to climate change and they are talked about to some extent, but the issue is usually framed in the media as a GHG issue and not an issue of a general break down of Earth system's on a whole variety of fronts. You look at government responses, at least in the west, and they are all almost entirely focused on GHG emissions, but if we lowered GHG emissions and addressed none of those other issues we are still going to be fucked by the ecosystems of the planet all completely collapsing.
You can also make money off of Co2 through whole slew of things you can sell to libs: tesla's, solar panels, off grid homes etc. How do you make a buck off planting trees instead of cutting them down? or not fishing tuna instead of fishing tuna? You can't. GHG is the liberal democratic dream. You can make money off of it and it fights nicely into a two party system discourse.
Of course, its also true. As I said, it has been a scientific consensus for ages.
On another note, you have seen all these XR posts recently? Funnel the libs into some dumb ass do nothing organzation, make a file on them, and then gaslight them, and ultimately nothing really changes. and you have to admit, despite all the noise and, at least in canada, 80% of people thinking the government needs to do more about it, nothing basically happens.
To reiterate that its not a US problem only, the Canadian govenrment just bought the trans mountain pipeline to ensure that it gets rammed down the through of native peoples and we all fry.