The problem with trying to convince people who are skeptical of climate change that it's real is that, because it's been politicized, many of those people remain unconvinced not because of a lack of evidence but because it reenforces their political position to be skeptical.  In politics, after all, it's more important to win than it is to be right.  And on top of that, since coal and oil companies are heavily invested in pushing skepticism due to the money at stake, there are lots of politicians (and media companies <b>cough*Breitbart*cough</b>)  who are simply bought off.  This further entrenches the political position within a given ideology, making it even more difficult to change minds.,(reply>), @jojo300001  Absolutely, but none of these companies are concerned about how they'll be doing in twenty years, only how they're doing next quarter.  Lots of businesses have invested in their own demise for the sake of short-term gains, and it hasn't taught anyone any lessons.  Like a video game villain, they're going to fight at full strength until the very last hit point is knocked off.<br><br>Plus there's the sad fact that if everything went their way - climate change prevention was completely ignored, investment in renewable energy sank, etc - the resulting negative socioeconomic impacts from runaway global warming wouldn't really hurt their businesses that much.  As long as there's an operational state somewhere to sell oil to, they're good to go.,(reply>), Eventually they'll go out of business, so there's that. Resource based economics cannot compete with manufacturing economics over a large enough time scale. As renewable energy falls below and into parity, where investment falls in these fields will by and large be a non choice. In 2015 we saw private investment into wind and solar double that of oil and gas.<br><br>Tesla, at the same time, parked the electric vehicle on the front lawn of the entire auto industry. Promising to release a mass market car, with autonomous features, and the general benefits of an electric car really woke the industry up. So oil has that working against it as well.