I found this comment very intriguing, and I agree with you about that pattern (your climate change example).

The fundamental problem there is the mistake of answering political arguments with factual arguments. The company answers each time with a political argument, and the presentation of evidence is factual.

As a computer scientist turned politician, I actually only recently realized how very little the facts matter in any policy debate or discussion. How people feel matters much more.

To the extent that I'm really bad at politics is that I can't abide by misleading people on the facts, even for some greater aim, b/c down that path IMO lies what Laura is talking about in other comments in this thread.

This was sort of the point of my original post. You can't play the game of politics correctly unless you have a rather loose relationship with Truth.