The original reason for the American conservative anti-climate-science activism

For some reason one of the core features of American conservatism seems to be a very strong opposition to the concept of global warming and climate change (with a lot of variation on whether it exists at all, whether it exists but is in no way human-caused, whether is just normal and temporary, etc.) which has for over a decade now produced an enormous amount of conspiracy theories about the subject. It has become so utterly prevalent that you'll have a hard time finding a single American conservative who accepts what the scientists are claiming about global warming. In fact, it has become so ubiquitous that it has kind of started to rub off on most of the anti-leftist segment of the population as a whole, even in other countries. (While there are staunch vocal anti-leftists who have no problem with climate science, it's undeniable that the American conservative view on the subject has become more and more prevalent among them by the year.)

There's nothing inherent in American conservatism that would somehow justify such an anti-climate-science principle. American conservatism is pretty much Classical Liberalism to a T, and there's nothing in Classical Liberalism as a political ideology that would deal with science in general, and especially climate science in particular.

So why are they so determined in opposing what climate scientists are saying? What's the origin of this?

I have lived long enough to have been following the emergence of the anti-climate-science ideology among the American conservatives, in the 1990's and early 2000's.

Back then they did not yet have the arsenal of conspiracy theories backing up their claims, and they were merely global warming denialists based more on principle rather than arguments. The arguments came later (relatively speaking much later).

While I, of course, have no proof of any kind to corroborate this, I nevertheless got back then the very strong impression (based on many things they said back then) that global warming denialism was somewhat prevalent among American conservatives mainly for two reasons:

Primarily and foremost: Because they feared that governmental actions to combat climate change would limit their use of their personal cars.

I'm not even kidding. Back in the 1990's and early 2000's (and to a quite large extent to this day, as this hasn't changed much), and going way back many decades, cars were not only by far the primary form of transportation in the United States, but Americans in general had almost a kind of reverence towards cars: They symbolize freedom, independence and individuality, and they allow them to travel easily and without much hassle. Traveling by car was (and to a large extent still is) such an ubiquitous thing that many Americans wouldn't walk even 500 meters (550 yards) to a grocery store, preferring to go by car, even such a small distance.

It was (and to my understanding still is, at some places) so bad that there were entire neighborhoods where you could only traverse by car, as there were no sidewalks or any other footpaths. This sounds crazy to almost any person outside the United States, but it is indeed the case. If you had no car, you literally could not navigate these neighborhoods (at least not easily, as you would need to walk large distances on the road). In fact, in many of these car-only neighborhoods if someone was seen walking down the streets, it was immediately considered very suspicious (especially if nobody recognized that person as someone living in the area).

Back in the 90's I had a friend who told me an anecdote about him visiting the United States with some family members, and they were visiting the home of some family friends there, and at one point he said to them that he would go to the grocery store nearby, and the Americans were astounded that he intended to go there by foot. The grocery store wasn't even very far (like 500 m or so). To those Americans it sounded really strange that someone would willingly walk to the store rather than going by car.

I hope this conveys the mentality and environment of most of the United States, especially on the conservative side, in the 1990's and early 2000's. Against this background it's not surprising that when rumors started circulating that there was "global warming" and that, perhaps, the government could possibly start passing laws limiting emissions, including limiting the use of personal cars, the conservatives went up to the barricades to oppose such preposterous laws.

Thus, they started to claim that there was no "global warming", that it was all just a hoax. Over the decades they have retroactively come up with an entire arsenal of arguments to defend this notion. Even though, ultimately, the motivation behind the sentiment is just their fear of losing their precious cars.

It's quite stupid to oppose some science just because you fear losing the right to use your personal car. You could oppose the laws limiting that use, but opposing the science itself is quite stupid.

(I also mentioned at the beginning of this post that there were two reasons. The "we are going to lose our personal cars" fear is just the primary one. The secondary one is that back then American conservatives were a lot more pro-corporation and thought that the industry is the backbone of America, which produced the riches, wealth and well-being of the country and made it the best and most powerful country in the world. Thus, they feared that laws that would limit emissions would also hinder the industry, causing factories to be closed and people to lose their jobs and for the economy to plummet. Again, not a very good reason to oppose the science itself.)