I'd much prefer that they took the consensus scientific opinion

In general I would agree with you. However, as usual, real life is complicated.

The debate about climate has been greatly politicized and commercialized. Many people participating in this debate had and have huge incentives, (political, monetary, professional, etc.) to bend the perceptions in their favor. Many scientists behaved... less than admirably. The cause has been picked up (I might even say "hijacked") by the environmental movement which desperately needed a new bogeyman, a new fear to keep the money flowing. There has been much confusion -- some natural and some deliberately created -- over which questions exactly are being asked and answered. Some climate scientists decided they're experts on economics and public policy and their policy recommendations are "science".

All in all it was and is a huge and ugly mess. Given this reality, "just follow the scientific consensus" might have been a good prior, but after updating on all the evidence it doesn't look like a good posterior recommendation in this particular case.