I also think the issue is complicated, because invariably issues of 'science' and 'expertise' constantly get mixed up with questions of commercial and political power.
I remember back in the '90s reading a book by one of the few genuine scientists on the AGW-skeptic side. Firstly they did raise what were at the time genuine problems with the orthodoxy (but all of them have since been resolved, e.g. the satellite observations that conflicted with prediction turned out to be wrong because of the failure to account for orbital decay, the radio-sonde readings were likewise in error due to failure to account for a change in instrumentation...and so on). But secondly the one part of the book I found not implausible was the argument as to how a 'false consensus' could emerge, due to institutional and financial considerations. Anyone on the left would have to concede such a thing is at least theoretically possible, because all scientific endeavors are also social and political ones.
Ultimately there's a sociological and political judgement involved. I believe the scale of the consensus and the degree to which climate science depends on (indeed, pretty much follows directly from) long-established basic principles of physics, makes it a vastly stronger consensus than, say, whatever "IQ researchers" say about race and IQ or "evolutionary psychologists" say about gender and a preference for pink.
Personally, having studied the subject academically (back when my brain still worked, undegraded by age), I felt I understood it well enough to decide for myself that the orthodox view was entirely convincing and consistent with all the evidence, and that all the 'skeptic' theories fell down (I distinguish 'skeptics' - who actually had, at least back then, testable theories to offer - from deniers, who generally talk nonsense because they don't understand the basics) But I can kind-of understand how reluctant people might be to take expert views on faith. Throw in people's self-interest in denial, and propaganda from vested commercial-interests and it's very surprising as many people accept the science as actually do.