Oh I make some mean baked goods, you can bet there are cookies. Haha
See this is the thing that really gets me, because I'm quite proud of my family being 4 generations of atheist. Like back in the 20's my great grandmother was telling her kids "if God exists he's an asshole"
She had a hard life...
But growing up I always thought of my family as very logical, intelligent people. They have certainly instilled in me a need to and love of research and study.
However what I realized as I grew up and started having more intellectual conversations with them is that while they do absolutely research these things, they really only read stuff from the side that supports them (even though they will swear to the high heavens that they read sources from both sides). For instance, I don't know if you're heard of an Australian columnist called Andrew Bolt? (He's basically a monster and an idiot, please look him up if you enjoy rage.) But my grandparents love him! He is a racist and sexist pig and all I get is "oh I was reading Andrew's website the other day and he said..."
I think a LARGE amount of the issue for me is that my mums parents are both very, VERY strong conservative voters, and so they read a lot of the conservative media which obviously does not believe in climate change because they hate science or something. The ridiculous thing is that they're not particularly socially conservative people. They're not sexist and they're pro-gay rights. It's weird.
Anyway, so of course my mum and her brothers are conservative voters and are basically a reflection of everything my grandparents do and believe.
It probably doesn't help that my pa was a geologist and so he reckons he knows more than the people writing the articles... But to be fair he was a surveying geologist for an oil company (which one of my uncles now works for as well) so while he thinks it's valid I feel like that's just another thing that makes him biased.
I like your SO's point though, about them not wanting to believe it's their fault. I always blamed their political leanings for the biased way that they read their sources, but it might in some way be some subconscious guilt. I know they love me more than I could ever imagine, so maybe it would be too much for them to admit that their generation has screwed up the earth for my generation.
I don't know what it is. On my dads side everyone is reasonable and believes in it. So I really don't know what the issue is.
Oh well. I like to think that about 20-30 years in the future there will be an entire new generation of voters who know and understand the importance of this issue and of other scientific findings, and we might actually do some good for this world. Maybe.