I think your parent wasn't complaining so much that your reasoning is wrong or argument is weak, but instead that many people hear the denialist messages and th

I think your parent wasn't complaining so much that your reasoning is wrong or argument is weak, but instead that many people hear the denialist messages and think that the problem is not urgent or that they're already doing reasonable things. The "missing the point", as I read it, is that you weren't proposing a strategy or argument to counter that denialist message. In my mind, there are two responses to this: (a) regardless of the current state of public opinion, it's worth developing technologies that give us options, and (b) making the media environment healthier and more honest would be a big win, and strategies to make that happen are far more valuable but probably much harder to implement.