Sorry, this was perhaps unfair of me to pick on you for making the same sort of freehand argument that many have done, maybe I should write a top-level post about it.

To clarify - the idea that "climate change is not being solved because of polarisation" and "AI safety would suffer from being like climate action [due to the previous]" are twin claims that are not obvious. These arguments seem surface-level reasonable by hinging on a lot of internal American politics that I don't think engages with the breadth of drivers of climate action. To some extent these arguments betray the lip service that AI safety is an international movement because they seek to explain the solution of an international problem solely within the framework of US politics. I also feel the polarisation of climate change is itself sensationalised.

But I think what you've said here is more interesting:

One might suppose that creating polarization leads to false balance arguments, because then there are two sides so to be fair we should balance both of them. If there are just a range of opinions, false blance is less easy to argue for.

It seems like you believe that the opposite of polarisation is plurality (all arguments seen as equally valid), whereas I would see the opposite of polarisation as consensus (one argument is seen as valid). This is in contrast to polarisation (different groups see different arguments as valid). Valid here being more like "respectable" rather than "100% accurate". But indeed, it's not obvious to me that the chain of causality is polarisation -> desire for false balance, rather than desire for false balance -> polarisation. (Also handwavey notion to the idea that this desire for false balance comes from conflicting goals a la conflict theory).

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