A lot of environmental issues are also social issues. This is fairly obvious in subsidence farming communities where environmental damage is caused by and directly effects normal peoples lives. In developed economies it is just easier to ignore the human factors in environmental damage and focus on the technical aspects of this. The activists are right to consider the social factors, but are certainly ham fisted and rely on the wrong metaphors.
On the one hand you have capitalist-optimists like Thiel who basically focus on increasing energy output from non-carbon sources (which tends to mean: nuclear). The effect is to maintain the status quo (everyone can keep on using energy without worrying about depleting a public good).
On the other hand you have the left focusing mainly on limiting / reducing carbon emissions. That is - in my opinion - an inherently redistributive project: when you allocate carbon emission allowances, you're effectively allocating production allowances.
Edit: specifically, it's redistributive on a country level: poorer countries would quite like to have a big carbon budget to burn while their economies grow.
If it was, was that a bad thing? I would argue it was sure inconvenient for paint companies but a net gain to society. Perhaps some level of funding should be given to these companies as we take their rights away - and perhaps not, depending on how foreseeable and expensive their issues were - but the fact is, sometimes we as a society need to force them to make changes.
To my mind, it's not redistribution because the point is not to take their income away, the point is that it's time to stop. Yes, that will have an effect on their income. Not doing it will have a much higher dollar cost, and the company won't pay it directly but the country sure will.
Acting on climate change is one of those necessary things.
W.r.t the OP though: anecdotally the point sometimes does seem to be to take their income away - I've met many people who appear to have chosen their position on climate change because it happened to be the anti-establishment one.
I'm not disputing your experience. Some people are just contrary.