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I don't know either, but my best guess is that there's no real reason, it's a matter of intellectual fashion.
From the perspective of the individual Leftist, there's value in running with the crowd. If everyone in your circles seems to care about global warming, the safe thing to do is to care about global warming yourself (or at least pretend to). Of course, there is also value in being (or tying to be) a trend setter. If you start pushing a new issue, it might convince people that you are a high status trend setter type.
In my opinion, this is very very similar to the way people think about fashion when it comes to clothing.
Of course, with clothing, some years ruffle skirts are in; some years bell bottom jeans are in; etc. etc. Often there's no clear reason for it, it's just an emergent property of a system where there's value in copying others but also value in being a trend-setter.
(As a side note, it's interesting that women seem to me more into keeping up with fashion than men both in terms of clothing and ideology. I would guess this is not a coincidence.)
So my best guess is that there's no real reason for the pivot you mention (to the extent it's real), it's just something that kind of happened.
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