The anti-climate change, pro-Walmart, pro-Starbucks whatever-era was annoying as fuck. Like you said, it's not directly South Park but their annoying fans taking their shit too seriously.
Internet threads talking about climate change had some "man bear big" bullshit going around.
The thing is that I watched South Park during that time too and I loved a lot of the episodes. I just didn't take their commentary too seriously. I'm just like, "well they're obviously wrong". I was a Richard Dawkins fan and had no problem with them skewering him at the time either.