How Climate Change (rebranded Global Warming) was used to make more money by switching from gasoline to a much dirtier fuel a.k.a. Diesel. A cascade of unintended consequences.
The Captain
A few points. The love of internal combustion engines can be addressed with green fuels like gasoline just as we are doing with SAF green jet fuel. Expensive but very possible. Bio diesel is available.
Oil refineries have equipment to crack higher boiling fractions the smaller ones like gasoline. They routinely do this to make more gasoline in summer driving months and more fuel oil during the winter heating season. This is well known technology. But of course requires more investment and higher costs. More profitable to sell what they have.
And note that diesel engines were invented in Germany. Pride of ownership maybe contributes to the preference for diesel.
Never let a good conspiracy theory go to waste. 
The Captain
I remember that diesels were also pushed as a better alternative to gasoline in France and the UK. If one is/was a europhile, one got quite familiar with the smell of diesel fuel in Paris, Madrid, Copenhagen, etc.
DB2
So was the four stroke, spark ignited, Otto engine.
Steve
I’m not an expert in the field but supposedly diesels are more energy efficient than gas engines but I fear that ignores how filthy they are. My experience with diesels was the auxiliary motor in my sailboat.
The difficulties start in the fuel tank, water and algae. The builder had put a filter in the fuel tank to prevent the algae reaching the motor. The downside was that when that filter got clogged the engine died. I had to unclog the filter while adrift somewhere in the Caribbean. I decided to get rid of it. Some time later I got a notice from the builder saying that the filter was not a good idea. Really? Between the fuel tank and the motor there is a water filter. Don’t gasoline tanks have water that needs to be removed? Water that breeds algae? Changing oil is the blackest of black jobs, The amount of soot produced by a diesel engine is mind-blowing.
Out in the middle of the ocean in commercial ships most of that is not a problem but it sure is in congested cities. And you really don’t gasoline in your sailboat, too much of a fire hazard.
The Captain