>Discussions of plant consciousness are nearly always dominated by very loud self-proclaimed skeptics

I have to say I have had the opposite experience. Ever since "The Secret Life of Plants" the average person is much more open to the idea that plants have some kind of conscious experience than is warranted by our current understanding of them. Myths about plants growing better when exposed to classical music etc. are still around thanks to this book and will seemingly never die.

Pop science journalists are eager to report any new finding on some physiological capability of a plant as the plant "thinking", "feeling", or they invoke the classic Betteridge's law of headlines: "Are plants conscious?" In almost every case the original author of the scientific piece never described it as such.