My own brief and mostly ignorant thoughts:
Yes, climate change is happening and mostly anthropogenic. (I believe this not because I've studied arguments and counterarguments, but because this is the claim that several public "global warming skeptics" have changed their minds to believe; there's a good bit of diversity among people who think AGW exists.)
I'm really skeptical that we can do anything about climate change through policy. I've seen the kinds of bills that get passed in the US; they don't actually reduce carbon emissions on net. I've seen what happens at international meetings; poorer countries want a chance to industrialize too. A third option would be exhorting people to live green -- but to actually have an effect on climate change, we're not talking a few CFL bulbs, we're talking a complete overhaul of one's lifestyle, and most people (myself included) are not willing to live like that. Many simply can't.
I've also seen convincing arguments that, even giving ideal policy and angelic people, the cost of mitigating climate change isn't worth the benefit.
So basically I think we're all going to die. In rich countries we'll buy our way out of most of the trouble, and feel it mostly in higher prices and water rations in desert regions and truly nauseating summers. People in poor Equatorial countries will actually have humanitarian catastrophes. The rest of us won't care very much.
You may be curious about this information collecting project. Concerning "skeptical that we can do anything ... through policy": Just a few months before people teared down the Berlin wall, even the most respected researchers in sociology and economy estimated that East-Germany would last at least one hundret years more. Like cold war, which was generally extected to be solvable only by politics, but that this should be extremly complicated. Actually, it was easy. (And even more urgent than everyone had guessed, as an aquaintance had researched.
... the general take on climate change here.
Please read a little more before voting this down - I am not looking to initiate a debate on climate change - merely to understand what goes on when it is mentioned.
Disclosure: I am personally concerned about the impact of climate change in the medium term; I am largely convinced it is caused by human activity; I can get moralistic about it. I won't push any of that in this discussion.
I am a relatively recent habituee of the these fora, and mostly I find it full of entertaining, intelligent people talking thoughtfully about things that interest/concern me. I'm pleased - this is rare. Thanks, all.
I searched for mentions of climate change, and read some threads. I got the impression that a majority viewpoint here was that it is not an issue that concerns people here. I got the further impression that it is an issue which arouse feelings of irritation or worse in a significant minority of people here.
Neither of these impressions were strong enough to give me any useful level of certainty, though.
So I thought Will Newsome's wonderful Irrationality Game post might help me with an experiment.
I posted the following:
"Human activity is responsible for a significant proportion of observable climate change. 90% confidence"
I expected (in the topsy turvy context of that post) to get UPvoted, as I assumed a majority of viewers would disagree. I hoped to see some comments which would help clarify my weak impressions.
In fact, I got downvoted (-7), suggesting fairly significant agreement. At the same time, the comment is invisible (to my attempts) in the list of comments to the post, leading me to suspect that it has been removed by a moderator (perhaps on the grounds that CC is viewed as 'political'?).
Can anyone help me? I do not intend to use anything here as a platform for pushing an agenda - I'd just like to understand.