My position is that I don't know what's going to happen with the climate, because the whole topic has become so murky with politics that acquiring a reliable grasp of the truth for laymen like myself would take more effort than I'm willing to invest.
I do, however, think I can say something about the proposed solutions. Most of them fall into two broad categories.
Let's give governments more power to control our lives. I think this is a terrible idea, regardless of what the climate is or isn't doing, for reasons adequately discussed elsewhere.
Lets push harder to develop and deploy practical, renewable energy sources. I think this is a great idea, the more so because there are several good reasons we need to be doing it, not just climate. Wider deployment of nuclear energy, with further improvements in cleanliness and safety; cheaper solar panels; electric cars; oil from algae; investments in these have been paying off already. Let's do it some more.
So my position seems to be one of epistemological apathy but instrumental optimism; oddly, more or less the reverse of some of the other comments.
... 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.