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I don't think most people have a problem with this chain of thought:
The earth is warming in some way.
Mankind may be (and I would say probably is) contributing to this warming.
If we can change our contribution to this it should be considered.
But I think a valid question is at what cost?
What if the only way to reverse global warming and maintain the current average temperature is to euthanise the global population down to 2 billion people and ban the use of any form of energy that produces greenhouse gas emissions. Would it be worth that cost?
If not, then we're not arguing about whether there is a cost too high but where that line is and then the basis for agreement mostly evaporates as it will boil down to highly individualized sets of priorities.
I personally think some very obvious solutions have been missed. That irrational fear of nuclear power has made the situation worse and needs to be reconsidered. In our anti-polution policies we have favored greenhouse gasses over particulate pollution (thus diesel isn't common here as in Europe where they have mostly approached it from the opposite direction). We have to decide if we'd prefer dirtier air that doesn't heat the global climate or cleaner air that does (no, it isn't an absolute black and white dichotomy but when choices have to be made which is preferable)?
As has been noted, we don't have current climate models that accurately explain the current global climate so it is hard to put a lot of faith into models that try to predict it 100 years from now. So, since I'm not willing to sacrifice everything to prevent something that may happen regardless I have to decide just how much I am willing to sacrifice.
Alternatively we can let the government dictate how much we sacrifice and then the question is should they use worst case models, best case models, or the model that most closely matches the economic result they hope for anyway?
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