I believe there is no so called "consensus" on Climate Change. The debate will continue for years to come, on Climate Change. What I question is the amount of warming is effected by humans, and the amount of warming effected by natural factors (the Sun, oceans being the biggest factors). In my opinion, there is no question that humans do have an effect on climate, but the question is if this effect is minuscule, or substantial. My opinion has changed from months ago, when I believed with no question that Climate Change was 100% natural, and the idea of AGW was a hoax. We do not have enough data to support either opinion, and jump the gun. Tree ring data is just unreliable, to put that out there.
When it comes to burning fossil fuels, I do believe we should cut down, but stopping all burning of fossil fuels would be a bad idea. Many people would lose their job in this case, causing the already bad unemployment rate to rise even more. Some happen to forget that CO2 is needed for life. Then again, too much CO2 wouldn't be the greatest idea. Just a bit more CO2 and plant-life will thrive. Crop season will last longer. Cold weather is worse than warm weather, if you think about it. Harsh cold could mean limited food, from crops. People's bills would be even higher, because of the use of heat, more often.
I don't agree with extremists on either sides. Extremist activists bring up the idea of the Arctic being the only habitable place, in the future. They also show cities underwater, and call our current weather "dirty weather". Extremist skeptics go ahead and say we are heading into an Ice Age, relatively soon. Some get to the point to say that Earth's temperature will drop several degrees, over the next couple of decades. That's obviously over-hyped. Cooling still is not out of the question, with the current -PDO, and lessening Sun activity. Even the +AMO, which is to blame for some of the Arctic melting, is going negative, in 10 or so years. Anyways, I do expect a bit of cooling over the next few decades, but nothing too big.
