There is no debate and there is no "other side". Facts are facts. Global warming is a crisis of global proportions, one which will have an enormous impact on all life forms. Personally, I fear we have reached the tipping point where any actions we take to mitigate the disaster will be inadequate. I am personally offended by the misrepresentations in the news which try to gloss over the problem. Worse, we have no effective way for dealing with problems of global magnitude.
I actually came here to question if we want our climate science from the rolling stones.
After reading the article it seemed both extensive and broken down well for a large audience that may not be the original target for publications in this field.
There is a classic geek reaction to such things that goes like:
"There is nothing to fear because tech can't be bad / more tech will get us out of this mess / it's always been that way so no way it's man made / etc".
Particular among Ayn-Randish/Ray Kurzweil/Free Market/ types...
I would argue that only tech can get us out of this. According to the article, given the damage we have done up to this point, we are going to gain another 0.8C, putting us up to 1.6C above where we should be. Seeing as we are already observing real environmental damage, that should not be a satisfactory solution.
Any satisfactory solution would need to include some form of active cooling. These solutions are quite with are abilities. For example, prior to modern pollution regulations, we were actually cooling the planet because are pollutants reflected more heat than they trapped.
An event that I actually have figures for is 9-11. During the no-fly period following the attack, we saw a 1.8C increase in mean temperature in the USA (mean temperature tends to be consistent). Unfourtuantly, these cooling methods are short-lived and associated with long-lasting carbon, but they were accidental. I don't see any reason to believe we can not technology to actively cool the planet.
