You'll find me on all sides of this fence, and it's not really from personal interest - regardless of what happens, it's not likely to be a lot different from now by the time I die. But perhaps this is Nature's way of controlling the human infestation?

Anyway, I tend to focus on the observables and the physics of the situation. Models are there to project what will happen given some understanding of those, but my experience with models (in several fields) is that, of course, they are not reality so some interpretation of them is needed. I would not want to make large irreversible commitments based only on the output of a model, especially only one of them.

The politics are noisy and disruptive, and are usually based on beliefs (not understanding of the systems and observations) and reaction to the possibility that personal or small-group lifestyles might change if what's happening is accepted. That's politics - it's not a science despite what it's called in some degree programs. Perhaps the Davos people are doing something useful there - working outside of or parallel to the normal political system, which they can do since they own the system anyway. And no, I don't agree completely with the "hockey-stick" thing either - that's an old concept by now and needs updates at best, replacement at worst. Nothing increases (or decreases) without end, and a model that can't account for that is incomplete.

Nukes? That's a place where I strongly disagree with the greenies. We need them, at least for transition to a mostly-renewables future. They're the only form of industrial power production that doesn't release greenhouse gases in operation, and in its present form our society requires industrial-scale power production. If you don't want to burn coal, oil, or natural gas, you either need nukes or you need to figure out how to live on 1/4 of your current power production (look at the CalISO web site's status graphs; note the actual production of renewables compared to total usage/production; note that large hydro is not included as "renewable" for political reasons). Converting to electric trains (HSR or otherwise) in the U.S., which is a good idea in the long run, won't work without industrial-scale power production at least until somebody figures out how to drastically increase solar power efficiency and provide high-capacity storage at reasonable prices.

Adaptation - preparation for likely and reasonably probable effects - is something that has gotten more play in recent years (to the dismay of the Al Gore types). It's necessary. Some things related to global warming (which *is* happening, on a global average, regardless of why and regardless of local variations) are observable now, such as sea level rise. Long-lived assets like buildings and bridges and nukes need to consider that. Major bridges, for instance, usually have a design life of 100 years or more, and are hard and expensive to change.

And since this is (or used to be; sorry about that) a place for people who like trains, note that railroads move things with the lowest energy use per ton of any land-based powered mode. Ideally, for lowest energy use, we should get around with railroads, bicycles, and walking (1890s technology, updated). Since that won't work for everything, other modes are necessary - a diverse transportation system. In a logical system, railroads in various forms are necessary and probably should get more emphasis than they do now. There's nothing wrong with energy efficiency, and never has been, even if it happens also to now be a centerpiece of the mitigation/adaptation movement for allegedly human-caused (probably human-influenced, anyway) warming.