Well if one side is right, then we've blown some money that we probably would've blown on a bunch of stupid shit anyway. We'll become more sufficient and develop new eco-friendlier technologies that we probably should be anway. 

If the other side is right .... then we could be fucked as a civilization.

I'd probably err on the side of caution seeing as how we don't exactly have an "extra" Earth laying around just yet.

Once we can terraform/colonize other planets, hey go nuts and take a shit all over Earth if you want, free fracking and extra CO2 for everyone. 

I think that you're mistaken in what you think my intention was when I first started to rant about the cold vs hot thing. I was simply saying that a hotter climate is worse for humans than a cold or normal climate. I don't really care about global warming in general. If you still want to debate the pros and cons of hot vs cold then we'll just have to agree to disagree on it. 

This, so much this.

Productivity says otherwise but yeah I guess we'll agree to disagree if you want out ... 

Neither one of us are likely to change their minds and we pretty much stated our opinions. There's no point in further debating it and I don't want to flood the thread with it. I'm completely willing to debate on other topics though. 

As long as the carbon taxes actually go towards helping the problem and not filling bank balances. For instance they could spend the taxes on planting trees-

As trees grow, they help stop climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the air, storing carbon in the trees and soil, and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere.

http://www.arborday.org/trees/climatechange/

Pretty obvious reasoning.

When it comes to solar panels I can give a solid opinion. My bought my house December 2013 in Mildura, Australia. This is a very sunny location and very normal to hit over 40 degrees Celsius (104F). The house came with 15 panels already on the roof. Yes, during summer the panels work well giving me credit on the power bill but the current cost on buying and installing panels wouldn't be worth it.

So again it comes back to what are the taxes being used on. They should be used to lower solar panel prices and/or planting trees but I somehow feel a few people are just getting richer and very little of the money is actually being used.

In the U.S (at least on the federal level) it is very difficult to keep directed funds towards their original intent. The best example is our social security (public retirement trust fund) which has been pillaged by the federal government in times of surplus to fund other pet projects (basically other federal departments owe "debt" to social security, but that is like saying one Walmart "owes debt" to a Sam's Club. I am unsure how such things work in other countries. 

Solar panels (if they aren't taxed to death) should be relatively affordable in less than a decade, without government intervention. Oil prices have hit an all time low here, but that is because of the domestic boom side-stepping OPEC. Unfortunately certain states (and countries) have put debalitating taxes on them, which is the real problem. At the same time natural gas companies get plenty of government subsidies, which is another problem. 

I think if these issues alone were solved it would go a long way without any carbon tax necessary. 

What are they promoting? The fact Climate Change exists or that it is man made? If it is that it's man made, sure be skeptical but most scientists know climate change does exist. You should too, the whole planet's climate changes constantly, it's the dramatic change that people are worried about, the short time frame compared to what research has found in previous years. Maybe those NASA scientists were just crap at their jobs, maybe they were paid to question the science on behalf of the 'right elite', maybe they are the 'right elite'.

Watch Chasing Ice, you'll see things differently. It's not about what the right or left political stances say. This planet being our home isn't going to last if we mess it up yet we've got no where else to go. The glaciers of the world are all the proof we need that things aren't stable.

Can you define "mess it up?" Rapid climate change will affect a few things - as it has always done in the past: destroy ecosystems, make certain species extinct/endangered, allow other types of organisms to florish (mammals vs. dinosaurs, i.e) and affect the evolutionary progression of certain species. 

But I can't think of any scenario that would mean the Earth will become uninhabital( or mostly uninhabital) for life (even human life) by increasing greenhouse gases at the current rate (and that is assuming they won't drop off with new technology, like say Nuclear Fusion), with the exception of the runaway greenhouse effect (which is probabalistically infinitessimal and requires unlikely boundary and initial conditions.) 

So will the planet last? Of course. Does that necessarily mean there aren't ecological costs involved? No. But it is important to not overstate the issue and fearmonger, because then it distracts people from the real point at hand. 

Will  the world be the same as it is now? No, but as humans we've adapted and lived in much harsher climates. With our technology we can adapt to this, and probably preserve many species in the process as well. 

Honestly, there are some more debalitating and necessarily solluble environmental concerns in my opinion, such as the deforestation of rain forests, and water pollution/scarcity which are more immediate threats to human life. Climate change has a role in these problems as well (oddly enough both positive and negative), but there are much more influential human activities involved than just that. 

On YouTube, I once stumbled on a NASA scientist (boy does he often mention he is a NASA Scientist in that video) explaining why the moon landings never happened (using all the idiotic pseudoscience well known). That sure is one "scientist" I'd not want at NASA. So are your scientists of the same grade? You can question things and you can question things...

Far too many people think they know "climate change", far too few people actually do. And in a country where FoxNews runs the public opinion, yiikes....