My favourite climate scientist, Professor Mike Hulme of UEA, makes his "Five Lessons of Climate Change: a personal statement" available online here:
http://www.mikehulme.org/wp-content/uploads/the-five-lessons-of-climate-change.pdf

Here I will summarise/paraphrase his points:

1. Climate change is a relative risk, not an absolute one
Climates are neither good nor bad, there are just good ways and bad ways of living with climate. We may be losing certain climatic types (in certain places), but we are also creating novel climates (in other places).

2. Climate risks are serious, and we should seek to minimise them
Stories about climate change teach us that we should be more alert to these climate risks, that we should seek to reduce the number of people who are vulnerable to them and that we should seek new ways to protect those who remain exposed to these risks.

3. Our world has huge unmet development needs
Investigations into the causes of climate change have shown us – in case we preferred to forget it – that our world is a very unequal one. The Millennium Development Goals are an expression of such unmet demand. [he is one of the few scientists I know who has even heard of the MDGs!]

4. Our current energy portfolio is not sustainable
Climate change teaches us – in case we preferred to ignore it – that our existing energy technology portfolio with high dependencies on gaseous and liquid carbon-based fuels derived from fossil sources will not survive two more generations.

5. Massive and deliberate geo-engineering of the planet is a dubious practice
Climate change teaches us – in case we had not learnt the lessons of history – that such massive intervention in a large and complex system that we don’t understand, and hence can’t control - is an unwise thing to be doing.

His statement pretty much summarises how I feel about the subject. And I can relate to his opening statement:

"In recent months I have been chastised for some of my pronouncements on climate change. I have spoken out against the use of exaggerated language in the description of climate change risks; I have spoken about the limits and fragility of scientific knowledge; I have suggested that we should focus on nearer-term policy goals to improve human welfare rather than be so pre-occupied with one large longer-term goal of global climate management. As a consequence I have been accused of burying my head ostrich like in the sand; of undermining the power of science; of lacking passion about ‘solving’ the ‘problem’ of climate change."