Any argument can be dangerous when misused.
It may be dangerous to not react. It may be more dangerous to react, but do that in a wrong way.
The problem with climate policies is that no effective working policies are known. Proposals have been made, Kyoto protocol has been reached and several countries have followed it, but it’s real value is questionable as it’s difficult to find out, how the present is different from a counterfactual alternative. Some people have found strong effects, but those conclusions are based on questionable arguments.
Living in Europe I follow policy decisions of EU and I really don’t like them. Several of the decided or proposed requirements for renewable energy or energy saving are formulated in a way that lead to totally stupid outcome, i.e. to an outcome that’s far from the optimal way of the reaching the ultimate goal and that also brings serious risks of health problems true questionable and poorly tested changes in building practices.
EU has taken the approach of trying more than can be done. That’s guaranteed to backfire in couple of years with unpredictable consequences on the longer term development.
I’m for a modest carbon tax, and my “modest” may be more than modest on the scale of some others (something like $20/ton-CO2 is the level that I have in mind). My view is that such a carbon tax is a much better solution than the cap and trade solution of the Kyoto agreement, which EU is planning to extend with tighter goals in future. Many more countries should join the same approach to make it effective and workable in longer term, but agreeing on that appears to be impossible in near future. Many more doesn’t mean all, but EU alone is far too small part of the world.
Judith has emphasized often the need for robust solutions, I’m all for that.