The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotful Sun?

Global Warming is a highly politicized issue, fleshed out with appropriately terrifying horror-stories. Save the world! Think of the children! Right... Anyway's, it's almost impossible to form an informed decision based on the cacophony of voices around. And what is there really to decide?
It's clear that:

• Temperatures seem to have risen over the past few decades (image taken from wikipedia)
• Looking back a little farther, things get cloudy. It's not clear exactly how much variability there has been.  It previously looked like the last centuries temperatures had been skyrocketing, but not everyone agrees, however. The oft-shown (just because it's so easy to understand) "hockey-stick" temperature record of the last millennium appears to be flawed - so where are we at then?
• CO2 isn't the whole story, not by a long shot. The current focus on CO2 makes sense from a policy perspective (it's a factor we can effect, as it's easy to measure), but there are many other factors involved.   For example, Solar activity, related to sunspots, might be involved.

As "The Power of Nightmares" points out however, many politicians have a motivation to portray impending doom which, it so happens, their vision can save us from. The media's coverage is biased too, since horror stories also sell so well: a healthy dose of skepticism is clearly recommended.

The British government's Stern Review is one such fear-mongering article. Bjorn Lomborg doesn't buy it, and neither does Christopher Monckton, the author of Climate Chaos? Don't Believe It,  in which he disputes the review's findings.  Then again RealClimate thinks Mr. Monckton doesn't have a clue. Lindzen is a frequently cited respectable skeptic, and here is one of his (older) articles, an op-ed in the WSJ, which also is skeptical of the need to fear global warming.

So what can we actually say? A point many people focus on is that this warming is man-made. In my opinion that simply isn't relevant. Nobody is disputing (right?) that the earth is warmer now than a century ago. Whether or not the next ice-age, or next green-house episode is caused by man or not, will not in any way make a difference to the problems it will cause. The real question shouldn't be whether we are causing global warming, but whether we can cost-effectively, and thus usefully prevent it. 

That's a distinction that's not made clearly enough.  The Stern Review speaks of 5-20% of GDP lost to global warming if we fail to act (and those numbers are probably exaggerated), and claims "Costs of mitigation of around 1% of GDP are small relative to the costs and risks of climate change that will be avoided." and merrily progresses with more analysis about CO2 levels (which again, aren't the whole picture) and sustainability.  Do they expect global warming to simply cease when CO2 levels are capped at a level higher than todays?  There are numerous other factors at play here, so this simple trade-off doesn't seem realistic to me.  We may not be able to avoid climate change no matter what we do; accounting as if the risks can be completely avoided by our actions isn't realistic.

The world has certainly been through a lot more extreme climate situations - maybe even much more extreme - so it might be be useful to consider artificical means of climate modification.  Even crazy ideas like space sunshades deserve a little attention.  We should be focussing not on CO2 as a reason in and of itself, but only in the greater context of manipulating the global climate.