My cousin emailed me this. So, who are we supposed to believe?
The Sun Also Sets
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, February 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore’s mythical “consensus.” Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.
Related Topics: Global Warming
Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better “eyes” with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth’s climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.And they’re worried about global cooling, not warming.Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” But he and his colleagues need better equipment.In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun’s emissions more rapidly and accurately.As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth’s climate over time has been the sun.For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth’s temperature over the last 100 years.R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada’s Carleton University, says that “CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet’s climate on long, medium and even short time scales.”Rather, he says, “I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet.”Patterson, sharing Tapping’s concern, says: “Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth.””Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again,” Patterson says. “If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than ‘global warming’ would have had.”In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming “community” — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by “dramatic changes” in temperatures.A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.”The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100,” according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.The study says that “try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures.”The study concludes that if you shut down all the world’s power plants and factories, “there would not be much effect on temperatures.”
But if the sun shuts down, we’ve got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that’s hanging in the balance.
Dennisranch 
Jinglebob, my friend, you’re pushing my buttons!
We’re supposed to believe our eyes, ears, and lungs. Here’s the deal: You don’t have to believe the earth is warming faster than in the past. You don’t have to believe that we humans are speeding the process up (a lot, or even a little bit). You can make the case, as most good scientists do, that we can’t be sure about any of these theories — because we can’t. (But I suspect you, like many of us, believe many things you can’t be sure of.)
Remember the hole in the ozone? You don’t hear much about that any more.
Know why? Because we moderated or quit using CFCs (aerosols, wasn’t it?) and stabilized the situation. Has that made the world’s atmosphere a little more stable? Yes. Do we still face problems? Certainly.
In Texas, a state that burns more fossil fuels than most nations in the world, they are implementing green changes not because of climate change, which many people don’t buy into, but because the air quality is so bad, asthma and lung ailments are a serious problem, and because wind energy is a more or less drought proof way for ranchers to make money.
Whether we are the majority cause of climate change, or whether it’s going up or down, we all need to do more to reduce pollution — period — because it makes biological, economical, geopolitical, and even spiritual sense to do so. Yes, many people are already doing things — like working from horseback instead of four-wheeler — and scientists are on the verge of uncovering new sources of energy, and the world human population may be stabilizing. (I believe it’s due to crash at some point very soon — with little evidence to “prove” it.) But if climate change inspires people to think about doing more, or drives this research, or whatever — that’s not a bad thing.
We can deny human-caused global warming — but we can’t deny that we’re tearing up the place in ways we don’t have to. I agree with our presidential candidates on one thing — the worst that can happen by responding to a false global warming threat is that we spark innovation and leave our kids a healthier economic and environmental situation.
So if all this “global warming” crap is for cleaning up pollution, why don’t they speak the truth and call it that? If you lie to me for a good cause, you are still lying to me!
Do you really believe something so insignificant as mankind can do something that God or nature can’t “fix”. One volcano will do as much as we have. Or more. I don’t think we are as powerful as the liberals would have us believe.
If you want to do some good, get everyone to stop driving auto’s. They put out more pollution than anything else in this country. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to “fix” that, tho’.
I feel all this is just a way for powerful people to become more powerful. Think of the money that can be made thru’ all this “change for the better. ” And all those who scream “global warming” are patsies, playing into their hands.
Its nothing more than a cycle just like anything else. Mother nature is just cleaning house of things she wants to be rid of. If she ever decides she don’t want us there is nothing we can to stop it and there sure isn’t anything Gore and his lock box can do to help things. I agree Jb make them stop driving make them walk or get buggy’s to drive to work then we will see how bad they wanna fix the environment. I tell you what right now they would throw a running fit to not be able to drive their fancy little foreign car around town looking like Mr hot shot i got more money than you !
Like i said its a cycle something that i am sure if you look back far enough has happened before and will happen again long after we are gone.
I actually agree with Dale, except that I think it’s *quite possible* we’re speeding up or exaggerating the cycle — and yeah, we could very well cause the world to shrug a whole bunch of us off like fleas.
Jinglebob, I didn’t say that global warming is *about* pollution reduction — no one’s lying about that. What I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to agree on the science to come to same conclusion — that we all need to do a little more to take a little better care of ourselves and our “litter box” … I get irate when global warming skeptics seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater — because “global warming isn’t real,” then efforts to take better care of what we have, burn less, use less, etc., are unnecessary.
As far as “Do you really believe something so insignificant as mankind can do something that God or nature can’t “fix?” Unless we don’t have free will, God expects us to make the right choices. Sure he can fix it.
But yeah, I still love ya …
But if his fix is that the chaff will be burned in unquenchable fire, it’ll get significantly warmer, I’ll bet …
In your head, please flip the order on the last two paragraphs above — that didn’t come out quite right!
Maybe you didn’t realize it Jim, but this ain’t a debate. I believe what I believe and your not going to change my mind. Go ahead and worry all you want. I’ll let the Big Guy worry for me.
We need to be careful with what we have, but I don’t see anyone living in a city that turns most of the country around it into a cesspool, telling me how to treat the earth better. Thank you very much. Let them fix their mess then come tell me what to do.
By the way, my cows don’t belch or fart. If they did, I wouldn’t have to worry about bloat.
The reason I responded in the first place is that you asked, “Who are we supposed to believe?” You seemed to be asking for a comment …
I never reckoned I’d change your mind, my friend — since we’ve have this conversation a time or two. But I also know that in the past, you’ve *liked* a good argument.
Just thought I’d try to give you one — but maybe you ain’t in the mood …
I don’t think I can teach you anything about ecosystems. I know you know what you’re doing out there. And I agree that we don’t need policies to get us out of this — we need more people to live more simply.
I traveled to the Iron Range (Northern MN) a week or so back. The next big wave of economic activity up there is nonferrous mining — nickel, copper, palladium, etc. Most of these metals are mined in China and other developing nations right now — the tree-huggers are trying to put a stop to these new mines in MN because in the the past and in these other places, the mines have polluted the heck out of the countryside, water and air.
What they fail to realize in their singlemindedness is that we have environmental laws and regulations like nowhere else. Our filthiest, most dysfunctional mines are cleaner than almost anywhere else in the world. So if they shut these new mining project down, some Chinese mine will open and spew 10 times as much filth into the air and water. They fail to realize that we are not the bad guys — we’re the good guys.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t get better!
We don’t know which science is right — likely it’s somewhere in the middle, and maybe everything *will* turn out fine. The only point I’ve tried to make with you is that since “global warming” has mobilized a lot of people (especially us wasteful city people) — it might be a better idea not to derail it, but to direct it in the right way (like, toward wasting less, not toward regulating people who don’t need it). What I would hate to see happen is that you (singlehandedly — ha!) convince everyone else that global warming is bunk and “it’s all good,” so that people won’t clean up their own act!
People can make a difference, in my opinion, and we have an opportunity to exploit right now. I guess it’s the old nugget that public opinion and momentum is hard to change from the outside — you have to work from within. Yield and Overcome. Bend and Be Straight.
Yeah, I’m young, naive, and more liberal than you. But know that you have my admiration and respect. And make sure your friends out there know it, too!