But predicting when the cycles will begin and end and how many sunspots they will produce is a tricky business, says David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, US. For example, he had predicted that the new sunspot cycle, cycle 24, would be quite active. Since active cycles usually start earlier than average, he expected the cycle’s first sunspot to appear a year ago – but it was only observed on Friday, 4 January.

They’re at least two competing models; if the conveyor belt one is more correct, cycle 25 should be weak, and if the other model is more correct, then it’s cycle 24 that should be weak. Since cycle 24 was a year late starting, this rather suggests it’s going to be weak. Time will tell.

Nothing better reveals that the agenda of said Politburo is much like the old Soviet one – control of the economy and of the citizens. And, amazingly, the motivating villains of both groups are – the horrible capitalists obeying the obscene laws of supply and demand (greed! human motivation!), which must be crushed to save humanity.

Thanks for the comments and references.

It’s funny how in this age of technology that has made access to information easier than ever before in the history of mankind how many people will not spend the slightest effort to become informed. All it takes is a little time and effort.

The more I read, the more I become convinced that warming and cooling trends are primarily caused by natural variability.

Having said that, I think it makes sense to respect the environment for all of the obvious reasons.

The crowd wrapped in the global warming blanket are the same failed socialists and marxists who have found a new angle to try to foist their political and economic views (failed views in any case) on the unsuspecting public. That is why the orthodoxy is so rigid, unquestioning and intolerant. (These traits should be a tip to anyone that something is wrong regardless of the subject matter.) Thinking is a threat.

It was in the teens here this morning.

now the weather channels says it’s 35.

so it’s warming.

Al is a genius.

Sceptics may check for themselves.

But I note that the global temperature has been flat since 2001. Interestingly, 2001 was when solar cycle 23 peaked.

Solar cycle 24 just started today (Jan 04, 2008), it’s late. The few sunspots that have shown up have been at too low a latitude to be the beginning of cycle 24.

Solar cycle 25 promises to be the weakest in centuries.

The climate models used by the IPPC aren’t reliable.

Water vapor is a bigger greenhouse gas than CO2.

Who knew? Well, apparently, lots of people. Lots of people who were never listened to. Along with lots of people who stuck their collective heads in the sand and ignored available evidence.

Junk science. Order within the next ten minutes and we’ll double your order.

It appears that we can track some serious changes in the Earth’s climate, but finding a culprit is much more difficult… in my opinion, our best bet would be to reduce the toxins we stick in our environment (mostly because putting toxins into your own environment seems like defecating where you sleep). Where we can reduce dependence on carbon, we should do so… even if it means a drop in profits for the short term. However, we shouldn’t assume that “science” (aka junk science)can tell us how exactly much we need to reduce when they have yet to produce a model that accurately predicts something.

If Americans actually understood capitalism (rather than commercialism and corporatism which is what we do well)… then there wouldn’t be a huge backlash against a drive to reduce waste. In fact, if we were a nation of Capitalists… we would have approached the issue from multiple directions, instead of pissing and moaning about the EVILL socialists trying to take over the world (bunch of whiny babies…) Tack 1: Reduce Carbon usage wherever possible. True capitalists would actually invest in this as it would reduce their dependence on oil, provide good PR and, if there is an actual threat… a capitalist would nip the threat in the bud, before government had a chance to start passing draconian laws. Tack 2: Good capitalists would be fronting money for unbiased reports (not reports designed to support their viewpoint). Tack 3: Good capitalists would be developing options that were less dependent on Carbon because those products would sell.

Instead, we have corporations that care only about this quarter’s earnings, commercial entities that front money for biased politics rather than unbiased science and a bunch of self-proclaimed “capitalists” that think being born American and watching Fox News somehow makes them intelligent on the topic of Capitalism and how evil the Socialists are for trying to destroy it.

For every idiot Global Warming Fanatic, I find an idiot Anti-Global Warming Fanatic.

That tells me that the likely truth falls somewhere between “It’s not our fault” and “OMG the world will come to an end!!!”

If only we relied on sense rather than sensation… but then we wouldn’t be Modern America, I guess.