"I Couldn't Help It ...It Was the Sun!" 

"I Couldn't Help It ...It Was the Sun!"

Is global warming caused by the sun? (via the Corner)

Apparently, human action is still likely to be causing part of the warming--the most dramatic warming doesn't necessarily coincide neatly with the greatest increase in sun activity.

On the other hand: besides the direct effects of the sun, there are the indirect effects, which might take more time to have an impact, and hence be out of synch with the most direct effects.

Water vapour may be a more important greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. How come nobody's talking about that? Maybe because it doesn't fit so neatly into computer models?

And by the way: isn't there a school of thought that says methane is worse than CO2? And these corporate honchos who are now saying we have to act on global warming, meaning on CO2: isn't at least one of them the head of a natural gas company? So his company will profit from a switch from coal or oil to gas, such as Ontario is committed to for its electricity plants? Burning more methane?

Somehow Swift foresaw that a certain kind of modern intellectual would spend a lot of time fearing that the world was going to end because of the operations of the sun:

"These people are under continual Disquietudes, never enjoying a Minute's Peace of Mind...that the Earth by the continual Approaches of the Sun towards it, must in Course of Time be absorbed or swallowed up...."

Glenn Reynolds, like me, suspects (or jokes) it is only global warming that is delaying another ice age.

Just asking.