Archives for September 22, 2006

When Bob Foster posted a note here in April claiming that the sun drives climate and the next little ice age will be in 2030 he was roundly condemned by many AGW believers.

Now there is an article in New Scientist also suggesting “that the sun is about to enter another quiet period”.

The abstract includes comment that:

“It is known as the Little Ice Age. Bitter winters blighted much of the northern hemisphere for decades in the second half of the 17th century. The French army used frozen rivers as thoroughfares to invade the Netherlands. New Yorkers walked from Manhattan to Staten Island across the frozen harbour. Sea ice surrounded Iceland for miles and the island’s population halved. It wasn’t the first time temperatures had plunged: a couple of hundred years earlier, between 1420 and 1570, a climatic downturn claimed the Viking colonies on Greenland, turning them from fertile farmlands into arctic wastelands.

Could the sun have been to blame? We now know that, curiously, both these mini ice ages coincided with prolonged lulls in the sun’s activity – the sunspots and dramatic flares that are driven by its powerful magnetic field.

Now some astronomers are predicting that the sun is about to enter another quiet period.“

You can read the full article ‘Global warming: Will the Sun come to our rescue?’ by Stuart Clark which was published on 18th September by clicking here.

Speaking from New York, Virgin Blue Boss Sir Richard Branson has said transport and energy companies must be at the forefront of developing environmentally friendly business strategies and has pledged to invest US$3bn (£1.6bn) to fight global warming.

Branson said he would commit all profits from his travel firms, such as airline Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains, over the next 10 years.

It seems that Branson recognizes anthropogenic global warming is an issue that can potentially be solved through new technologies and he plans to invest in new renewable energy technologies through Virgin Fuels.

This approach is consistent with the approach advocated by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Also known as the AP6, this group includes ‘kyoto dissidents’ Australia and the US, as well as China, India, South Korea and Japan.

Together these countries account for about half of the world’s GDP, population, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The partnership was announced in Laos in July last year and they met for the first time in Sydney in January.

The AP6, like Branson, recognise that the solution to anthropogenic global warming is potentially in the development, sharing and promotion of new and improved technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course this approach will also solve ‘the peak oil’ problem because once we move beyond our dependence on fossil fuels it won’t matter how much oil is left.