2006 March 7th
Scientists issue unprecedented forecast of the next sunspot cycle — 2007-2018. The next sunspot cycle will be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the last one, and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics. Starting late 2007, 2008-2019, will be the eleven year cycle, predicted the scientists. (Science Daily)

Guess what ? ! ! ?
Someone forgot to tell the Sun.
We humans get it all wrong, Again.

The Sun gives two fingers to world scientists. ! ! ! (Nature Magazine)

This year 2008 so far, the sun has not generate as many sunspots as expected. The expected restart of sun activity in 2007 did not materialise. So has the sun entered one of its ‘quiet’ phases and we are starting to see the effects of a solar minimum. (Scientific American magazine)

2008 June 9th
Sun goes longer than normal without producing sunspots. The sun has been lying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. Periods of inactivity are normal, but this one has gone on longer than usual. (Science Daily)

now the panic sets in ! !

2008 October 7th
Spotless Sun: Blankest year of the space age, Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age. The latest image taken on 27th September 2008, by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) shows a completely spotless sun. Professors at NASA and NCAR said that there had been no significant sun spots or solar flairs since 11th July, some extremely small events are being discounted by some scientists as there were no associated flairs. There was some activity on the 22nd September but it is said to be insignificant, all single figure events, by comparison with previous minimum activity. (Science Daily)

2008 November 12th
After two-plus years of few to no sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun shows signs of reactivation. The long awaited solar cycle 24 could be starting to get under way. The average sun spots per Month for the year so far was 2.4, down from 123.3 in 2001. The average for 1996 solar minimum was 8.4, as the sun reached its minimum in 2007, scientists predicted and expected a minimum slightly higher than the last one (1996), but the sun had other ideas.
The average for the year 2008 was 7.8. (figures from NASA and scientists at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR))

2009 18th September.
Science Daily — Challenging conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun's impact on Earth over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. The study, led by scientists at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Michigan, finds that Earth was bombarded last year 2008, with high levels of solar energy at a time when the Sun was in an unusually very quiet phase and sunspot activity had virtually disappeared.

2009 11th December
NASA - Scientists issue unprecedented forecast of the next sunspot cycle, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics. The next sunspot cycle will be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the last one, as it builds the years 2011-2013 could be the hottest on record, predicted the scientists.

You think you are seeing things ? ! it looks familiar ? ?!!
re-read:- 2006 March 7th at the beginning of this article.

Scientists previously thought that the solar wind streams largely disappeared as the solar cycle approached minimum. But when some of the study teams compared measurements within the current solar minimum interval, taken in 2008, with measurements of the last solar minimum in 1996, they found that Earth in 2008 was continuing to resonate with the effects of electron flux streams. Although the current solar minimum has fewer sunspots than any minimum in the last 75 years, the Sun's effect on Earth's outer radiation belt, as measured by electron fluxes, was more than three times greater during 2008 than in 1996. The average sun spots for 2009 is 17.5.
If we compare previous sunspot counts or minimums to the present then I think we will be in for a very cold year in 2010. (I wrote this in October 2009)
Scientists have already determined through scientific analysis that some of the earth's recent cooler periods coincided with periods of low sun activity.
Beginning in 1611, Galileo Galilei made drawings of lower sunspot activity before the Maunder Minimum. Records of sunspot activity during that Minimum were also recorded by other astronomers confirm the lower number of sunspots over this 70 year event.
During the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, from 1645 to 1715, there is believed to have been a decrease in the total energy output from the Sun, as indicated by little or no sunspot activity. During the Maunder Minimum, astronomers of the time observed only about 50 sunspots for a 30-year period as opposed to a more typical 40 - 50,000 spots. This corresponded with a mini-ice age. The same correlation with cooler weather has been shown from 1420-1530 (the Spoerer Minimum), 1280-1340 (the Wolf Minimum), and 1010-1050 (the Oort Minimum).
During the years 1100-1250, there was more sunspot activity than normal, the ice and snow melted and that's when the Vikings settled parts of Greenland because the heat had melted all the snow, it’s in their annals.
The Sun normally shows signs of variability, such as its eleven-year sunspot cycle. Within that time, it goes from a minimum to a maximum period of activity represented by a peak in sunspots and flare activity. For the year 2009 the sunspot activity was 211 sunspots for the year.
You can see from the last few paragraphs that if we take the time to look at the FACTS, what we have experienced since 19 December 2009 to date 15 March 2010, could easily be forecast based in scientific fact, no sunspots during 2008-2009. Instead of trying to make computer models to agree with an outcome that a particular organization upholds.
So in this period of much less sun activity than normal, one must figure that less sun activity is contributing to global cooling to some degree. So, the $64,000 question is how much of the current global warming is natural versus man-made? Well...!?!??
Everyone talks about the impact of CO2. We're often told that this greenhouse gas, most notably carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, have risen steadily with man's development and are much higher than they used to be. 385ppm. This is true. It’s kind of logical really, there are more of us humans therefore since we emit carbon dioxide the level must go up. In order for us to make the food we consume we destroy the CO2 sink, we cut down the trees, we eat the plants.
So why has global warming underperformed compared to the percentage increase of carbon dioxide and the accompanying predictions?
Well, that's because carbon dioxide is over-hyped...the most common and important greenhouse gas is water vapour and dust clouds in the atmosphere. Factor these two extra elements into the equations, and the percentage change in greenhouse gasses is much less pronounced than is claimed. But the important FACT is overlooked, NO computer model factors into its calculations these extra two parameters, the effects of water vapour and dust.
Those that have any experience of agricultural sciences will know that CO2 is an essential food for plants (not a pollutant), and that it is commonly added to the air of commercial greenhouses to improve and boost the crop yields. Any politically enforced reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentrations by the UN may therefore be expected to REDUCE plant growth and food output at this time of malnutrition in the third world, set in this background of rapidly growing human populations, global cooling, and widespread habitat destruction. Is such a policy ethically defensible?
So if plants and trees grow better in this atmosphere of increased CO2 why, why are our governments not advocating planting any and everywhere possible to get the plants and trees to produce their by product.
OXYGEN. That way maybe we could feed everyone on the planet and balance the environment at the same time. Next time you buy tomatoes and baby potatoes remember that they were most likely grown in a greenhouse with 1000 ppm of CO2, with that atmosphere mix the growers triple the yield with little or no extra water or fertilizer.
In general, whether it reduces global warming or not, reducing the amount we pollute is a good thing. But bottom line...if the answer to global warming looks simple, it's too simple.
How much do you recycle ? I don’t mean dividing your waste into coloured bins, I mean really recycle, compost. The grass cuttings, waste food, newspaper, pruning's, will all compost into about quarter to one eight of its volume and can be used as organic fertilizer for the plants in your garden.
In Bermuda they collect rain water from every roof, ‘Sky Juice’ is what they call it. Here in Ireland we concrete over our gardens and let the sky juice run into the gutter down the drain. What if we here in Ireland started to harness the water, which we have so much of. During the winter period when electricity is so much in demand our rivers are in full spate. What if we put small generators into water falls that could generate electricity when we most need it, during the cold of winter when our rivers are full to the brim. No matter how small the generator is, in winter time when electricity is most needed it would be 100% more reliable than wind.

From the Inquirer
It appears to me that politicisation of the science of Climatology could lead to the revival of a 'Lysenko'-style philosophy (which did such terrible damage to the science of Genetics, plant breeding, and human nutrition in the Soviet Union). Better that we concentrate our efforts on countering pollution, conserving natural resources, protecting human and wildlife habitats, and alleviating the worst of the suffering associated with inevitable changes in climate.
VC Mason
Member of Old Chapel, Great Hucklow

What is happening with the weather in 2009. The bank holiday weekend in Dublin, at the end of October, Monday 26th, a beautiful warm day. I spent most of the day cleaning and clearing the vegetable patch and I also emptied one of my compost bins. I decided during the afternoon because it was so warm to plant some of the seeds I had left over, I planted Radishes, Lettuce, Spinach and Onions. To my amazement all except the onions germinated, in less than a week, three lovely straight lines of green tops in the clay. The garlic that I planted in mid September has leafs about two inches long. Long live global warming I say.
25 October 2009 earliest snowfall below 800 meters and down to 200 meters in Austria.
23 October 2009 earliest snowfall in parts of Canada and North America, with temperatures below -20C.
December 2009 California, the citrus crop has been lost because of unexpected frost, followed by an ice storm.
So where do we draw the line? We breathe a gas mixture that sustains us and the mammals on this planet. The plants that coexist with us here also breathe the same mix but as a by product emit mammal sustaining oxygen. We on the other hand emit carbon dioxide that is a plant sustaining gas. We all breathe the same mix but with slightly different emphases on a particular part of the gas. The point I am trying to make is that one cannot survive without the sustaining ability of the other. Plant – plant – plant anything, flowers, herbs, vegetables if you have the space, trees. In fact if our government would decree that all set-aside land be planted with trees or some vegetable crop to feed others it may contribute in a small way to reduce the carbon dioxide level and help us coexist with nature.
John Maynard Keynes was an economists that wrote about world economic recovery plan after the great depression of 1929, “Let goods be homespun”, he said. I think we need to take a look at some of our philosophy of where we grow our plants and land usage, we are on the verge of wiping ourselves out. This is not something that is new, what we need to do is look at the old ways, take the best and use them. “we destroy the beauty of the countryside because the inappropriate splendors of nature have no economic value. We are capable to shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend.”
When you do take the time to read what is recorded about the philosophy of our own ancient traditions “ .. look after the earth and the earth will look after you ..” you find a common tread in Buddist philosophy, the American Indians, in fact World Wide, they all lived in harmony with nature, not control it or abuse it. The general human problem is we don’t listen or look at what nature is telling us. We have to relearn to live in harmony with nature, we humans are too dependant on nature providing for us. We are interwoven in the web of nature, if one thing is lost or damaged it is only a matter of time before it’s effect becomes evident on us humans. Think about this ‘the human race will only survive 1482 days if bees disappear.’ That equates to four years and three weeks, almost to the hour. The person that worked out that result was so shocked by his calculations that he rechecked it and had another mathematician check his calculations, he was Albert Einstein. But I think he meant all insects, in fact I hope he meant all insects. Because if not then we are already zooming down an ice slope that is getting steeper.
I have a greater fear of human stupidity and arrogance than of so called climate change.
I have no fear for the health of planet Earth. It is very capable of sneezing and wiping every human out. What I am more afraid of is Mother sun looking on and I am sure that if we humans give her daughter Earth a hard time she is also quite capable of extinguishing all life here, then they can continue in harmony without interference from us humans, as they have for over 4 billion years.

Paul Spain. March 2010
Dublin Unitarian Church