Let's go to the NOAA report that was accepted by Working Group I of the IPCC What Caused the Ice Ages and Other Important Climate Changes Before the Industrial Era? "Global climate is determined by the radiation balance of the planet (see FAQ 1.1). There are three fundamental ways the Earth’s radiation balance can change, thereby causing a climate change: (1) changing the incoming solar radiation (e.g., by changes in the Earth’s orbit or in the Sun itself), (2) changing the fraction of solar radiation that is reflected (this fraction is called the albedo – it can be changed, for example, by changes in cloud cover, small particles called aerosols or land cover), and (3) altering the long wave energy radiated back to space (e.g., by changes in green house gas concentrations). In addition, local climate also depends on how heat is distributed by winds and ocean currents. All of these factors have played a role in past climate changes."
Yep, #3 is the winner this time around. You see, the CO2 we emit absorbs that long wave energy and slows the radiation back to space. That process is new.
You will have to agree that futurecurrents assertion that "Variations in solar output have never caused any major climactic shifts" is wrong. This is just one of the many things he is wrong on.
Variations of solar input has caused the major climate shifts, not solar output. But without the greenhouse gas CO2 the shifts would be small. The CO2 is really the main determinant of temps.
Over the last year, however, the prophet of doom has become much more a prophet of possibility — even, perhaps, an optimist. Still an object of derision for the political right, Mr. Gore has seen support for his views rising within the business community: Investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar is skyrocketing as their costs plummet. He has slides for that, too. Experts predicted in 2000 that wind generated power worldwide would reach 30 gigawatts; by 2010, it was 200 gigawatts, and by last year it reached nearly 370, or more than 12 times higher. Installations of solar power would add one new gigawatt per year by 2010, predictions in 2002 stated. It turned out to be 17 times that by 2010 and 48 times that amount last year. “I think most people have been surprised, even shocked, by how quickly the cost has come down,” Mr. Gore says in his office in an environmentally friendly building in the prosperous Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville. He sports a style that might be called Southern business casual: a blazer and dress shirt, bluejeans and cowboy boots. At age 66, he is also trimmer than he was during his bearish, bearded period after the 2000 election, thanks in part to a vegan diet he has maintained for two years. In this city? Home of heavenly meat-and-three platters? He smiles and says proudly, “There are 10 vegan restaurants in Nashville now.” Over an hour and a half, he delivers an endless stream of facts and trends from around the globe. Every minute in Bangladesh, two more homes get new rooftop solar panels. Dubai’s state utility accepted a bid for a solar power plant with a cost per kilowatt-hour of less than six cents. “Wow,” he says, his eyes wide. “That just set everybody on their ear.” Such changes, he says, represent a sharp break with the past, not a slow evolution. That is the point of those slides on his laptop. In 1980, one shows, consultants for AT&T projected that 900,000 cellphones might be sold by 2000. In fact, there were 109 million by then. Today there are some seven billion. “So the question is: Why were they not only wrong, but way wrong?” he says. He presses a button, and up pops an old photo of a young Al Gore with a helmet of hair and an early mobile phone roughly the size of one of Michael Jordan’s sneakers. The same kind of transformation that turned those expensive, clunkers into powerful computers in every pocket is happening now in energy, he says, with new technology leapfrogging old infrastructure. “It’s coming so fast,” he says. “It’s very, very exciting.”
While I agree with Al Gore that "investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar is skyrocketing as their costs plummet" - this was not really foreseen by him. In fact his green investment fund tended not to support solar and wind investments. Most of his hedge fund investments was dedicated to ethanol, turning plant sludge into bio-fuel, and smoke-stack scrubbers - all the while he bitterly complained about lack of Obama administration support for a mandatory carbon exchange (which would have made his hedge fund wealthier than Gates). Gore's few "green" investments - which were examples of crony capitalism - all went bankrupt, but not to worry his GIM hedge fund still made money as they failed because the taxpayer took the hit. I support investment in solar and wind power - including government support for these initiatives. However I do not support funding "green power" because of "global warming"; there are numerous other reasons to support solar & wind power including: 1) To reduce the amount of imported oil. Importing oil undermines U.S. strategic and political initiatives by undermining our policies by making us beholden to those hostile to us such as Venezuela. 2) Oil and natural gas (fracking) extraction is a very dirty process which destroys the local environment. The U.S. has seen the landscape and problems in towns invaded by fracking teams. Increasing green investment will reduce this problem over time. 3) Oil and gas is a finite resource ... as some point we will run out of it, even if this problem occurs a hundred years from now. 4) Technology (including battery enhancements) is improving making solar and wind power more cost effective. In about a decade it will be on par with oil/gas/coal for power generation - especially with reduced green pricing as manufacturing continues to expand. The real problem with the current solar and wind investments is that the technology and equipment is all manufactured off-shore in China. This undermines the U.S capability to self-sustain our green initiatives if our relationship with China slides downhill and they decide not to export solar & wind equipment to the U.S. This is no different than having the Chinese manufacture all of our military planes, ships, tanks, and guns... green energy equipment manufacturing needs to be viewed as a strategic investment which we need to grow onshore. An additional issue is that the U.S. will need to deal with is that our current electrical generation grid is defined to support large central power generation plants with distribution over a heavy power infrastructure with many sub-stations. To properly support green power, we need to transform the electrical grid into a micro-grid in which many green power collectors all feed the power grid from many points while small natural gas generators exist on demand to provide additional power on demand locally at peak or at nights. This entails technology needed to track power flow, billing & payment, and predictive analysis of shortages/overloads - while the power companies will all effectively be transformed into carriers that buy/sell electricity while taking a commission instead of being large generators. I should note that the existing regulated utilities oppose this type of transformation because it undercuts their entire current business model. To this I say "those who do not like change are going to dislike irrelevance even less". Follow-up note: I wish FC would post the url source of his articles so people can read the entire story. The source of his article is the New York Times - The New Optimism of Al Gore