Reply #5: Debunked

[Viking12]

The scientist featured wasn't even interviewed - great journalism. Had they interviewed him, they would have learned Kenneth Tapping's views,

"The stuff on the web came from a casual chat with someone who managed to misunderstand what I said and then put the result on the web, which is probably a big caution for me regarding the future.

It is true that the beginning of the next solar cycle is late, but not so late that we are getting worried, merely curious.

It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades. However, once again it is early days and we cannot at the moment conclude there is another minimum started."

http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2008/02/09/6488/

Via: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/

The artcile also cites the Max Plank Institute in Germany. Here's what they have to say about their work:

"Although the changes in the two values tend to follow each other for roughly the first 120 years, the Earth’s temperature has risen dramatically in the last 30 years while the solar brightness has not appreciably increased in this time," they said... "since about 1980, while the total solar radiation, its ultraviolet component, and the cosmic ray intensity all exhibit the 11-year solar periodicity, there has otherwise been no significant increase in their values. In contrast, the Earth has warmed up considerably within this time period. This means that the Sun is not the cause of the present global warming."

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-03-03.asp