Mike, Thanks for this. David Whitehouse is a BBC correspondent. It will be great if variations in solar forcing do manage to hold down the increases for a few years, to give us breathing space to tackle AGW. Unfortunately for our children, when the solar minimum ceases, it is liable to give global tempratures a most unpleasant upward bounce.

Richard. 

Royal Society on this topic: 

Change in solar activity is one of the many factors that influence the climate but cannot, on its own, account for all the changes in global average temperature we have seen in the 20th Century.

Changes in the Sun's activity influence the Earth's climate through small but significant variations in its intensity. When it is in a more active' phase as indicated by a greater number of sunspots on its surface it emits more light and heat. While there is evidence of a link between solar activity and some of the warming in the early 20th Century, measurements from satellites show that there has been very little change in underlying solar activity in the last 30 years there is even evidence of a detectable decline and so this cannot account for the recent rises we have seen in global temperatures.

The magnitude and pattern of changes to temperatures can only be understood by taking all of the relevant factors both natural and human into account. For example, major volcanic eruptions produce a cooling effect because they blast ash and other particles into the atmosphere where they persist for a few years and reduce the amount of the Sun's energy that reaches the Earth's surface. Also, burning fossil fuels produces particles called sulphate aerosols which tend to cool the climate in the same way.

Over the first part of the 20th Century higher levels of solar activity combined with increases in human generated carbon dioxide to raise temperatures. Between 1940 and 1970 the carbon dioxide effect was probably offset by increasing amounts of sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere, and a slight downturn in solar activity, as well as enhanced volcanic activity.

During this period global temperatures dropped. However, in the latter part of the 20th Century temperatures rose well above the levels of the 1940s. Strong measures taken to reduce sulphate pollution in some regions of the world meant that industrial aerosols began to provide less compensation for an increasing warming caused by carbon dioxide. The rising temperature during this period has been partly abated by occasional volcanic eruptions.

Mike do you understand this passage from the Royal Society? Does it influence your thinking?

"measurements from satellites show that there has been very little change in underlying solar activity in the last 30 years there is even evidence of a detectable decline and so this cannot account for the recent rises we have seen in global temperatures."

Richard 

There are always disagreements among "experts". Nobody denies that solar output has an influence on climate, but it is a minor influence. Look above, (in the Barmaid Dialogue) and you will find a reference that quantifies that influence.

Re the  "economic devastation"; the only people to be devastated are those parts of the oil industry who are too inflexible to realise that they are in the business of supplying energy, not just in the business of sucking (oil). 

The economy is probably going to be devastated anyway, from the sub-prime unwise lending propensity of banks. Untreated climate change will also devastate the economy. Have you looked up the Pascal's Wager link?

http://tinyurl.com/2w3fc9

Mike, I am  getting bored repeating myself. The key thing not scientific detail, but the fact that that you are convinced that  global warming is a conspiracy whereby radical Greens and Reds have somehow convinced the scientific and political community of the world of a delusionary idea in order to subvert the free market economy.

I do not see that there is anything I can do to dissuade you of that view, nor do I feel indeed that it is my responsibility to try to do so.