Green Daily

If you're a global warming skeptic who blames the warming trend on a more active solar cycle, Judith Lean, a scientist from the Naval Research Laboratory has a message for you: you're less than 10% right. How's that for a diplomatic way to put it?

At a convention of petroleum geologists in San Antonio, a spokesperson for the national laboratory said that the sun's activity is having a measurable effect on rising temperatures -- but it's about a tenth of the effect of the human factor. Don't let that fool you into thinking that our understanding of climate change is getting any simpler.

The vibe from the petroleum geologists seems to be that climate change is being affected by tons of things, it's just that anthropogenic factors are the strongest. Personally, I look at the findings like this: look everybody's right here, but some are just more right than others. In a way, it's kind of comforting to think that the global warming situation is man-made. If the sun was slowly boiling the planet, it'd be an even more hopeless situation.

Will this settle the debate about climate change so we can have this magical scientific utopia that politicians seem to want? I, for one, really hope not. While many are calling for a hard-line unity or "consensus" about the issue, I don't see why alternative models should not be researched -- there's always a new and better explanation to be had. If scientists want to research unpopular ideas and not get grants, that's their M.O.