With debate about a carbon dioxide tax heating up in Australia and PM Julia Gillard determined to inflict more sufferig on us, maybe it's time to take her predecessor's aviced and "pop a Modagon."

Surely the precautionary principle should tell us to postpone a tax for a few more years to see if the growing expectation of a cooling preiod actually comes to pass. If the article below has any truth to it, we might be wanting more greenhouse gases not less in the immediate future.

 

 THE DEMISE OF SUNSPOTS—DEEP COOLING AHEAD?

Don J. Easterbrook, Professor of Geology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA

The three studies released by NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network this week, predicting the virtual vanishing of sunspots for the next several decades and the possibility of a solar minimum similar to the Maunder Minimum, came as stunning news. According to Frank Hill,

“the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”

The last time sunspots vanished from the sun for decades was during the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1700 AD was marked by drastic cooling of the climate and the maximum cold of the Little Ice Age.

 

Full article here