Sometimes, the Mask Slips, a Little

A quote that is disheartening to read:

Then, in 2003, the same data set, which in their [IPCC’s] publications, in their website, was a straight line—suddenly it changed, and showed a very strong line of uplift, 2.3 mm per year, the same as from the tide gauge. And that didn’t look so nice. It looked as though they had recorded something; but they hadn’t recorded anything. It was the original one which they had suddenly twisted up, because they entered a “correction factor,” which they took from the tide gauge. So it was not a measured thing, but a figure introduced from outside. I accused them of this at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow—I said you have introduced factors from outside; it’s not a measurement. It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don’t say what really happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend!
-- Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner

Klimaschutz hat mit Umweltschutz kaum mehr etwas zu tun, sagt der Ökonom Ottmar Edenhofer. Der nächste Weltklimagipfel in Cancún sei eigentlich ein Wirtschaftsgipfel, bei dem es um die Verteilung der Ressourcen gehe.
-- Klimapolitik verteilt das Weltvermögen neu
(Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economics summit during which the distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated.)
 ...

That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.
De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.
First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.)

Nice of them to be so open.  No more pretense. 

Meanwhile, back at the science....

Synchronized Northern Hemisphere climate change and solar magnetic cycles during the Maunder Minimum

Yasuhiko T. Yamaguchi, Yusuke Yokoyama, Hiroko Miyahara, Kenjiro Sho, and Takeshi Nakatsuka

Abstract:
The Maunder Minimum (A.D. 1645–1715) is a useful period to investigate possible sun–climate linkages as sunspots became exceedingly rare and the characteristics of solar cycles were different from those of today. Here, we report annual variations in the oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of tree-ring cellulose in central Japan during the Maunder Minimum. We were able to explore possible sun–climate connections through high-temporal resolution solar activity (radiocarbon contents; Δ14C) and climate (δ18O) isotope records derived from annual tree rings. The tree-ring δ18O record in Japan shows distinct negative δ18O spikes (wetter rainy seasons) coinciding with rapid cooling in Greenland and with decreases in Northern Hemisphere mean temperature at around minima of decadal solar cycles. We have determined that the climate signals in all three records strongly correlate with changes in the polarity of solar dipole magnetic field, suggesting a causal link to galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). These findings are further supported by a comparison between the interannual patterns of tree-ring δ18O record and the GCR flux reconstructed by an ice-core 10Be record. Therefore, the variation of GCR flux associated with the multidecadal cycles of solar magnetic field seem to be causally related to the significant and widespread climate changes at least during the Maunder Minimum.  
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Speaking of Maunder Minimums...
The radio-flux proxy for solar activity compared to the most recent projection of the new solar cycle.  Still lagging behind behind the predicted curve...

And the Solar Magnetic Field strength is very low:

Notice that the Sun pulled its magnetic blanket off the Earth ca. 2005/6 and that there has been no net warming since then, except when the raw data is adjusted "because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend!" 


Why does it matter if we must Say Goodbye to Sunspots?  Because it could get Very Cold, and cold kills.  The Earth-Sun Coupling could be far more crucial than given credit for.