Whether your position is that of a “warmist” or that of a “skeptic” in the AGW (anthropogenic - or man-made - global warming) debate, the two essays identified by the following are essential reading.

SUN WARMS AND COOLS THE EARTH
By Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski
New Zealand Centre for Political Research
20 SEPTEMBER 2008
[1] http://www.nzcpr.com/Research%20papers%20(4).pdf
(1.48MB PDF file)

In an op-ed in a Polish weekly I commented recently on a remarkable decrease of global temperature in 2008, and over the past decade. Not surprisingly the op-ed evoked a strong reaction from Polish coworkers of IPCC, denying the existence of cooling. Surprising, however, was that the criticism dwelled upon a “global climatic conspiracy”, and “colossal international plot”. I did not use these words nor even hinted at such an idea. The idea, well described in Wikipedia, was probably apparent from the data and facts I presented, showing weaknesses of the man-made global warming hypothesis. Without irrational political or ideological factors, it is really difficult to understand why so many people believe in human causation of the Modern Warm Period, which was never plausibly proved by scientific evidence. Some of these factors I will discuss here.

Climate Change Reexamined
By JOEL M. KAUFFMAN
Emeritus, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry,
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, PA 19104-4495
e-mail: kauffman@bee.net
Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 723–749, 2007
[2] http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/ccr.pdf
(382kB PDF file)

Abstract—Claimed human-caused warming of the Earth to dangerous and unprecedented levels by human-related emissions of carbon dioxide is contradicted mainly by a non-correlation of carbon dioxide levels with warming. Details are given of misleading proxy temperature reconstructions, as well as of misleading proxy atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Evidence is presented to show that trepidation about runaway land surface temperatures should apply only to giant urban heat islands, not to rural areas or oceans. Evidence is presented for causes in addition to human emissions for changes in the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, namely its emission from warming oceans. Plausible alternative causes of surface temperature change are given as well, including variations in solar output and cosmic ray intensity.

Enjoy, –Walter