Rebels of the sun

* The science of how global warming occurs has become crucial to our economy. So why are dissenting explanations of the sun's influence on our fate being pushed aside, asks environment writer Matthew Warren
* March 17, 2007

IT says a lot about the complexity of climate science that we can put a man on the moon but we still can't predict the weather beyond the next few days. The warming of the planet, and man's contribution to this phenomenon, has become the top scientific issue of this generation.
Science by its very nature is an argument. But apparently not this one any more. Yet a minority of scientists are still lining up to challenge the accepted wisdom with their claim that global warming is being principally driven by the sun, not by human activity.

The mainstream view is that an accumulation of greenhouse gases, mostly due to human activity, is trapping too much of the sun's heat within our atmosphere. But the rebels against this dominant view suggest massive variations in the sun's heat radiation are far more influential in warming than accumulating greenhouse gases.