It’s all due to the sun – according to a guest column in the Ft. Wayne News Sentinel.  Unfortunately, none but a few contrarian scientists – many paid by coal and oil interests – believe that.

Virtually all legitimate climate scientists conclude that while the sun was the dominant external influence on the climate until about 150 years ago, it has since been swamped by greenhouse gases which, today, comprise about 85 percent of the external influences on the climate.  

Scientists, moreover, say that, absent our burning of coal and oil, we would be looking forward to a stable, comfortable climate for the next 15,000 years. The column provides a great platform for such contrarians as Richard Lindzen – whose assertions have long been examined and dismissed by the world’s community of climate scientists – as well as the assertions of Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, whose work has been discredited and is funded by, among others, the American Petroleum Institute.  Too bad he didn’t pay more attention to the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.