More thoughts about Anthropogenic Global Warming

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6290228.stm
'A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun's output cannot be causing modern-day climate change...Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain's Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis. '
Sounds good- at last a genuine attempt to have a debate about the evidence or lack thereof for anthropogenic global warming. On the face of it, its not a very impressive argument, but at least they're giving it a go:
'The scientists' main approach on this new analysis was simple; to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature, which has risen by about 0.4C over the period.'
Ok, I admit I flunked statistics, but even I know that 30-40 years is a sample size of almost comical teensiness. One of the points of agreement of all climatoligists is the influence of long term effects feeding into ephemeral and short term effects. Who knows whether increased solar activity 100 years ago isn't still having an effect?
'"This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of climate science.' Dr Forster sounds very definite- in a way that scientists in my experience steer clear of when our understanding of the complexities of something like weather or fluid dynamics is so weak. Climate has so many feedback inputs, so many inter-relations and so many variables that a definitive statement like that sounds like propaganda. Dr Forster might be right, but I don't think he is justified.
Enough of the micro-arguments. I think that people are beginning to realise that of all the problems facing the world, climate change is one of the least important, and that for human societies issues like good governance, pollution, over-population, absolute poverty and the growth of global pathologies like Wahhabism are far more pressing. As one African critic of the recent Live Earth jamborees pointed out, mooted deaths from global warning are 1 million by 2050, whereas more than 4 million die per year from preventable diseases in Africa alone. Anthropogenic global warming may be the hottest issue for fat blowhards like Al Gore, but for the teeming masses of Africa, South America and Asia, its a remote and entirely theoretical problem.
We may see a sea-change in global attitudes to the issue for one standout reason: the United States is no longer the worlds largest contributor of CO2, and therefore a lot of the fun has gone out of bleating on about it for the hordes of Great Satan bashers.