[depressed in 06]

The antarctic ice core data seems to show warm period lasting 20,000 years and cold periods of 100,000 years. We are about 15,000 years into the latest warm period, so, manmade global warming is a good thing or immaterial at worst.

[ETL]

Here's a chart showing the various peaks and dips in the 11-year sunspot cycle throughout the past centuries. Note the "Medieval Max". It corresponds to the "Medieval Warm Period". The "Maunder Minimum" corresponds to the "Little Ice Age", and the "Modern Max" to the recent warming trend we had been experiencing, at least until the past 15 years or so.

"Changes in carbon-14 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere, which serves as a long term proxy of solar activity. Note the present day is on the left-hand side of this figure."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity