[palmer]

the claim that there's been no rise since 1998 is based on cherry-picking that unusually warm year as the point of comparison.

Moncton didn't cherry pick 1998, he used 1996. You are correct the trend is up if only slightly. But the trend over the last 20 years is less than the trend over the last 30 years. Thus claims of accelerating warming are false. If anything we will see reduced solar activity and will be lucky to keep warming.

[Steve_Seattle]

"If anything we will see reduced solar activity and will be lucky to keep warming."

According to basic science, the long-term prospects for the earth are towards cooling, which at some distant point (barring Divine intervention) will lead to the end of life on earth. So I tend to think of a slight, short-term warming as a good thing, not the unmitigated catastrophe of the global warming doomsayers.