Damn, Robert. Are you spiteful on all the pages?
;^)

What caught my eye in the article was this:
Regular earthshine observations began in 1997 ...

Barely 7 years of research, and all those satellite shots dating back to the 60's to work with. Increased cloud cover would indicate a potential cooling of our habitat -- even if that cooling is not yet measurable. I think in a few years we could get a fairly nice record of Earth cloud cover, and see if we might be coming too quickly into our next ice age.

Even if we did find out, with literally decades to turn it all around, Gary's "we always have to march off a cliff" post comes back at me.

Cheers,
Dan