The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been saying the sun is responsible for about 10 percent of the roughly 1 degree-Fahrenheit rise in Earth’s average temperature over the last century.

But now a new European study of solar activity concludes the sun's effect on global warming is “negligible.” Since 1985, the study shows, such factors as sunspots and solar irradiance are trending away from heating the Earth.

The Royal Society, the United Kingdom's national science academy, pronounced that this new study “comprehensively” disproves claims that the cause of recent global warming is increased solar activity. Humans are to blame. Natch.

Lots of other studies have come to the opposite conclusion, of course.

Going back 10,000 years, a 1998 study found that past periods of global warming coincided nicely with increased sunspot activity, which occur during increases in the sun's brightness and energy output. In 2004, a study by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research said Earth was getting hotter because the sun was burning brighter than it had in 1,000 years.

We don't want to get into an ugly debate about the prime cause of global warming. But maybe all those sun-worshipping ancestors of ours were not such dummies after all.

Sure, they lived in caves, thought gods controlled the weather and couldn’t even spell SUV. But eons ago they figured out what should still be obvious to every creature on Earth today.

The mighty sun is in charge of what happens on puny Earth -- not humans or their fires.