[cpbell0033944]

Would the similar warming occuring on Mars be evidence enough that solar cycles are causing a significant amount of warming?  I believe it does, although I will admit there is disagreement on the cause.  Or would the fact that the Max Planck institute believes that solar activity over the last 60 years has been at its highest level in  the past 8000 years?  Furthermore, Milankovitch Cyclicity indicates that the Earth should be currently warming due to natural cycles.
Or maybe you could look at the fact that the Earth has been both much hotter and much cooler than its current climate, both occurred without human assistance. What we know is that the Earth is the hotter now than it has been in the last 400 years.  So the planet is hotter now than it has been since the little ice age; a stunning scientific discovery.  Furthermore accurate temperature measurements have only been around for about a century.  So we are using a hundred years of accurate data to predict variations of cycles of up to 400,000 years.  A variation of less than 1 degree C, which given the accuracy of the historic data falls well within the margin of error.
Also, the so called consensus on global warming is a political propaganda carefully chosen to give the impression that all scientist agree, when in fact many very well respected and distinguished scientists disagree for a variety of reasons.
So the worshipers of the church of environmentalism can freak out over their coming apocalypse, I'll what until I see real evidence before I worry about it.

BTW, good posts Dave and Jimmy.

If everyone's OK with the idea, I'll respond to egad's reply mainly in bullet points.  Before I do, though, I'd just like to clarify a point.  I'm NOT a climate-change scientist, but I AM a scientist by training (I have a BSc Honours degree in Biology), and therefore I'm defending the scientific principle against the "I don't want to believe in X, Y or Z, so I'll call the scientists liars." philosophy that pervades much of Western society nowadays.

1./ Given that Mars is in a different position in the solar system, I don't think that comparing it to our situation is very helpful.  Anyway, I did say that the evidence and expert views that I've read state that solar activity could be a contributory factor, but NOT the major factor.  The people at the Max Planck Institute are probably correct, but that doesn't explain the warming by itself.  To quote the New Scientist article I referred before (written by Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council):

First, let's deal with the main thesis: that the presence or absence of cosmic rays in Earth's atmosphere is a better explanation for temperature variation than the concentration of CO2 and other gases.  This is not a new assertion and it is patently wrong: there is no credible evidence that cosmic rays play a significant role.  The climate system is complex and it is likely that many factors affect it, cosmic rays among them.  But to claim they are a major influence is disingenuous.  There is far greater evidence suggesting Co2 is the major source of warming.

There's the scientific way in action: first, do the research, then interpret the findings.  Formulate a model or theory based on the conclusions drawn from the evidence that has been gathered, and use that model until such time as compelling new evidence appears that contradicts the model.  Assess the new evidence, and either modify or abandon the model as necessary.  Repeat until the model is proven, then the theory becomes a principle or Law.  As Thorpe himself says:

Given the high stakes, it is hardly surprising that scientist's methods and conclusions are coming under considerable scrutiny.  This is as it should be.  after all, scepticism is fundamental to the scientific method.

2./  Milankovitch cycles.  Yes, these are the pacemakers of ice ages and interglacial periods, but they cause positive feedback loops which usually result in increases or decreases of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere – these are changes, as Thorpe puts it:

…which amplify the change in temperature.

This suggests that the cynic's view – that the observation of a lag time between changes in temperature and CO2 concentrations through the last several thousand years (Arctic ice cores help assess these changes) discredit the notion of CO2 increasing global temperatures – is wrong because the Milankovitch cycle starts the warming process, but it is then made much worse by increased CO2 concentration.

3./  Accuracy of data.  Using ice cores, soil cores and many other techniques, climate change scientists have probably as good an understanding of temperatures thousands of years ago as early weather observers did when thermometers came about 300 or so years ago.  And anyway, temperatures may have only been recorded in the US for 100 years or so, but regional UK records go back much further.  For example, the English Midlands, measurements called the Central England Temperature records have been taken daily since 1772, and monthly since 1659.  (Source: http://www.ecn.ac.uk/iccuk/indicators/1.htm).

4./  Disagreement between scientists.  Yes, I'm sure the are sceptics within the climate research world, but I'd direct you back to my point about the scientific method.  There is an onus on sceptical researchers to produce good, compelling evidence against a human-made primary cause for global warming, NOT for those whose research has already provided evidence for a causal relationship between human activity and rising temperature to have to defend themselves against scepticism without foundation.  Don't forget, the fame (and research grants) that would come the way or the team that disproved the idea that human activity is the main force behind climate change would be huge. 

[cpbell0033944]

Eight thumbs up? I guess this is a record for me! 
Thanks Ritz.

I've never seen that before, but it's a work of genius!

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Ms Dejager is a supreme example of how women can build big, heavily-muscled and incredibly erotic bodies without the use of steroids etc. thereby maintaining their facial beauty and femininity. ;D 8)

[cpbell0033944]

Being an Englander… Now we're defiantly buggered ¬_¬

Still, Class act art Ref  😉 8 thumbs up!

I'm no football fan, but can you imagine what would happen if she tackled Peter Crouch? 😮  He'd splinter like a toothpick!

[cpbell0033944]

Seems pretty on-target to me. I'd only add that the agenda of the radical environmentalists includes trashing traditional definitions of "masculinity" as part and parcel of trying to destroy the whole of Western Civlization.

Look at how limited the choices of alternatives to petroleum would be if we took their advice: Can't use wind power, that kills migratory birds who get caught in the windmill blades. Hydroelectric? Hell no! too much destruction of wilderness when we dam up a river. And don't even mention nuclear power – evil! evil! (At least when American utilities propose it; strange that there are no protests from the anti-nuke crowd of Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs…) The greens won't be happy until the rest of us are reduced to living in caves, burning our own excrement for heat (can't cut down trees, y'know), and scrounging for twigs and berries to eat (not allowed to farm, not allowed to raise food animals)…

I am happy to see the amount of attention that the efforts on the part of global-warming alarmists to ban any discussion or dissension from climate change dogma are receiving. I am a global-warming skeptic myself; there's too much evidence of other, non-man-made factors (including increased solar activity), and too many instances of cycles of warming and cooling in the past, for me to believe that the current warming (if it's happening) is totally or even largely man-made and requires massive disruptions of our economic and cultural lives to "combat". To hear that my opinion ought to subject me to a Nuremburg-style war crimes trial frightens me more than any provision of the Patriot Act.

The UK's Channel 4 recently aired a 90-minute documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle", which debunks the alarmism.

Unfortunately, the TV programme to which you refer is bunk.  I read New Scientist journal and a vey well-written article by a leading researcher explained that the idea that global warming is entirely due to natural cycles is taking a grain of truth (a small part of it might be to do with non-human activities) and extrapolating that truth to a ridiculous degree in order to suggest that it's "business as usual". (New Scientist issue 2595, March 20th 2007)

  There's no valid evidence to suggest that solar cycles or similar phenomena are anywhere near strong enough to cause all, or even the majority of observed warming.  The recent international agreed document (which is decided upon by huge numbers of climate scientists from around the world, yes, even from the US) recently was neutered by politicians – key references to the acceleration of climate change due to positive feedback mechanisms were either erased completely or watered-down.  Even after this, it still makes for scary reading.

I must confess that I fail to understand the American psyche on this issue.  Why should global warming be a massive conspiracy by the rest of the world against the USA?  What is so hard to accept about the idea that if we pump, day and night, for decade after decade vast amounts of pollutants into a finite atmosphere, we are likely to do serious damage?  It seems as if Americans are so wedded to the idea of economic growth, the right to drive huge, highly fuel-inefficient vehicles, that their considered response as a nation is "Hell to the rest of the world – we're alright, and that's all that matters."  Fine if you're American (although the US will eventully reap the whirlwind, trust me), but if you're not…? >:(
The thing I really don't get, though, is the idea that being environmentally-aware reduces a man's masculinity.  A load of mumbo-jumbo about Gaia not liking masculinity is hardly the same as logical, fact-seeking science, is it?  Here on Amaz0ns.com, we are a group of people (mainly male) who are attracted to muscular women.  Many men traditionally dislike female muscularity because they see it as a challenge to their masculinity.  You dislike the idea of environmental awareness because you see it as a challenge to YOUR masculinity.
Am I the only one to see the irony here?

I'd be the first to agree that we cannot (and in fact do not need to) revert to a caveman lifestyle.  However, extremists are found in almost any group, and by reading articles, such as those found in the aforementioned publication that are written by reasonable, rational climate-change researchers, one can see that, yes, a lifestyle change is necessary, but it doesn't have to be THAT extreme.  In my part of the UK (East Anglia) there is a debate going-on about land-borne wind farms; many people are against the idea, although Norfolk still has a very prominent pair of huge turbines and associated visitor/educational centre around 20 miles from where I live.  However, there is already a fairly sizeable offshore wind farm in the North Sea (off the East Anglian coast between us and Holland) and there are plans for huge wind farms offshore in the Thames Estuary (the triangle of North Sea between the coast of Essex and Kent, on the approaches to London from the East), and these are generally welcomed.  Yes, there are concerns with migrating birds, but technology can make the spinning blades "visible" to birds to reduce the problem.
I think that half the difficulty here is that, Katrina aside, the US climate, being continental, is less vulnerable to climate change than Britain, with its changeable, maritime climate.  Having said that, I do know that many people living along the Alaskan coastline feel that the current US administration is ignoing the threat to their communities (caused by rising sea levels) because it suits them politically to do so. 

All I know is that, on top of all the peer-reviewed scientific evidence for global warming, I have seen anacdotal evidence of it in the weather patterns of my home area.  More intense summer heatwaves (I think statistically, 9 of the 10 hottest British summers in recorded history have been in something like the last 15 years), the most intense and violent electrical storms I can ever remember taking place one night last July, 19 degrees celcius in Norfolk last week, when the average should have been about 8 degrees, more violent winds, more intense rainstrorms, longer drought periods (much of southern England baked to a crisp last summer) – it's all happening.  Yet British men aren't turning into asexual pussycats by trying to do their bit.

Fair enough; keep on driving your Hummers, keep on polluting, but do the rest of the world one favour, will you, as a nation (I don't mean you personally, Dave)?
Don't come crying to the rest of the world when climate change bites US territory, because, then, as my home area disappears under the sea, I'll stop on my way to the Northern hills of Britain to escape the rising waters, I'll turn to face West, and I'll say:
"We gave you the warnings and you chose not to heed them.  We're all in this together now."

[cpbell0033944]

How about Luis Royo? http://www.aumania.it/fa_royo1.html

WOW – I've just looked-up Senor Royo's page and all I can say is that his female figures are so sexy, powerful and intense-looking. I've fallen in love with this one most of all, though:

P.S.  I'm not as keen on Boris & Julie's subject matter, though their technical expertise is clearly incredible.  I do like Madame Hydra and Rogue, though – actually Rogue catches my eye in some of the works as being quite urban and gritty, a real tough, punky, strong street girl. 🙂

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Found this while working on a Supergirl post:

http://www.greenoblivion.com/unrelatedpic76.html

at http://www.greenoblivion.com

Now she looks well hard! (British way of saying that I know that she'd kick my ass without mercy)  By the way, congratulations Sir Alex!

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Thanks Masschine!

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Although I was aware of her, I was just a fraction too young – at that stage I was yet to realise the wonder of the muscular female form.  Come to think of it, I was one of those nerdy late developers; I seem to recall still being in the "Girls, yuck!" stage then.  ::) :'(
Why couldn't I have been one of those randy kids?

[cpbell0033944]

WOW 😮
The line drawing was brilliant, but this is just incredible.  So powerful, striking, and Sherri is SO sexy! ::) 8)

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