Planet Hot

Memo to global warming deniers No. 463: Ice Core Samples Prove Human Link to Global warming. Not only that, but...

"The most scary thing is that carbon dioxide today is not just out of the range of what happened in the last 650,000 years but already up 100 percent out of the range," says Dr Eric Wolff of the British Antarctic Survey said at the British Association Festival of Science in Norwich, eastern England.

And as long as we're throwing numbers around April Scott 100 percent out of my range. Pic courtesy of GorillaMask.

Today's interesting article on how to fix the planet, Scientific American's A Climate Repair Manual, is brought to you by Playboy's The Girls of Home Depot. (nsfw, obviously)

Wired reports that Paul Crutzen, the influential director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, has a novel idea for combatting global warming:

He recommends injecting massive amounts of sulfur into the upper atmosphere so less sun will penetrate it.

Sulphur? Like the stuff that smells like rotten eggs? O-kay, I guess, but if somebody comes along and starts saying that injecting Krispy Kreme emissions into the stratosphere has the same effect, I'm gonna probably listen to them instead. Mmm, doughnuts.

You know who doesn't stink? Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret model Marisa Miller, that's who. Even if she does like to hang out with sheep. (Link goes to SFW gallery.)

Everybody likes syrup, right? Well get your fill while you can. Newsweek reports that many species of trees are running into trouble, and that the sugar maple is particularly prone to changes in temperature. To quote:

Sugar Maple It doesn't do well in heat; rising temps could kill these trees in New England. Climate models show Vermont's batch, the basis of a $164 million syrup industry, could be gone in a century.

Pic goes to a nsfw gallery of pictured tree hugger.

Quick multiple choice today...

The Inuit people, known as Eskimos to most of us, are coping with global warming by:

a) Stripping down in their igloos like Sports Illustrated - Victoria's Secret model slash tsunami survivor Petra Nemcova (nsfw) on the left here, or

b) Buying air conditioners.

The answer is of course b). Reuters reports today that In A Warmer World, Even Inuit Buy Air Conditioners.

But my question is this -- where will they put them when their igloos melt?

Heat waves like those that have scorched Europe and the United States in recent weeks are becoming more frequent because of global warming, say scientists who have studied decades of weather records and computer models of past, present and future climate.

So says this article from the Washington Post.

In fact, it's sooo hot... (if this sounds like a bad setup, it's because it is!) ... it looks like Playmate Nicole Voss is getting ready to lose the jean shorts right here.

I can totally understand. I mean, you ever sweat in jeans? Each leg starts to feel like you've got a damp boa-f'ing-constrictor wrapped around it.

Anyway, visit Nicole at her Playboy site (nsfw with video), her MySpace Page, and in this wonderful NSFW gallery.

From the Wall Street Journal comes a story of just another harmless amateur video making waves on YouTube. Except the video, titled "Al Gore's Penguin Army," which pokes fun at Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, isn't the work of an amateur at all, but a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.

You can judge for yourself with the video below. Personally-speaking, I found it more boring than Gore himself, which I didn't even know was possible. So I'm not exactly sure how Exxon thought paying somebody to make this was a good idea.

Also showing some nice colors today is Amiee Rickards, returning to this blog after her first appearance. She's got some nice new pics and video over at Savvy.com.

Okay, maybe the Brits didn't send Page 3 girl Nikkala Stott (gallery) over to enjoy California's beaches (though it looks like she would), but they did send Tony Blair, who is meeting with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to finalize a pact designed to limit greenhouse gases, effectively doing an end-run around the Bush administration's do-nothing policy on climate change.

It's pretty big news here in California, and could potentially be quite significant , given California's history of setting the environmental standards for the nation. If you want, take a listen to these two stories from NPR, which pretty much cover the whole thing.

California, U.K. Enter Global Warming Pact
California and U.K. Sign Global Warming Pact

...as well as this analysis from the green Grist Magazine that outlines some of the shortcomings of Tony and Arnie's plan.

And before you start making fun of Arnold for claiming that California is "like a nation state," keep in mind that California's economy is larger than all but seven national economies in the world*.

Suck it, biatches, we are going to drag you into this global warming fight whether you like it or not.

But that's okay, because partnering with the U.K. can only be good. They have a long history of doing things better than America. Don't believe me? Let's see, there's um, tea... rock music... and of course Maxim Magazine in the U.K. is soooo much better, as witnessed by this gallery of Maxim's Model Erotica! (NSFW), which features the above Nikkala Stott and others in some very steamy poses.

Saw this and had to share:

Utilities Paying Skeptic
(Associated Press)
WASHINGTON - Coal-burning utilities are passing the hat for one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels. Pat Michaels — Virginia's state climatologist, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute — told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research. So last week, a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign to help him out, raising at least $150,000 in donations and pledges.

(rest of article here...)

Also, courtesy of SourceWatch.org, here are some bullet points on Mr. Pat Michaels:

• Michaels has received more than $115,000 over the last four years [circa 1995] from coal and energy interests. World Climate Review, a quarterly he founded that routinely debunks climate concerns, was funded by Western Fuels.
• Michaels claims that Kyoto is an EU conspiracy to hurt smaller countries, despite the fact that basically every developed country except Australia and the US has joined.
• In August 2004, Michaels told Business Week "We know how much the planet is going to warm. It is a small amount, and we can't do anything about it.
• Michaels has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science.
• Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels' testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading.
  
  

Pat Michaels is a douchebag for taking dollars to effectively make up science for Big Energy. That's gotta be against, like, the scientific Hippocratic oath or something. What, you tell me there is no Hippocratic-type oath for scientists? Well, there should be. This guy is a total ass.

Though I don't necessarily mean to sound perjorative when I call him an ass. Some asses are great. Like Jessica Alba's, for instance, as seen here at A Collection of Jessica Alba's Ass Pictures. With her posterior, da lovely can't put anybody in her pocket.

Fantastic.

Hey folks, after a much needed break I'm back. And while I was gone, it seems that Sara Jean Underwood from an earlier post got mighty popular. You folks must dig women into that higher education thing. I'll make sure to go scrounge up some more juicy pics of her for you, but in the meantime go ahead and have a gander at these Playboy shots that didn't make the U.S. magazine at Playboy.co.uk.



And moving on to global warming, while I was gone I discovered yet another fascinating possible fix to global warming: CO2 Capture, which is basically scrubbing the air of carbon dioxide with huge filtering machines. Klaus Lackner of Columbia University thought up one approach to the idea, detailed here in a story from The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. It's available both as a transcript and streaming video. Pic of the machine is to the left and clicking it will link you to a BBC article on the idea.

Hey folks, Mr. Getdown is going on a little sabbatical. Expect me back in a week or two.

In the meantime, I leave you with Estela Pereira of Playboy Brazil. (link is NSFW gallery)

I think the reason is evident, but I have always wanted to go to Brazil.

And for today's climate bit, check out this humorously titled article from the L.A. Times, "If Only Gay Sex Caused Global Warming."