First month with no sunspots in a century!

From what I've read there are records to show months without any sunspots that go in 103 and 216 year cycles. Here in England, at the beginning of every century when there have been these "quieter" periods in the sun's activity we have had very cold winters and if anyone has read any Charles Dickens will know that there were Ice Fairs on the River Thames in London (18th/19th century) when it froze over and they would have bonfires on the ice to roast meat for the populace. No central heating or thermal underwear in those days.

Also in Roman times we had vineyards in Northumberland (north of England) so we must have had a more temperate climate to produce wine for the occupying army etc. The Dark Ages were the time of a mini ice age.

Our Royal Navy's logbooks are an archive of written material from all over the world that record weather patterns for 300-400 years and there is plenty of evidence of warming and cooling before coal was burned in power stations or SUVs were invented. It is all cyclical and the Earth has a very good self-regulating mechanism, though I agree we haven't helped much with deforestation etc.

I've never quite understood how Mankind can be so arrogant as to assume "we can change the climate". Think Mother Nature may have something to say about that. Also as CO2 only makes up less than 1% of the atmosphere I'm not sure that it will have that big an impact. And I agree that once BIG business got involved and that money was made out of this it rather undermined the argument. Of course they were going to support AGW if it meant a profit for George Soros and his pals.

Even the IPCC have at last proposed a 10 year moratorium on global warming as the average temperature has been going down since 2000.

Pollution and global warming "a blessing?" Say what? For whom? For the polar bears losing their habitat and food sources? For the creatures living in warmer oceans and the depletion of their food sources? I find that theory very suspect and far reaching indeed. I know you mean well, but "a blessing" involves more than just humans being saved and rescued IMO.

Definitely agree on the going beyond current scientific models, scientifically and spiritually. I think it would be great.

The current lull is still within historic norms, according to NASA, so we'll see how it all pans out. According to the article linked below, "The ongoing solar minimum needs to accumulate another 206 spotless days before it matches the duration of the 1933 minimum, which is considered unremarkable by solar historians."

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm?list95542

The article has an illustration outlining the predicted range of solar activity in upcoming years. I will be interested to see how well models of solar activity hold up, and how that correlates to human and terrestrial activity.