Man made global warming or the manmade myth of gullible alarming? This one is too easy folks. Just watch Joe Bastardi's weekly weather summary. If you care to disagree then you probably have an agenda. If you grow citrus in the ground outside zone10, Joe is a good watch anyhow. Roger Revelle was one of the first to advance the theory of CO2 as greenhouse gas causing a coming warming. He was at Harvard and attracted the leftist liberal crowd that realized they could use this to defeat capitalism. Here in Texas we call them watermelons since they are only green on the outside and all red inside. Algore became his most vocal proponent. Revelle went to the lab and did some experiments. He predicted huge temperature rises and climate change due to really high CO2 levels. It never happened. The models they developed still have not matched real world CO2 levels. Nor has the temperature gone up like Revelle originally predicted. Revelle was not a kook. He realized he made a mistake and recanted the whole global warming myth before he died. He even apologized for "any harm he had done". Not so the rest of the warming hucksters. They parlayed this into a multi-billion dollar industry with trillions of more tax dollars planned in a global redistribution scam. Before you get all upset, here are some more facts. After Revelle came up with his half baked theory, they ignored these key items. Nobody had any data on the amount of solar radiation we receive from the sun. And the planet Mars was heating up same as earth. So called climate scientists claimed it was not the sun. They decried skeptics as "junk science" and even "flat earth people". If you have analyzed as many samples of acid gases, CO2 and others scrubbed by sea water, as I have you would also know how wacky this whole idea is.

I also don't see the connection between ferts & Global Warming. But, ignoring that...yes, we are concerned & it is part of our everyday vocabulary. I foresee New England's climate changing considerably. I expect great volitivity not just the normal to every area, "Oh, wait ten minutes & the weather will change". It seems, from my weather here on CT's SE coast that spring is getting much cooler & fall is lasting longer & is much warmer. That's going to change what I plant, where I plant, & how I winterize. What we are most concerned about with regards to Global Warming & agricultural/horticulture is our food crops. I expect to see large scale crop failures become the norm from corn in Iowa to watermelon in Texas. California had record freezes this winter...even along the SoCA coast. California provides nearly a quarter of the food this country consumes. Large scale crop failures in CA will be felt around the world. We need to be developing strains of food crops that will survive the climate changes. It seems almost impossible since we're not yet sure exactly what next year will bring. But more droughts, more severe storms both winter & summer, higher rainfall in some locales, & a change in planting times seems inevitable. I have already written to our Cooperative Extension expressing concern & asking if anything was being done in CT towards experimenting with different strains of corn, for example. I've received nary a response from them. I do speak with friends/neighbors about Global Warming. For some, it sparks political outrage but most have a cavalier, "what can I do" attitude. Or, they fail to see any ramifications other than if the skiing is good, or not, on President's Day weekend. People in America are so removed from the food source many, if not most, do not understand that this thing called Global Warming can affect them. I expect to lose our sugar maples (too warm); I expect we'll also lose the white birch for the same reason. I expect in ten years lilacs will not bloom well in southern New England nor will peonies be reliable. I expect overwintering lavender, succulents, & things such as high desert plants will be even more difficult because of increased late winter/early spring heavy cold rains which leads to rot. I expect to lose more plants due to lack of snow cover. I expect to see more ice where the snow should have been. I expect to have my home flooded out either from Nor'easter or Hurricane as each new, successive storm becomes a bit stronger & erodes our coastline. I anticipate getting trees like 'Butterflies' magnolia to bloom will be almost impossible due to late spring hard, killing frosts that destroy the early blooming buds. Yes, I think things are changing. Tricia

The earth has always gone through cycles of warmer and cold weather. Back in the 1970's they thought that we were headed for another ice age. El Nino's effect on us here in Utah in 1982-84 can be well remembered as the Great SL overflowed and nearly covered Saltaire Palace. I remember the streets of Provo being sandbagged and heavy flooding nearly everywhere I turned. We had a snowstorm the week of 4th of July in 1982 and I remember it being pretty "cold" for the summer. Studies done at Mauna Loa Obersevatory on the Big Island of Hawaii over the past 50 years shows that every year the amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has risen steadily every summer from 310ppm(parts per million) to almost 400ppm. The amount of methane(CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O) are also greenhouse gases, (naturally produce from the breakdown of organic mater and also bacteria) are also increasing. Ozone (O3), which ironically protects us from the Sun's UV light,in the upper atmoshere, is also a pollutant that is rising. Here in the Troposhere(the first couple of miles of atmoshere where we all live) O3 damages plants and irrites eyes & throats.... O3 is produced when the emissions from cars CO, NO2(Nitrogen Oxide)& hydrocarbons are mixed with sunlight. If you ask me if Global warming is happening, facts indicate that it is, and all man made. The earth tries to balance itself out continually. As the man made effects continue, Mother Nature will continue to "lash out" with harser, weirder weather, in an attempt to get back into a state of balance. With our dependance upon fossil fuels, I can only imagine it getting ALOT worse before it gets better, even if we do figure out and mass produce modes of transportation that will not pollute the atmosphere anymore than it already has, it will take decades if not longer to find the balance. Until then, we as gardeners need to enjoy what we have now, plant our cherry trees, plan for a good future, but prepare also for droughts, pestilence(and there is a known history here in UT for crickets and grasshopper invasions that have darken the skies) and god forbid plagues(I do worry about my chickens and the Avian flu), 1918 killed ALOT of Utahans as well as millions around the world.... NO ONE went anywhere... even here in UT all LDS church meetings were cancelled. If the avain flu does happen, or any plague.... be grateful we have our gardens and can rely on what we have in our gardens to sustain us with fresh veggies and fruits..... I think I need a cow or two also, my kids go through SOOOO much milk! :-) I do not want to get religion involved here, but the bible very vividly tells about the plagues and famines and stuff I just mentioned. That aside, from a scientist(which I am) point of view, it will happen. It is NOT a matter of "IF" it will happen, it is a matter of when. I think we have already hit the point of no return scientifically speaking, now we just need to prepare for the fallout. The more we get back to basics and become a more "permaculture" people, the better off we will be. I would love to have 100 acres and live off the land completely.... who in the world could afford 100 acres of sustainable land near enough to civilization to make a living? If you worked 40 hours a week to make a living, when would you have time to work the land, shear the sheep, spin the yarn,make all your own clothes & bedding, milk the cows and goats, make the cheese, harvest the wheat, grind the wheat, make the bread, churn the butter, make the soap, shoe the horses, butcher the cattle, tan the hide, make nice leather shoes & coats.....be completely self sufficiant? What a dilemma! This could be an interesting topic to talk about!

Sheese, will we ever be able to figure out what's going on??? Scientists Clueless over Sun's Effect on Earth By Robert Roy Britt LiveScience Senior Writer posted: 05 May 2005 02:01 pm ET While researchers argue whether Earth is getting warmer and if humans are contributing, a heated debate over the global effect of sunlight boiled to the surface today. And in this debate there is little data to go on. A confusing array of new and recent studies reveals that scientists know very little about how much sunlight is absorbed by Earth versus how much the planet reflects, how all this alters temperatures, and why any of it changes from one decade to the next. Determining Earth's reflectance is crucial to understanding climate change, scientists agree. Brighter outlook? Reports in the late 1980s found the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface had declined by 4 to 6 percent since 1960. Suddenly, around 1990, that appears to have reversed. "When we looked at the more recent data, lo and behold, the trend went the other way," said Charles Long, senior scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Long participated in one of two studies that uncovered this recent trend using satellite data and ground-based monitoring. Both studies are detailed in the May 6 issue of the journal Science. Thing is, nobody knows what caused the apparent shift. Could be changes in cloud cover, they say, or maybe reduced effects of volcanic activity, or a reduction in pollutants. This lack of understanding runs deeper. A third study in the journal this week, tackling a related aspect of all this, finds that Earth has reflected more sunlight back into space from 2000 to 2004 than in years prior. However, a similar investigation last year found just the opposite. A lack of data suggests it's impossible to know which study is right. The bottom line, according to a group of experts not involved in any of these studies: Scientists don't know much about how sunlight interacts with our planet, and until they understand it, they can't accurately predict any possible effects of human activity on climate change. Reflecting on the problem The percentage of sunlight reflected by back into space by Earth is called albedo. The planet's albedo, around 30 percent, is governed by cloud cover and the quantity of atmospheric particles called aerosols. Amazingly, one of the best techniques for measuring Earth's albedo is to watch the Moon, which acts like a giant mirror. Sunlight that reflects of Earth in turn reflects off the Moon and can be measured from here. The phenomenon, called earthshine, was first noted by Leonardo da Vinci. Albedo is a crucial factor in any climate change equation. But it is one of Earth's least-understood properties, says Robert Charlson, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist. "If we don't understand the albedo-related effects," Charlson said today, "then we can't understand the effects of greenhouse gases." Charlson's co-authors in the analysis paper are Francisco Valero at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and John Seinfeld at the California Institute of Technology. Plans and missions designed to study the effects of clouds and aerosols have been delayed or cancelled, Charlson and his colleagues write. To properly study albedo, scientists want to put a craft about 1 million miles out in space at a point were it would orbit the Sun while constantly monitoring Earth. The satellite, called Deep Space Climate Observatory, was once scheduled for launch from a space shuttle in 2000 but has never gotten off the ground. Two other Earth-orbiting satellites that would study the albedo have been built but don't have launch dates. And recent budget shifts at NASA and other agencies have meant some data that's available is not being analyzed, Charlson and his colleagues contend. 'Spurious argument' While some scientists contend the global climate may not be warming or that there is no clear human contribution, most leading experts agree change is underway. Grasping the situation is crucial, because if the climate warms as many expect, seas could rise enough to swamp many coastal communities by the end of this century. Charlson says scientists understand to within 10 percent the impact of human activity on the production of greenhouse gases, things like carbon dioxide and methane that act like blanket to trap heat and, in theory, contribute to global warming. Yet their grasp of the human impact on albedo could be off by as much as 100 percent, he fears. One theory is that if humans pump out more aerosols, the small particles will work to reflect sunlight and offset global warming. Charlson calls that "a spurious argument, a red herring." Greenhouse gases are at work trapping heat 24 hours a day, he notes, while sunlight reflection is only at work on the day side of the planet. Further, he said, greenhouse gases can stay in the atmosphere for centuries, while aerosols last only a week or so. "There is no simplistic balance between these two effects," Charlson said. "It isn't heating versus cooling. It's scientific understanding versus not understanding."