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  • From: "Gordon C. Nofs" <gcnofs@hotmail.com>
  • To: nafex@egroups.com
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] global warming
  • Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:39:21 -0500


I believe that if they had had the satillites, instumentation etc as they do
now, we would be hearing a different story.
Why is it with the advanced weather detecing systems, that the weather
people can not predict the weather sometimes coreect even for the next day
much less try to tell us what it is going to be like a week from today.
Gordon

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I think Dan and Katy covered this subject very well. An additional
historical note comes from Organic Gardening from the mid 70's. In the
editorial, it was stated that the last 200 years in which the human
population has exploded had seen unusually stable weather, and that the 40
years just past, in which hybrid crops and monoculture of uniform varieties
had been developed, had been practically unprecedented in the climate
records. This they implied, was too good to last. They asked, will it get
hotter, or colder? Will it get wetter, or drier? They answered that it
would do all of those things, as the weather returned to a less stable
pattern. It looks like they were right.
I would be the first to concede that the climate has gone through very
wild changes before the invention of internal combustion engines and all our
burning of forests and fossil fuels. And yet, with a population of 6
billion completely dependent on agriculture to feed them, it is absolute
insanity to rock the boat! Deforestation, desertification, a shocking rise
in CO2 levels, pollution killing off plankton, all these are forms of
rocking the boat. Some researchers think they have found the trigger that
turns the Gulf Stream off now and then, it's a big "heap" of cold freshwater
right about where the melting polar ice cap is likely to wind up.
I keep noting that people with no monetary interest are making dire
predictions about the direction we are headed in, while each time I find a
debunker saying that organic is bad, CO2 levels are fine, pesticides never
hurt anyone, etc, my husband points out which pesticide or oil company
supported "organization" the debunker works for.
We read and saw The Perfect Storm. The book says that average wave
heights hitting the English coast have increased 25% in the last 30 years or
so. They say that plankton acts like oil on the water, reducing the drag of
wind and calming the waters like oil would. With plankton levels down by
about 50%, we don't really know what will happen to the ocean, to
evaporation, to CO2 levels due to the reduction in uptake. I remember very
well the paper we read in high school in 1972 by Barry Commoner called "Eco
Catastrophe". It is very upsetting to me every time I hear something he
predicted has come true.
I know people who can't understand why I don't do something political.
I'm not a political person, and anyway, I don't see much hope of changing
things that way. I just do what seems to be my sort of task, keeping old
knowledge and old varieties alive, and trying to enthuse others. Grass
roots movements do not take off in the US the way they do in smaller
countries. California or Europe are the sorts of places where such
movements start, and with enough momentum they can overcome the inertia of
this huge country. I hope some changes start soon. The Slow Foods Movement
is a good idea. Donna


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