North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Dorogi" <mddorogi@comcast.net>]

Tim – while I have not read the book, I’ve meant to for some time now, and I saw a video where Fred Singer give a discussion some time back.  My impression is that their argument boils down to one that you hear a lot – the climate has always changed, and always will, and therefore there is reason to attribute current changes to natural causes.

 

They could be right.  Singer, at least, is a credentialed person.  However, just because things have changed naturally in the past does not rule out un-natural changes now.   And just because there are many feedback effects that we don’t understand, does not mean that we cannot be causing problems. 

 

There is a wealth of information out there, but it is hard to escape the political and emotional aspects of it.  Everyone is suspicious of the “other side.”   All I can offer is that the physics doesn’t care what we think or whether we can model it or whether we understand the feedbacks – so I think one benefits from understanding the physics of it, and the work that’s been done.  The American Institute of Physics has a lot of info on not only the physics, but the historical aspects of our developing understanding of how climate works.  http://www.aip.org/history/climate/    I think the whole issue is fascinating, frankly, even if one concludes it is scary too.

 

 

From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Tim Inman
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 4:53 PM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] weather

 

I'm a little reluctant to post this, but since I'm curious:

 

Two or three years ago, I read a book by Singer and Avery titled, Unstoppable Global Warming, Every 1500 years.  I thought the information presented by these weather and climate scientists was quite intriguing.  They made quite a case for the normal cyclical nature of our changing climate.  They also felt that man may indeed be contributing to our current changes, but also included a number of different natural phenomena which may be in play.  They refute, however, that the warming change is an imminent peril, or that it is unprecedented.  Although these gentlemen were quite critical of the UN Panel's input into this issue, I felt I was reading a valid presentation of facts and observations presented by scientists.  Have you read this book?  Can you offer your input as to it?  I'd love to hear more on the topic, without the political voltage or panic emotions attached.  It seems to me we have plenty of time to review this issue, and being hostile and disrespectful of other's views isn't very instructive.  Liberals didn't cause this, and conservatives won't fix it.  I'm interested in the science and the facts more than the current politically powerful positions.

 

I'm very environmentally sensitive, but I'm also a calloused old goat when it comes to observing the manipulations of politicians.  Help!  I'm confused.

 

Tim Inman

Zone 4 (or 5)

Randolph, Ia

 

 

Message: 2

Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:30:54 -0700
From: "Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Weather
To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <00aa01c9afdb$b681fa80$2385ef80$@org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Early on in the last decade I was among the scientists who thought that
solar cycles should be closely examined for their role in so many years of
highest-recorded worldwide temperatures.  I've kept up with the research,
and find 100% agreement among climatologists (I'm not one, but feel trained
and adept at understanding published studies) that this is a carbon-based
fuel use phenomenon, not a solar one.  The arguments are more than
persuasive; they are neat, elegant, logical, clear, repeated, validated, and
scientifically irrefutable.  Read them rather than taking my word for that.

 

One of the many explanations for the global climate change phenomenon is
that during the Cambrian period atmospheric carbon was much higher.  This
led to very high global temperatures, incompatible with human life.  The
plant species of the time evolved to use the high levels of CO2, and that
carbon was further utilized by the animals that ate those plants.  Carbon
was drained from the atmosphere; perhaps by consumption alone, or in tandem
with other events.  Those animals and plants died in a rapid and massive
extinction event (very likely caused by climate change).  Their carbon
settled deep into the earth over time (which is why fossils are dug up, not
found on the surface), thus sequestering the carbon - making it unavailable
to the atmosphere.  We call their remains and their carbon "crude oil."

 

We are taking the carbon from that climatologically different - and much
hotter - time and burning it, placing the carbon back into the atmosphere
and recreating Cambrian levels.  You simply can't burn the amount of carbon
that we do at the pace that we do without creating global climate change.

 

There are many models of how this will manifest.  Warming may set off a
chain of events that could lead to a rapid ice age, for instance.  Storms
may be warm hurricanes or freezing superstorms.   Weather will certainly
continue to be different than it has ever been in human history.   Species
extinctions are at a rate comparable with other mass extinction events; we
are experiencing a mass extinction event right now.  The only question is
which species will survive, and what we can do to slow or reverse climate
change.

 

Many climate change naysayers site 2008s coolness relative to the previous
dozen years as evidence that climate change is not occurring.  2008, though,
was the ninth hottest year ever recorded; it just seemed cool because of the
string of previous years of record global high temperatures. 

 

Back on topic - over the past decade I've been able to grow zone 10 plants
comfortably in my nominally zone 8 region.  This is not at all a reasonable
sampling of others' experience; but locally here in California's central
valley my bananas and Kaffir lime are doing quite well.  Got too hot for my
guava last summer, though.

 

~ Stephen