North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

Wait a minute.  Maybe some people get riled up over this, but we are planting for the future.  The climate of the future matters more to us than to mere growers of annual vegetables.  I think the point is to toss in what evidence we find and let us all decide for ourselves.  

Me, I'd really really like to make a good guess as to what my local climate is likely to be doing 15-20 years from now.  I know perfectly well that everyone on this list would like to know in advance what their weather will be like.  Should they stick with the tried and true stuff, should they go for stuff from further south, or should they go for varieties and species even hardier than what they've been planting?  If there were some kind of time probe that we could stick out and read off the local monthly highs and lows for the next 10 years, every one of us would be better off. 

    There are two major camps in the world on the issue of climate change, and the 2 major political parties have taken opposite sides, but both have oversimplified views.  The subject is very complicated and  bits of info keep coming in.  That's why I post things like earlier in the summer, when some meteorologist predicted a cool summer for the north.  He was right.  I wish I'd had some kind of prediction for TN for this summer, I might have done more to use the rain.  It's just sort of a shock to have it in quantity after being short of it for so long.  When you see weather info that could be of use to some of us, please post it.  

    I think some of the latest thought on "climate change"  is that there is a cycle in the pattern of winds, and that the pattern of the last 20 years or so may change.  We've been weather freaks for the last 30 years, and have seen the shrieking about a New Ice Age that went on in the late 70's change into shrieks about global warming just 20 years later.  Seriously, I don't want to see anyone leave the list over this subject matter, but it will continue to interest many of us for the rest of our lives.  It's easy enough to delete posts you don't want to read.   Donna