North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

I've been on the Nafex list for enough years to see this over and over.

It's always the same pattern of varying emotions, data, and predictions,
generally followed by the list administrator giving admonitions and perhaps
individual warnings or blacklistings.

I don't fault some folks wanting to discuss this.  If one really believes
mankind is on the brink of distruction, naturally they want to spread their
message.  Their zeal is not new, it's the same thing that motivates
religious protheletism.  Generally a love of mankind.

What's phony is when people give their opinion of the topic and immediately
follow it by an admonition that these topics should not be discussed on this
forum.  It occurs with such regularity on this forum, it's almost comical.

Science is a great thing, but it's niave to believe it can't become
politicized (on either side).  Hard data is one thing, but predictions are
another, and they are notoriously wrong.

The Malthusian catastrophe was predicted to take place long ago (the logic
was sound) but who could have predicted the green revolution which countered
it.

In the end I don't think we really know what will be the doom of mankind,
perhaps it will be some key resource that has reached hubberts peak (oil,
helium, etc).  It will probably be something totally unexpected, like the
science fiction horror "The Andromeda Strain."

Or maybe it'll happen like Zager and Evans said:

"In the year 7510
If God's a-comin' he ought to make it by then
Maybe he'll look around himself and say
Guess it's time for the Judgement day"

Either way, we've only got six billion years before the sun burns out and
all mankind is dead, and I've got a lot less time than that.


Mark
KS


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Evan
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] global cooling


I am very interested in hearing folks' strategies for adding resilience to
their orchards or adapting to possible future climate scenarios. Planting
out of zone expecting a change? Keeping drought tolerant (or maybe wet
tolerant) varieties in particular microclimates just in case normal rainfall
patterns shift (are shifting)? Building swales for water retention? What are
you doing? These sorts of things could make a fertile topic to explore...


But I have no interest in hearing yet another climate change debate,
particularly on this list.


cheers,
Evan
Southern Appalachia, Zone 6b
just short of 3000'


On Jan 23, 2011, at 1:57 PM, Justin West wrote:


 I always appreciate when people decided and are willing to get into
dialogue about climate destabilzation, because we desperately need to be
discussing this issue more.  I also appreciate when those who do decide to
register opinions on the subject of climate change actually have some real
concrete information to share instead of just throwing around the old 'its a
government conspiracy' conspiracy.
The fact of the matter is that average global temperatures for every single
one of the past 36 years have been above the 20th century average.  9 of the
10 hottest years on record have been since 2001.  These are not blips folks.
With business as usual fossil fuel emissions continuing through this century
we will induce the planet into a state of heat it has not experienced for
30-100 million years (thats 28-98 million years prior to the existence of
our species)  It is highly uncertain whether humans can exist in such a
climate as we simply did not evolve with it.  (source: the latest issue of
Science, not exactly a tree hugger conspiracy type publication.)  If those
of you looking forward to some 'warming' of your frost bitten pocket of the
planet can keep in mind that at this extreme rate of change (which is really
the most crucial aspect of this all) mass crop failures such as the one seen
in Russia this past summer will become commonplace.  As the equator possibly
turns into a desert there may be billions of people who come knocking at the
door of those air conditioned northern and southern latitudes.  Try to
picture that.  As they pointed out in the article in Science, none of the
figures I just quoted come from 'modeling'.  They are all derived directly
from records of the past.  None of this requires 'belief.'  It is simply a
matter of allowing oneself to look at the data without a predetermined
emotional response.  It has been determined that the last time the planet
had an atmosphere that carbon rich, it took tens of thousands of years to
slowly draw it back down to the climate we evolved in.  Also please keep in
mind that all of these projections are prefaced with 'business as usual
emissions'.  We are all making a choice in this matter.  We are ,of course,
all a part of the earth's 'natural' cycles in as much as we are a part of
the Earth itself.  However, that does not absolve us from responsibility for
acting appropriately see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/science/earth/22kenya.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
in the NY Times yesterday for more on that ethical responsibility.  And yes,
for those of you who want to say that extinction is also a natural
cycle...true.  And we won't escape that fate either, but to bring it on
ourselves?? silly silly...
I hope this doesn't raise a guttural backlash on the board here, but it is
time to be hashing this out (well the time was actually probably in the 70's
but we cannot go back)

Justin
1 degree F last night, zone 7 and counting...
yep it was cold last night, but that doesn't mean the climate is not heating
up rapidly, just like when it gets dark out every evening that doesn't mean
the sun was turned off:)

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