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Not A Poet
Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885
Oklahoma, USA

0 posted 2007-04-06 02:47 PM


Yep, AlGore must be right. This global warming must be stopped. Oh wait! I just looked outside and it is SNOWING IN OKLAHOMA on Good Friday. I guess we must have done something already to stop it.

Al Gore, get a real life. This stupid campaign is not going to get you in the White House!

Pete

Never express yourself more clearly than you can think - Niels Bohr

© Copyright 2007 Pete Rawlings - All Rights Reserved
Denise
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Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648

1 posted 2007-04-06 05:29 PM


We're getting snow later today/tonight. It's on its way. It feels more like Christmas than Easter. Well, when I was six we had about a foot of snow on my birthday...the middle of April. So it does sometimes happen.

This global warming hysteria is just so much hype, in my opinion, the latest faux-science fad perpetrated by people who want to tell all the rest of us how we should live. 30 years ago it was the "coming Ice Age".

I already, like most middle class people,  conserve energy just to save money to reduce our gas and electric bills which keep going up. I already take public transit (which is going up 32% in July...my 4% raise after taxes in July won't even cover the extra $30 a month) to work because we can't afford a second car and I can't afford the parking rates in Center City even if we did have a spare car. The car we have is fuel efficient. I'm sure we couldn't afford one of those hybrid cars that are just coming out. I've planted trees and flowers and shrubs. I think it's time for Gore and his Hollywood friends to start conserving and to leave the rest of us alone.

It's interesting to read lists of how much we can save by following different suggestions (suggestions until they become forced on us by law), but what is the flip side of implementing all those changes? Already corn prices are skyrocketing due to its use as a component in fuel, which in turn is going to raise the cost of milk because the cows eat corn, and then the cost of beef will undoubtedly rise as well. And who knows what will happen to the economy and the ranchers and farmers if people shun cows altogether because of their numerous stomachs having such a detrimental effect on the atmosphere!

Mistletoe Angel
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since 2000-12-17
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Portland, Oregon
2 posted 2007-04-06 07:30 PM


That's all understood!

But can you explain why here in Portland, Oregon today we reached a high of 80 degrees, which is the average temperature during Portland's hottest month, July? and is also twenty degrees above average for this time of year?

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

rwood
Member Elite
since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
3 posted 2007-04-07 03:39 PM


Laugh.

yep, snowing here and cold as whiz.

and just last weekend I was sunburned from working out in the garden in 80+ degrees of July weather in March.

It's your turn Noah, so enjoy it.

Peter cotton-tail will just have to double as Frosty for us.

Mistletoe Angel
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Portland, Oregon
4 posted 2007-04-08 01:51 AM




On a more serious note now, I don't believe any professional scientist is suggesting that every year the Earth is going to warm another five degrees or so. As the above graph showing the instrumental record of global average temperatures displays, compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office, the global average air temperature near Earth's surface has risen 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit during the last century. So, of course, that doesn't mean snow anywhere in the United States during April except in the Rocky Mountains, Duluth, Minnesota or the Northeast is unheard of now.



1.62 degrees obviously won't generate any dramatic immediate effect on weather patterns here or elsewhere, in that manner. But 1.62 degrees can make a dramatic effect outside the box. As this above graph archived at the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the National Snow and Ice Data Center reveals, what's called the glaciological mass balance, found by measuring the annual snow growth and subtracting surface ablation driven by melting, sublimation and wind erosion, has dramatically thinned in recent years, and in result great glaciers such as Montana's cherished Grinnell Glacier have been retreating, where one photograph of the glacier taken by T.J Hileman in 1938 reveals ubiquitous snowpack and blankets of frost, contrats sharply from a 2005 photograph of the same glacier taken by Blase Reardon, where the former sight of dense snowpack located in Hileman's picture is now like a lake, with many of its environmental surroundings those which could be mistaken for the Grand Canyon.

When we look at glaciers, often they may seem phlegmatic, inactive, solid as a statue, so we can easily get the feeling the mere melting of a glacier won't affect us in any way. But other than, obviously, the rising of sea levels in result of the melting of glaciers and ice shelf disruptions, which can disrupt any community at or near sea level, agricultural communities that depend on these glaciers and dense icepacks for water and the hydration of their crops will suffer, as the climate indeed has a direct influence on global food supplies. Traditionally colder areas of the world like much of Russia and the Northwest Territories of Canada may actually be an exception that benefits from an average rise in global temperatures in terms of agriculture, but world communities that depend on these glaciers as an essential resource will be devastated, where land becomes increasingly arable, soil degradation is more likely to occur, fungal diseases are more rampant and, in result, famine and desertification occur. The Yangtze River valley of China is one central example.

So, to conclude, it's certainly no surprise to me that snow continues to fall in April across much of America (back when I lived in Colorado, in 1993 I remember seeing snow on the first week of June). Weather patterns aren't going to dramatically alter every single year from the greenhouse effect. But in the larger sense, I do believe there's an overwhelming mountain of evidence that points to a greater problem worldwide, and if we don't begin to try mitigating these effects, we too will likely feel the sting of global warming especially in terms of agriculture and our economy, where in these last five years we've in fact been suffering setbacks in certainly not all, but many harvests of certain crops because of intense heatwaves and drought.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

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