Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Hardiness zones
"Hardiness zones" are moving. "Good news if you are a tomato; bad if you are a sugar maple."
6 Comments:
By 
SR, at
Thu Oct 11, 09:02:00 AM:
Small sample, only 10 years.
It would be interesting to see similar analysis done in ten year intervals over the last 50 years. I'm beginning to think the boomer generation, mourning the loss of its youth is starting to get pretty testy over just about any change anywhere.
By 
, at
Thu Oct 11, 10:15:00 AM:
I think we should all just stop for a minute and appreciate this extraordinary moment in climatological history. I note that the original article came from the Washington Post.
Given that tomatoes are obviously much healthier to eat than maple syrup, this may the first time in history that anyone has acknowledged that there may actually be a benefit from global warming.
Stunning, I know. I'm sure it was inadvertant.
I also note from the WaPo article:
"In 1990, the region was on the border of northern and southern growing zones, but a foundation official said that has changed after 15 years of balmy winter weather."
In other words, the map should have been updated throughout the years, but they waited 17 years, 'just to make sure', and thus the map had a lot more impact and provided fuel for the global warming agenda. And you can bet the National Arbor Foundation is BIG on global warming.
At that point, I did a Google search for "national arbor foundation george soros". Came up with lots of interesting links (the guy has his hands in everything), but no direct connection. Imagine my surprise.
And so we end up looking at the National Arbor Foundatin afresh. Pretty upright business, eh? Planting trees? Doing good? Who could argue with that??
This guy could.
"Ask volunteers what kinds of trees they’re planting and more often than not they’ll tell you something like: "I don’t know; they’re in little tubes." America is obsessed with planting trees -- any species, any place -- and while we’ve done some good, particularly in inner cities, we are not doing well on balance. In fact, we are doing considerable harm."
____________________________________
It must be fun to be a blogger. You post some small article, maybe toss in a quip, then forget about it and move on. The next thing ya know, there are 387 comments as the readers disect the article 387 different ways. If I ever open a blog, I think I'll call it "Slice & Dice". :)
By GreenmanTim, at
Thu Oct 11, 01:46:00 PM:
Yes, it is fun, Dr. M., for that and other reasons. Also an effective way to parse and pounce (another good name for a blog that I hereby offer up free of charge to you or whomever else would like it). It seems to me, though, that our host TH has posted before, perhaps several times, on the climate change "winners" as well as "losers", so I fear my "tomatoes up, maple sugar down" quip is not, alas, unprecedented.
For my part, I believe there is plenty of solid common ground here - despite our respective politics - if we can keep it. Most of us acknowledge that climate change is taking place and human activity is probably a factor in that change. It does not follow that one or another course of action is either prudent or self-evident, however, nor that the data and its presentation are completely free from bias or absolutely certain. It is right to question what you are told, by me or anyone else (Deconstruction for its own sake is pretty pointless, mind you).
At the core, where we on the right or left generally differ on climate change is in the appropriate individual and collective responses that this issue may prompt or require; the burden of proof that is needed to assess the impacts and effectiveness of the various strategies and tactics and changes in behavior that are put forth to mitigate climate change; and the degree of comfort that we each have in regulatory, inventivized, and voluntary actions to address the problem.
At risk of generalization, it seems to me that conservatives are more likely to be leery of a regulatory response and to be more concerned about the unintended economic or quality of life consequences of half-thought through remedies and I can respect that perspective.
Those to the left of center are less convinced that a strategy based on enlightened self-interest will be either timely enough or an effective response to an environmental problem at a global scale and I would tend to agree.
My favorite leadership principle of the US Marine Corps says to "aim for the 70% solution", recognizing, I think, that in war it is important to have sufficient information to act decisively but also to be able to act when there is still uncertainty and adapt as new data become available. Are we there yet with climate change and mitigation strategies? Probably yes if the question is, "is it real?"; probably not yet if the question is, "what can/should be done about it and what are the implications of those actions?" What would it take to get to that point?
By reddog, at
Thu Oct 11, 03:45:00 PM:
Rip out the oranges, plant mangoes. Rip out the sugar maples, plant oranges. With a little soil prep, the tundra should be fine for sugar maples.
The seniors will pay big money to cruise the North West passage at cherry blossom time.
By GreenmanTim, at
Thu Oct 11, 04:52:00 PM:
Yeah, but have you seen the Canadian dollar, recently. How will I ever be able to afford the syrup if it all comes from Nunavut?
By , at
Fri Oct 12, 04:18:00 PM:
I don't worry about global warming; that's to the advantage of all living things. Algore may disagree with that. However, global cooling is a big bad problem. Most people don't have a clue as to where their food comes from, let alone the lengths of growing seasons and the hardiness of plants and animals.
