I'm in eastern Virginia -- Northumberland County, along the Potomac River.
Last year as we were building our house we planted a dozen or so tomato plants along the back of the lot and harvested tomatoes all summer and into the fall.
This year, I have 26 plants, all heirloom varieties. They are in raised beds that are filled with half-and-half compost and topsoil.
I prune my plants so there are 3-4 main stems. I have lots of foilage, healthy plants, no pests, and lots of green tomatoes. However
-- only two of my plants are ripening. I have been picking an occasional ripe tomato from these two plants for 3 weeks; the rest of the plants show no sign of ripening although they are loaded with tomatoes.
Beats me. Mine are just staying green. I have had exactly 2 yellow pear ripen and one only because I picked it green and set it on my kitchen counter for a week. The rest have completely stopped growing. Plenty of flowers, new tomaotes appear but all three of my plants have just stalled out.
Last year my plants were loaded down with green tomato's that never got rip. I picked twenty and put them on the kitchen counter and they still didn't get ripe. This year we had so much rain it killed the tomatoes I planted so I don't have any.
As a global warming skeptic I got on the Heartland Institutes mailing list and have publication of their study of the temperature measuring stations in the US. This is part of it:
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are over 1,200 monitoring stations in the US and so far the group has looked at 850 of them and found that 89% fail to meet the National Weather Services site requirements that they must be 30 meters or more away from an artificial heating or reflecting source.
Satellite data is more reliable:
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"Unlike the surface-based temperatures, global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually appears to be downward. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity, but from natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So the programs which model global warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity."
After typing that message I got busy pruning dead leaves and dying shoots. I noticed that many of my yellow pears would drop off the vine if I just touched them. So I removed about 30 tomatoes, all green, that were ready to drop. I have no idea if they will ripen indoors. One did, so I have hope.
So is this a sign that the plant was going to drop its unripe fruit? Does this sound like a sign of stress?
Thank you. You do realise, however, that, in U.S.A., political correctness must never be diluted or distorted by actual facts ;-) After all, Mr. Gore, et al, have their retirement plans to consider, having failed at politics.
It would cost a lot of corporate profits to keep "greenhouse gases" under the equivalent of 450 ppm CO2. It would require life style changes for everyone as well.
Since none of us has the data, I guess we'll just have to decide which side we trust. If Frank has chosen the correct side, the rest of us will look pretty silly. If the Union of Concerned Scientists is right, we could be looking at a mass extinction (us, among others). So the choice of the undecideds is, would you rather take a chance on looking silly, or would you rather take a chance on being extinct?
"Well, they worked one summer together at the '64 World's Fair. They met Robert Kennedy there. Well, that was... right before the fall.
And they saved up a little bit of money for his career, And they talked about the future underneath the giant sphere. And all around them, the little voices were singing it's a small world after all. Yes it is,
A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL*. And it was... (marc cohn)
Charlie, munching a boursin cheese and cuke sammie, washing it down with a Boulevard Pale Ale and dreaming of perfect things and tryin' to relate some things to all things...
I just think it is prudent not to jump to conclusions. Suggest reading Michael Crichton's "State of Fear". We all want a clean environment and conservation of resources but draconian moves like the cap and trade bill do little in this direction other than more government control. Individual scientists continue to question and evaluate data while large scientific organizations, like the American Chemical Society which I belong to, tend to be very political.
Since none of us has the data, I guess we'll just have to decide which side we trust. If Frank has chosen the correct side, the rest of us will look pretty silly. If the Union of Concerned Scientists is right, we could be looking at a mass extinction (us, among others). So the choice of the undecideds is, would you rather take a chance on looking silly, or would you rather take a chance on being extinct?
I must admit that I am no expert on "Global Warming". I would just be happy (at least in the short run), if I could just figure out what is messin' my melons. I have looked into the subject, mostly superficially (there is only so much time), and from what I see, Global Warming is accepted by the "Union of Concerned Scientists" (UCS), and "Scientific American". If these scientists had investments in, say, parasol futures, my doubts would be raised, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If you have a response to my logic, from the last post (see above), I would like to hear it. Until then, it remain my position.
You say read Crichton, and the UCS has a page devoted to rebutting him
I only have so much time to research a question, and I feel that I have spent mine. If someone says, "Here's the answer", for sure I'll read it. Normally, I turn to some authority I trust, like the "League of Women Voters" for voting, or the USC on scientific matters.
If you have time to go through the UCS website on "Global Warming" , and can come up with holes in their arguments, I would love to hear them. What time I have to study, is mostly being spent in studying GMOs, and the physiological effects of statins. Then there is the "job" which starts in ten days, which always cramps my life style.
My take on why it is cooler here. Read somewhere as the ice melts it exposes soil which can hold the solar gain so why not hotter now? Well it seem the solar gain heat also melts the ice which runs off to the ocean. Water lever rise imperceptible but something else occurs.
Ocean salinity is decreased which is no big deal. But the ocean ability to hold heat is related to salinity. So we get cooler and fluctuations . Think heat sink being effected.
Gabbing Bill.... look at below url on left side for Global Warming stuff.
I had several I thought were about to get blossom end rot, they were completely green. 10 days later in a bag with a banana (ethylene gas) and they were red enough to eat.
On the ones still on the vine, the largest is just now getting redish.
I'm a retired chemist. Maybe not a global climate expert but I do understand a lot of the basic science. I read Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" several years ago and realized that it was just a political polemic supporting the progressive view of more government control.
The environmentalists hate Crichton because while global warming is only a background for the thesis of the book, he did extensive study and came to conclusions they do not like.
Laws of science are not arrived at by consensus as the global warming advocates would have you believe. In the past, there was a consensus that the sun revolved around the earth, etc.
Even if the earth is heating or cooling, it is mainly due to Mother Nature or more specifically the sun. One of my epa friends says it is presumptuous of man to assume his effects are greater than that of Mother Nature.
Also came across a pamphlet of the skeptics examining the carbon dioxide argument. They point out that there was a time in the past when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 20X today's level yet there was no following greenhouse effect. Also carbon dioxide only absorbs sunlight at a few narrow bandwidths and exceeding current levels leave no more to be absorbed.
How would you characterize the way in which Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" was a political polemic supporting the progressive view of more government control and what do you mean progressive views? Survival?
Frank, my degree is in chemistry too, but they'll probably have to pry the pipette out of my cold, dead fingers.
How do you know this?
And his proof is?
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from the Deep
Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions. Could the same killer-greenhouse conditions build once again?
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