AP: "Cool weather may delay Wash cherry crop"
Cooler than usual spring weather could put Washington's cherry crop behind schedule.Same thing happened last year:
Published: Tuesday, June 17, 2008Even the record 2007 crop did not meet initial expectations:Northwest cherry crop smaller than estimated
...
The crop is down because of April freezes and poor pollination.
They have reduced the crop estimate by about 10 percent due to cool spring weather, however.Fortunately, the Obama people are on the case. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 08, 2009 05:55 PM | Email This
Much ado about nothing, Barack. Start focusing on actual problems; not feigned ones.
Posted by: Michele on April 8, 2009 06:09 PMThe real issue today is over-reaching government control of our lives and the left will use fear - fear of economic collapse, fear of CO2, fear of whatever they get get the folks to fear - to keep the people from paying too close attention to what they are really doing.
Posted by: deadwood on April 8, 2009 06:29 PMMaybe during a commercial break.
Posted by: PeggyU on April 8, 2009 06:49 PMThis is about as lacking in strategy as groveling before Arab King (he did bow by the YouTube video, regardless of the denial by the White House) - next thing kneeling down and moving your head toward the ground will not be bowing , like oral sex is not sex or pandering to the Axis of Evil.
Posted by: KS on April 8, 2009 08:58 PMI don't follow the science side of the global warming debate, I'm not one of those who make the statement that anthropogenic warming is definitely happening, and I try to not use the term global warming. However there is a need to set the record straight here.
The United States is a tiny part (1.5%) of the earth's surface. It or parts of it could easily cool under a "global warming" scenario because basically "global warming" would bring a new weather regime to the earth. Stefan repeatedly makes this same point, which is basically that it was cold somewhere so therefore global warming must not be happening, yet it's never been a valid point and it never will be.
My completely unscientific fear based on what I seem to be experiencing is that the new regime in the Northwest involves a cold, windy (very evil) spring, a late but hotter and dryer than normal summer, and a namby-pamby winter with sporadically failing winter rains.
One thing's for sure: no one can predict the future, climatological or economic either for that matter.
But regardless of all this, a carbon tax IF IT WERE EVENLY OFFSET BY REDUCTIONS IN THE PAYROLL TAX SO THAT IT WAS REVENUE NEUTRAL FOR GOVERNMENT would be good for this country ecnomicially and environmentally.
Well, I guess I'll get off the line now, thanks for your time,
new left conservative # 1
Of course the power lusters who see GW as their ticket to dictatorial power will not give up easily. Obama is not just content to run General Motors and AIG. He wants dominion over each and every one of us.
http://cses.washington.edu/cig/fpt/cloutlookfigures/mam2009temperature.forecast.gif
Anyway, @8 is right; a Pigouvian carbon tax would achieve a lot of goals for climate change reductions. Personally though, I'd much rather see multi-objective projects... why simply pursue GHG reductions when you can also address other issues related to air quality, energy, erosion prevention, etc.?
I've heard this term spoken of, but have yet to experience such a thing from any government.
Even the CBO says Cap&Trade will cost trillions and that everyone will pay with the poorest paying proportionally more.
Posted by: deadwood on April 8, 2009 11:50 PM"The suite of mega-technological fixes includes everything from placing mirrors in space that reflect sunlight from the Earth, to fertilising the oceans with iron to encourage the growth of algae that can soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide. Another option is to seed clouds which bounce the sun's rays back into space so they do not warm the Earth's surface."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/08/geo-engineering-john-holdren
Why is it the Republicans are always branded as the evil geniuses, yet it's more often the "humanist" Liberal Democrats who come up with the super creepy stuff...like Napalm.
One of the ideas touted by Holdren is actually from Freeman Dyson - the one about engineered trees.
Dyson, a democrat and anti war advocate, is a prominent AGW skeptic who says that computer models are easily manipulated to produce whatever the programmers want and that ones that are being relied upon by Hanson, Obama and Holdren are sophisticated wild ass guesses based on faulty input.
Dyson's fall back is that "IF" he's wrong, it would be relatively simple to design trees capable of scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere.
He says in the meantime the money and effort put into climate nonsense is better spent building hospitals and power plants in Africa, where real people die from poverty we can't even imagine.
Posted by: deadwood on April 9, 2009 06:44 AM"Taxing electricity" makes sense if it is revenue neutral: Pigouvian taxes reduce general taxes in favor of taxes on specific, targeted items. Sin taxes for environmental reasons, if you like. So if you believe that carbon is an issue, it makes more sense than regulating or restricting it out of hand, and those that use carbon more are taxed more.
Again, I'm not convinced that single-objective approaches are the way to go here, but only a conservative would be stupid enough to their fingers in their ears and think that risk shouldn't be properly considered.
Posted by: demo kid on April 9, 2009 07:57 AMWhile the author here may quote anecdotal info on global cooling, there are other areas that have experienced hotter weather. Attention needs to be made to debunk that. And it can.
Posted by: swatter on April 9, 2009 08:31 AMIf they want to discourage spending on certain thing (cigarettes or alcohol for example) they tax it heavily. At the same time, they offer tax break for spending in other areas. This allows for a great deal of centralized control of the economy.
Let me earn my money, pay a general tax and then decide what I want to spend the rest of it on without government interference.
Posted by: Ken on April 9, 2009 09:17 AMI thought we had all kinds of laws on the books to prohibit pollution right now? And you want to add even more restrictions?
Tell you what - you go ahead and walk into Detroit, sit down with 100 laid off auto workers, and tell them that for the betterment of society their jobs needed to be eliminated because they create evil pollution producing machines.
Oh, and I'm sure you're so concerned about the environment that your computer is powered by your own solar/wind generation, you grow your own food (can't use evil trucks to transport), have your own rain collection system (thereby not tapping rivers or well water), and emit no net pollution.
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on April 9, 2009 09:21 AMDyson's completely correct. In fact, trees are a great way to "sequester" carbon if you're concerned about it. And we have them already existing! Those evil, genetically modified hybrid cottonwood trees used for paper pulp. They grow to 60 feet in 6 years...
Let's plant a few hundred million of them if we're worried. Of course, we can't do that since it's genetically modified/hybridized stock and that is also evil since man has touched it...
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on April 9, 2009 09:26 AMMy bad. Actually according to NASA, pollution (in the form of aerosol spray cans) reduces the temperature.
My word. The arrogance of Obama and GW fanatics knows no bounds. They can't even get their facts together.
Posted by: swatter on April 9, 2009 09:39 AMWhat amongst our founding documents gives YOU and your gorbal smarming ilk the right to assess taxes on your neighbor to discourage ANY activity that YOU decide needs modification? Especially for a theory based not on science but on the goal of 'world poverty equalization'.
LEAVE US ALONE!
Posted by: yaddacubed on April 9, 2009 10:00 AMDem's well never give that up.
This has nothing to do with GW.. it's a way to raise funds for more spending and nothing more.
La Nina has impact on regional temps. Areas on the planet will continue to see varied climate.
The poles will continue to warm.
As the ice melts, so the climate will change yet again.
Problem is, farmers can't move cherry trees.
I envision a future where orchards are under glass to keep out the invasive alien species of blight, high winds, for manual pollination, and climate control.
Sure beats going without cherries, but they'll cost a bit more at first.
Posted by: Earl_E on April 9, 2009 10:40 AMHow do I know?
Earth is 2/3 covered by water. That's 2/3s where humans don't exist. 2/3s where there is a huge ocean size heat sink for absorbing the Sun's heat much better than land, which cools quickly. 2/3s where several 2000 to 5000 mile stretches of warm water can move around, downwell and upwell to generate dominant heat masses that impact climate. 2/3s where carbon can be sequestered and released by cold and warm water just like a soft drink. 2/3s where satellite records show no warming and in fact cooling over the last 10 years. 2/3s where there is much more even temperature records than in man influenced urban environs where land based sensors are often located. 2/3s where there are no SUVs, factories, or anything else, not to mention much of the other 1/3 that is also empty of humans. 2/3s where large masses of clouds form that are affected by the xrays or diminished xrays from the Sun. 2/3s where the huge amount of water vapor above them in the atmosphere has the largest overall non-oceanic effect. 2/3s where buoys show little rise in average sea level.
The list goes on. The Sun and the Earth's Oceans determine our climate. We are but a flyspeck of nothingness as compared to these larger Earth wide and Solar related forces.
It's called Arctic Ice, and it's actually thickening.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 9, 2009 01:58 PMIt's NOT Global Warming. It's "Climate Change."
Please get it right.
/sarc off
Posted by: Sam Adams on April 9, 2009 03:47 PMfor more info please contact at
http://www.CoC.com
Posted by: hellpig on April 9, 2009 04:57 PMIf done wrongly carbon credits/taxes has the potential of killing the economy. If done gradually, it can succeed in the future. Just sayin'
Posted by: KS on April 9, 2009 10:13 PMas for kicking little old ladies and shaking babies...if I did I would be let out of jail by a liberal judge.
ignorance is bliss???? LMAO last I checked only brainwashed algorians beliee in GW..which makes you guys the ignorant ones..
@KC everything a Marxist/Communist posing as liberals do hurts the economy..look at CA..30 years of liberal run politics BANKRUPT, NY BANKRUPT....NYTIMES BANKRUPT...SFCHRON BANKRUPT....SEATTLEPI BANKRUPT...see the pattern..
DEBATE.....LMAO ALGORE won't debate...because GW has been proven to be a scam
Posted by: hellpig on April 10, 2009 09:07 AMThe Boston Tea Party was a protest against the British government rescinding a tax on British shipping. Rescinding this tax had the effect of leveling the playing field: it took away the colonist's advantage because they were smugglers who didn't pay the tax.
That the teaparty was a protest against taxation is just one of the many lies we're told in our history books. I'm the descendant of loyalists who were forced to flee after or during the Revolution (through my maternal grandfather, who came back to the US in time to get drafted into World War I and then get the flu in the 1919 pandemic). There's at least one lie for each war.
It's fine to oppose a carbon tax because you think it's a government grab. My position would be essentially the same as yours because I support one thing and one thing only: a carbon tax that is linked to equivalent reductions in the payroll tax.
Thanks all,
new left conservative # 1
Make no mistake -- the earth has warmed. Unfortunately for the climate-change catastrophists, warming periods have occurred throughout recorded history, long before the Industrial Revolution and SUVs began spitting man-made carbon into the atmosphere. And as might be expected, these warm periods have invariably proven a blessing for humanity. Consider:
Around the 3rd century B.C., the planet emerged from a long cold spell. The warm period which followed lasted about 700 years, and since it coincided with the rise of Pax Romana, it is known as the Roman Warming.
In the 5th century A.D., the earth's climate became cooler. Cold and drought pushed the tribes of northern Europe south against the Roman frontier. Rome was sacked, and the Dark Ages commenced. And it was a dark age, both metaphorically and literally -- the sun's light dimmed and gave little warmth; harvest seasons grew shorter and yielded less. Life expectancy and literacy plummeted. The plague appeared and decimated whole populations.
Then, inexplicably, about 900 A.D. things began to warm. This warming trend would last almost 400 years, a well documented era known as the Medieval Warm Period. Once again, as temperatures rose harvests and populations grew. Vineyards made their way into Northern Europe, including Britain. Art and science flourished in what we now know as the Renaissance.
Then around 1300 A.D. things cooled drastically. This cold spell would last almost 500 years, a severe climate event known as the Little Ice Age. Millions died in famine as glaciers advanced all over the world. The plague returned. In Greenland, the Norse colony that had been established during the Medieval Warming froze and starved. Arctic pack ice descended south, pushing Inuit peoples to the shores of Scotland. People ice skated on the Thames; they walked from Staten Island to Manhattan over a frozen New York Harbor. The year 1816 was remembered as the year without a summer, with some portions of the Northern Hemisphere seeing snowfall in June.
But around 1850 the planet began to warm up yet again. Glaciers retreated. Temperatures rose. This is the warming period which we are still enjoying today. And once again, the warmth brought bounty: The last 150 years have seen an explosion in life expectancy, population, and scientific progress like never before.
Of course, even before the appearance of humans, the earth alternated throughout its history between extremes of heat and cold: 700 million years ago the planet was covered entirely in ice; 55 million years ago, a swampy greenhouse.
Why? What drives these ancient cycles? There are a lot of theories. The waxing and waning of solar output; cosmic rays and their role in cloud formation; the earth moving through plumes of galactic dust as it travels up and down through the arm of the Milky Way; plate tectonics redirecting the ocean currents; vulcanism. Perhaps it is a combination of all of these things. Perhaps it is something as yet undiscovered. One thing for sure that it's not: SUVs.
Why, then, do otherwise sensible people believe that we are both causing the current warming and that the warmth is a bad thing? To me it seems some grotesque combination of narcissism and self-loathing, a mentality that says at once "I am so important that my behavior is causing this" and "I am so inherently tainted that it must be bad."
For these self-hating humans who want us to cut our carbs (carbons, not carbohydrates), I say relax and enjoy the warmth while it lasts.
Because it won't. No matter what we do, the ice and the cold and the dark will come again. That should be our worry.
Posted by: KS on April 12, 2009 09:49 PM