Climate change is a process that will have an effect on community gardening. It is important for community gardeners to understand how anthropogenic warming of the global climate will affect their community gardens. One common mistake is that which Ken has made in denying the reality of the warming of the earth's climate based on data from one particular part of the globe. The warming of earth's climate system due to anthropogenic inputs of greenhouse gases refers to the global temperature and is disputed by no reputable climate scientist. Regional manifestations of this warming will vary.
Effects will include shifting patterns of rainfall, alterations in storm frequency and intensity, and other disruptions of climate stability. Just because it still gets cold in the winter in Chicago or snows in Buffalo doesn't mean that the earth is not warming. Regional droughts, the melting of the arctic ice, and changes in climate-stabilizing ocean currents are more worrisome effects of global warming than whether the USDA has to move the hardiness zones northward in North America (which it will have to do, based on climate data accumulated since the last change in 1990). There are projections of how the warming of the global climate will affect gardening in different regions in North America, so it's not too early to start looking ahead, particularly if your community garden is in a region that might be affected by long-term droughts. The global climate is a very complex system. It is affected by a large number of natural processes. It is also affected by human activities (since the beginning of agriculture) and has been increasingly affected as our species has become more numerous and more active in the generation of greenhouse gases. Community gardeners might benefit from reading "Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of climate" by William F. Ruddiman. I teach a course on the global climate system and have often encountered in students the confusion that Ken has shown in trying to make sense of global warming; however, science shows clearly that the global climate is warming and equally clearly that there is an anthropogenic component contributing to that warming. Michael ________________________________________________________________________ _ H. Michael Simmons, Ph.D. City of Bloomington Indiana P. O. Box 848 Bloomington, IN 47402 (812)349-3737 -----Original Message----- From: Ken Hargesheimer [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 12:07 PM To: Dave Smead; Judith Gardner; Community GardenNational Subject: [Community_garden] Why Gore is Green If one does not like the message, shoot the messenger. Unlike some, I do my best to keep an open mind, listen to the facts and learn. I have received two listserve reports about the temperature in the USA, as recorded by the US government thermometers, going down over the past several years. Just a little but certainly not going up. There are hundreds of scientists who do not buy into the hype. Climate is changing but it is not caused by humans and there is nothing we can do about it. No one has a right to pollute or damage the soil, air and water on the earth and all who do should be punished. Here is a copy of an email sent to me from a member of this listserve: "Sorry about the lambasting you got on your ideas about climate change and Mr. Gore's relationship to it. I went to the Atlanta Food Forward meeting in Atlanta last weekend and met a lot of the people, including the pres. of ACGA, and wasn't terribly surprised that I was in the great minority being a conservative. It was loaded with fed gov employees, and that included the pres of ACGA who is paid to set up CGs around the country on a fed pgm. It was liberal land. Climate change is being used as another ploy to tax people with carbon taxation - you are absolutely right. The media controls what people think (to those who don't do their own research and let's face it, most of the people don't bother) and 'global warming' is the BIG THINK lately. It's junk science. I'm not saying it's not changing, but we're at the end of a 90,000 year warming trend and next comes ice age. We've had two minor ice ages in the last several hundred years. The Amer. Revolution was fought in one (why else was the Potomic iced in with GW rowing across it pushing off the little iceburgs and it was snowing), and the Dark Ages was the other one. Those on the inside go along with the gag but are making the big bucks because they realize people are incredibly trusting or uneducated and believe the tube and the media as gospel. Thank you for being courageous and fighting the stupidity. We need more of you. So, don't despair. You aren't the only sane one out there." Ken Hargesheimer -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20090504/4d5934d6/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
