Comments on: Peterson Denies Global Warming Hurts Agriculture: ‘My Farmers Are Going To Say That’s A Good Thing’

By: V. Bruce Stenswick

V. Bruce Stenswick — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:56:23 +0000

I am from Minnesota also. I did a study a few years ago on temperatures at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport for the periods 1960-1967 and 2000-2007. My premise was that people who live in warm climates wonder what the fuss is. My results were: July highs are 1+ degrees warmer than 40 years ago. July overnight lows are 4+ degrees warmer, January highs are 6+ degrees warmer, and January overnight lows are 9+ degrees warmer. Summers do not seem much different, but winters have changed drastically. The term ‘global warming’ should be ‘global flooding’.

By: Texas Aggie

Texas Aggie — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:43:57 +0000

while demanding the House leadership make concessions to industrial agriculture in the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454).

Now here we have the root of the problem. I strongly suspect that Mr. Peterson couldn’t care less about the farmers in his constituency as long as Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill are happy and donating money.

By: cdmsr

cdmsr — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:19:58 +0000

Another danger with climate warming is the “light switch affect.” When you use a light switch, you move the switch from one position to the other. At first, nothing happens: the switch moves to no effect until, CLICK, it springs from one state to the other. There is a lot of CO2 locked in ancient decaying vegetation beneath surface ice on earth. When increasing temperature causes the ice to disappear, CLICK! That CO2 is released into the atmosphere cutting years off estimates for the worse effects to manifest. We could reach the point of no return almost literally overnight.

By: Jim Louis

Jim Louis — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:35:25 +0000

One of the problems with Global Warming is the term itself. Opponents like to point out that from where they stand (such as the northern tier states) a warmer winter or longer growing season isn’t a bad thing, as long as there is rain.

The scariest thing that scientists are deeply worried about but rarely mention, since they can’t show definitive proof yet, but are getting closer, is the effects that changing our atmosphere will bring. Much of life on this planet (other than us) likes carbon dioxide. We are just beginning to see what doubling the percentage of CO2 does. One thing that likes CO2 is fungus (it also likes warmth). It wouldn’t take very many known funguses to suddenly start growing rapidly to wipe out many of our food crops. Just ask any farmer, fungus is as big or even bigger enemy to their crops than insects.

A few areas of droughts, a few areas of out of control fungus and insect attacks and world food production could take a huge drop. Then food shortages and price spikes and chaos results. Increased CO2 does much, much more than just raise temperatures and we are only beginning to know what.

By: afisher

afisher — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:21:32 +0000

Yesterday, I received an email from the State of Texas Comptrollers Office citing all the reasons that Cap/Trade would be bad for Texans. The memo linked here: http://www.window.state.tx.us/newsinfo/columns/090617-captrade.html

Any Texan who wants Climate Change Legislation should contact her office. Notice that she fails to provide any real statistics, fails to address the change as a per capita cost, but just an overall cost and fails to address that a “job loss” to the oil industry could be off-set by jobs in the renewable energy industry.

If you are like me, a retiree with limited funds, just email her office directly, no need for a long distance phone call! Texans need to take action against this type of rhetoric…words without meaning.

For the record, South Texas is in a severe drought for the past 2 years…temperatures here have been at or above 100C for the last 10 days with no relief in sight.