GMOs - Continued

I am not the only one in Minnesota. I have 5,350,000 fellow Minnesotans that burn 10% ethanol.
We had people claiming the same thing years ago when ethanol was first introduced. Never hear it mentioned anymore.

People with anti this & that always have claims. Who are they fighting ?

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/03/gas-with-ethanol-can-make-small-engines-fail/index.htm

I think the biggest danger is when you are going to store your small engine and you leave the tank full with ethanol containing fuel you run some risks.

http://www.jsonline.com/business/briggs--stratton-develops-additive-to-offset-ethanols-effects-on-small-engines-b9948387z1-214705101.html

But my whole issue is that I do not think the ethanol is giving much in terms of power or milage. I think you can go more miles on a gallon of pure gasoline vs a gallon of 90/10 fuel:ethanol.

drobarr- " I think you can go more miles on a gallon of pure gasoline vs a gallon of 90/10 fuel:ethanol."
I've heard that too.
So given all the factors, are we really doing anything better for the environment as a whole, than just using gas? JUST STAY HOME! Use the federal subsidies another way. Stop buying SUVs. There are many people in this area in large suvs for only ego purposes. Chances of needing the 4WD here are one day per year, and can be avoided with planning ahead.
Right after Katrina, gas price shot up ($2 to $5 ?) and everybody was suddenly talking less driving, combining errands etc.

Sorry greenhousegal, we are really digressing here.

Nobody said it gets better or same MPG. The whole idea of it was to make us less dependent on
imported oil. Now, with the oil fields in North Dakota, we are very well off for oil. But if you close the ethanol plants, people will be out of work, farm economy will be disaster-est. Not to mention the added air pollution.

4 Wheeled Drive is a joke.
I pull a big covered trailer 3X a week to our Farmers Market, 75 miles round trip, with my 1997 Chevy 2 Wheel Drive pick up. I don't know what 4 wheel drive would do except make the repair bills bigger.
Even here in farm country, farmers drive 4X4 pickup's. Most are under 1 year old, so they won't take them off paved roads. For hauling, they all have semi trucks. Just bragging rights driving the 4X4's.

Ernie said:
>> I think we should all commend GG for her tenacity and endurance in standing up for what she believes.

I agree!

Ernie also said:
>> I am sure i have seen as many scoundrels as you have, and dislike them as much as you do, but the good, solid, honest people i have met far out number the bad ones.

I can agree with that. I suppose that I am assuming that the relatively few bad apples tend to rise to the top in large businesses where sleaze does pay, but that is just my conclusion derived from some of my experiences. You might be more right - and i hope you are!


drobarr quoted someone saying:
>> The doses in animal tests are chosen to specifically elicit a toxic effect, so they are almost always 100 to more than 1,000 times higher than the dose to which humans will ever be exposed. ...

That kind of thing was necessary in somewhat similar testing that we did with carcinogens. if you tested realistic levels, you would have to test 100,000 animals and spend 20 years to see subtle effects. So you had to use higher concentrations to get any VISIBLE effects in a reasonable time, and then find ways to extrapolate backwards to low-does effects.

We had to be careful to avoid (when possible) doses that were just SO toxic that their effects would NOT extrapolate backwards. A level that was toxic BECAUSE it was such a huge amount.

Ideally you found part of a dose-effect CURVE where half as much compound caused half as much disease, and then extrapolated that another 100X or 1,000X. Or any kind of linear or other relationship that could be extrapolated. That was to rule out the kind of "di-hydrogen oxide" effect where too much will drown you, or burn out your liver during detoxification, but lower amounts would have NO effect.

That dose-effect extrapolation was always a source of debate. you kind of HAD to test with higher-than-reasonable concentrations to DETECT the effect. But then you had to extrapolate really far down the curve to guess at what the effect would be of parts per million in the ground water.

CountryGardens said:
>> drobarr, you know what these people are going to come back with, EPA is paid off by Monsanto!

I'm kind of arguing sideways here, or arguing for parts of both sides, when I don't trust big companies even though I do think that human toxicity risks from existing GE crops are negligible or none.

But if I was going to be paranoid about government regulatory agencies, I would lean towards paranoia about their funding being cut so that they didn't have enough inspectors to do the work. That probably applies more to environmental sampling and plant inspections than it applies to getting through the testing process.

Reminiscing ...

The chemical plant I worked for in North haven CT gave more chemical exposure to its careless or lazy workers than to townsfolk (well, maybe not if they fished right downstream from our effluent before the EPA cracked down, and then ate the fish).

But we had to clean up A LOT before each OSHA inspection, which I thought was a crock. Anyway, this story is about the "tote bins" that we put on the "jumbler" with forklifts, and the 3 foot wide "manhole cover" that we clamped on top of the tote bins. Each tote bin held around 20 barrels, and each barrel was around 230-250 pounds if I recall. Around 2.4 tons of dry, dusty product. Those tote bins were something like 4'x4'x10 feet tall. The jumbler was huge. It took up two stories of the building and was made of big steel I-beams so it could tip and rotate those tote bins like a bartender mixing a martini. Kind of like a big, dirty amusement park ride for gi8ants.

2.4 tons of dichlorobenzidine. A Class 5 carcinogen - not the worst thing in the world, not very toxic directly and not as vicious a carcinogen as plain old fashioned benzidene, but bad enough. the OSHA regulations applied to "wipe tests" where they used chemically pure solvent and little squares of exquisitely clean filter paper to wipe down a certain square area of wall or desk. Then they would label and analyze each square of filter paper to be sure they had picked up less than some number of micrograms. It might have been nanograms, but I think the environmental limit was in micrograms. And our urine tests were supposed to be in the low nanograms.

Anyway, TRACE amounts.

So Connecticut OSHA announces a visit and we shut down production for a day, AND schedule tons of overtime to clean up ahead of time. The very dusty pack-out process was stopped early so we could do plenty of cleaning in that area. Meanwhile the tote bins filled up with dry product. ALL the tote bins.

We even had to fill up the OLD tote bins!!

Everyone knew better than to use the OLD tote bins. The collars to which we clamped the "manhole covers" for jumbling were old and eroded and the clamps would not grip the lips firmly enough. You couldn't jumble them (repeated inverting to mix the product so you could sample it for an accurate assay). The poor clamping would leak and a spray of dost would fly from this monster tote-bin-mixing piece of heavy equipment. And in theory, the manhole cover might even fall off!

When we HAD to use an old tote bin, we knew NEVER top jumble it! A senior operator would hoist it up on the big fork lift and give a few up-and-downs and taps on the floor to mix a bit for the sampling, but mainly we knew that the sample strength would be close to the bins before and after it, so the chief would talk to the lab guy and they would agree on a number. That was the Night Shift practice, at least. I'm pretty sure that, on Days, they just never used the frigging old tote bins.

Long story slightly shorter, by the time the CT OSHA guy showed up, the building gleamed like no one had ever seen before, and the hexane wipes on the walls and railings probably WERE in the low microgram or even nanogram range. We KNEW how to clean up!

Well, he needed to see us in operation, so he said "jumble a bin". I'm pretty sure he mainly wanted to make sure that knew how to don the overalls, the gloves, the filter mask, dip the sample jar from the overhead walkway, and then clean up any traces of dust that fell off the jar. Of course, after cleaning the whole building for a few days, we had plenty of practice cleaning up, and even the lazy and trusting operators had all their protective gear handy.

The operator (no fool) went to clamp a lid on a NEW tote bin, but the OSHA guy was not as simple as he seemed. He told them to jumble THAT tote bin (an OLD one).

Unnh-oh.

The operator looked at the Senior Operator, the Senior Operator looked at the Chief, and they all went pale, because they KNEW the manhole cover couldn't form a TIGHT seal and this OSHA guy would probably see GRAMS of dust fly around and contaminate all our pristine walls and floors. We would fail the microgram wipe test if he repeated it!

But they knew they could not say out loud what they were thinking ("We CAN'T jumble THAT!"). There the bins were, all full, and the procedure was that we had to jumble them.

So the Chief says to clamp that cover down as TIGHT as you can and they did. Then they used the heavy fork lift to park it on the jumbler. EVERYONE except the OSHA guy stood WELL back because even the guys who had convinced themselves it wasn't REALLY as carcinogenic as the MSDS sheet said did not want a face full of dust.

Well, the jumbler went into its tilt-a-whirl process and the manhole cover held on OK for the first few cycles. It was probably leaking dust, but not so much that you could see it in the dim jumbler area.

We thought we might luck out!

And it never did actually LEAK.

The clamp slipped free and the 3-foot-diameter manhole cover flew off entirely, missing humans and fragile piping, then most of the 2.4 tons of dry, powdered carcinogen DUMPED out of the tote bin before anyone could shut it down. Mostly into a pile, mostly burying the OSHA inspector foot-to-waist. He wasn't really CHEST deep in the pile of carcinogen - just waist deep - but the overspray did "frost" every exposed square inch of skin and clothing. I hope he held his breath.

They dragged him out of the pile (excuse me, "put on all their protective gear and THEN dragged him out of the pile") and rushed him off to the safety shower and then the decontam shower and then the regular showers while spraying and scrubbing and apologizing. As recounted to me, that was a somewhat humorous process tempered by the certainty that they were ALL going to lose their jobs when the plant was shut down with extreme prejudice.

Sad to say, everyone else had PLENTY of experience cleaning up spills large and small, though this WAS the biggest spill in the history of the plant, unless you count the time someone left a valve open on the toluene tank and no one noticed until it was almost empty. So they shoveled and then scraped and then brushed and then sprayed and then sprayed with caustic and then sprayed with decontaminating bleach ... except for the shoveling part, exactly what they had spent the last two days of overtime doing on a smaller scale.

Well, the CT OSHA guy gave us a COMMENDATION for the "skill and expertise" with which we cleaned up a spill that had clearly been an "Act of God".

We all assumed that money must have changed hands, but maybe he just could not CONCEIVE that we would have knowingly put 2.4 tons of class 5 carcinogen into something bigger than a VW bus if we knew the lid would pop off and spray product around like a giant pinwheel.

I love your story, Rick!

Thanks! It has been a few years since I thought about that place.

Thinking about how people band together "loyally" and adopt each other's attitudes came partly from working there. The workers wanted to keep getting their good paychecks, and no one (including me) wanted to get the plant shut down. So everyone thought "it isn't as bad for town as you might think" and "we're getting lots better about what we dump".

And the lazy workers who didn't want to suit up and do things the hard way believed at wasn't bad for them, either.

But it WAS that bad back when the plant made benzidene. There was a "followup" process where someone made management check on people who had left the plant and were no longer being monitored. I knew the guy in the Nurse's Office who made the calls.

Not only were some of the calls taken by widows who said a doctor had told them of "bladder tumors the size of silver dollars", but those widows were puzzled by the phone call, since past managers had PAID them not to discuss the matter with anyone.

Making it rather dubious that current managers were telling regulators that THEY didn't know about past employees current medical problems.

Dichlorobenzidene wasn't THAT bad.

I think the chemical industry is one where a little lying helped the bottom line a lot. And the regulations (both EPA and OSHA, not to mention RCRA) were being tightened up a lot the whole time I was there.

I also suspect that the national corporation that bought our little plant maintained some distance so they would have plausible deniability, but that's pure speculation, not fact-based.

I posted this to the wrong thread; I kept wondering what happened to it!

drobarr, thanks for weighing in on ethanol, with links. I get awfully tired of hunting up citations for naysayers. If my marina says there's a widespread problem I believe them, even apart from experiencing it ourselves. They have no dog in this fight; they're just reporting what they see every day among their customers.

You do remember that Consumer Union came out with serious concerns about GMOs, too, right? In Hansen's article it's interesting to read about the method by which the FDA decided that they were safe.

http://consumersunion.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/WA_GE_Testimony_02_14_13.pdf

Jeez, Rick. You are depressing me! Please tell me this happened many years ago before people took this stuff seriously.

My overall conclusion is still that living is the primary cause of death.

>> Please tell me this happened many years ago before people took this stuff seriously.

Totally.

Or, rather, I worked there from 1976 to 1983 and it was cleaning up its act the whole time. That plant shut down some years later.

I would like to believe that I saw some of the worst practices, but I doubt that's true. I used to think that the "Silkwood" movie and "The China Syndrome" were wildly exaggerated and ridiculous, until I compared them with some memories from his dinky little small-town plant. If billions of dollars had been riding on it instead of millions, who knows WHAT that management team would have done, if they could have gotten away with it.

When some politicians say that "American industry needs LESS regulation", I pray that the effluent pipes all lead directly to that politician's back yard and that he has to eat vegetables watered by that pipe.

Stultifying as regulations might be, I firmly believe that we would be living in "Little Chernobyl" if it were not for the EPA. And I'm not eager to drag my flippers into court and try to prove that my children's tentacles came from THIS or THAT polluter.

I have to admit that I seem to be on different sides of the isle on different days!

Thank you Rick and all the others for so many good insights into human and corporate 'activities.'

Since we humans like the progress to make our lives more comfortable and speedy, it sure brings some residual baggage. Now some of our chemical and manufacturing ''problems' have been shipped to China, India, and other countries. I worked in the skilled trades at an auto original equipment manufacturer where there was quite a bit of metal fabrication processes. I suppose today it would just be too hard to pass muster profitably so it goes to Korea.

To me, the sum of the matter is that everywhere we turn there are minute poisons. It seems that the best we can do it limit the risks. Even soil [all of it anywhere] contains so many parts per million or billion of unhealthy elements or compounds. When I go to my dentist, he believes in fluoridation but I don't.

I read about where in Chicago there was a large cancer research place with 6 stories. People were busy doing the animal tests and women were doing neat slices between glass and carefully labeling them. Another building housed all those samples, but they were stacked everywhere and were falling on the floor and being walked on. The person reporting on his trip there summarized: If anyone really found a great cancer cure, they would likely be buried under the cement floor! Well, that may be a bit harsh, but sometimes the funding may be the big thing and we need to keep the funding coming.

When Rick talked about $40 million dollars as a stack so high, he was amazingly close. Once at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving where they print money in Washington DC, there was a stack of money on a skid that the tour man said contained about 6 million dollars. It was about 40 inches high and included about 8,000 sheets. These were $20 bills. Each sheet contains 32 bills and there are about 200 sheets to an inch. This is before the sheets are inspected and then cut.

I( remember when our national debt was about 5.5 trillion dollars. If you laid those uncut stacks of $640 each horizonally, They would reach from me to Topeka, Kansas. Now they would reach to Nevada.

The mentions above of OSHA provides an opportunity for me to balance the mentions of Corporate Corruption with some personal experience showing corruption is not limited to employees of large corporations. All of you are proabalby familiar with OSHA, but they have a duplicate bureaucracy, MSHA. That is the acronym for Mining, Safety, Health Agency.. OSHA covers Rock Quarries along with other Occupations, and MSHA covers Mining operations.

Our work Crushing rock takes place under both Agencies. But instead of having identical safety rules for the heavy equipment, there are many small differences in how back up alarms, rotating lights, ladder steps, etc, on the equipment is placed, so a machine that is set up for OSHA can be out of compliance when moved to a Mine, and vice versa. This provides a perfect opportunity for some widespread corruption. As soon as a machine was moved, the inspectors would swoop down and search for those minor infractions and write tickets for any we had missed changing. We got to know the inspectors over the years, and they would talk freely about why they liked to write so many tickets. It seems their annual budgets only provide money for a forty hour week, but the proceeds from the fines are placed in a fund that covers EXTRAS, like overtime and office parties and such. I am not talking about broken lights or back up alarms that do not blow, or genuine safety hazards, I am talking about minor differences in location, and such things as that.

And, of course, like all other expenses, the cost was passed on through to the taxpayer or ultimate consumer. So, I am sure there is as much or more corruption in the Governmetnt bureaus, as there is in the Corporations.

Ernie

After mulling over “Mendel in the Kitchen” for a few days—and then beginning to read it a second time—things are beginning to crystallize for me. To wit: Pretty much every bite of food you've ever eaten is chock full of...genes! (Sadly, over half of Americans in a poll thought that only genetically modified foods had genes.) Salt doesn't have genes and, I guess, neither do dairy products, but meat, veggies, fruit, herbs, spices—they're nothing but cells loaded with DNA and genes. DNA, no matter “whose” or “what's” DNA, is the same and DNA doesn't do anything but code for protein creation; proteins that are common to ALL life. When is the last time you heard of someone being hospitalized for exposure to DNA? Or genes?

There is, at the very bottom, no essential difference between the DNA and the genes in a bacterium and the DNA and genes in your body. Sure, humans have more genes than bacteria, but much of the information (DNA and genes) contained in both us and bacteria is the same. Only about 300 genes separate us from mice! This isn't surprising, since we've all evolved from a single ancestor. The point is, I'm beginning to (think I) understand, DNA and genes in and of themselves aren't a threat.

If there are issues with genetic engineering, they're more subtle. Perhaps a gene from a peanut plant gets grafted into, say, a celery plant (I'm not saying that's a real possibility). The risk isn't from peanut DNA or genes; humans have eaten peanuts for eons. One real risk is; however, that maybe an allergen from peanuts—a definite threat for those with peanut allergies—came along for the ride. We test for problems like these—by law. Interestingly, though, if the new plant was produced by traditional means, no one would care. No one would check. There is no government agency to make sure that traditional breeders are producing a safe product. Only things considered “genetically modified” (and just what does that really mean?) are regulated.

By the way, the term “traditional breeding” encompasses much more than you think. A potato variety known as 'Lenape” got released by Penn State in the late 1960s. 'Lenape” a cross between a “standard variety and a wild Peruvian variety, was bred to be resistant to insects and blight, but it turned out to contain high levels of glycoalkaloids (common in wild potato varieties and there's some in all potatoes). People got sick and 'Lenape” was recalled. Did you know that the grain triticale, a popular health store variety, is a cross between wheat and rye, two species that can't be interbred “in the wild”. It turns out that triticale is a product of what is known as “chemical mutagenesis”. That is to say, it's a product of mutation via chemical exposure. Some common commercial grain varieties are a result of nuclear irradiation. Plant breeding long ago ceased to be the “innocent”, “simple”, “natural” process most of us think it is. Don't forget that centuries ago, Europeans and Americans were convinced that potatoes and tomatoes were bad. Chocolate, too! Some folks (Johnny Appleseed, for one) were convinced that grafting fruit trees was unnatural and wrong. After all, nature doesn't do grafting.

No matter where you stand on the GMO issue, read “Mendel in the Kitchen”. At least be knowledgeable and accurately informed about your concerns. Ignore the scaremongers like “Yoga-flyer” Smith and learn the truth for yourself. You are a gardener! Unless you are truly clueless, you know you eat bug poop, insect pieces, viruses, bacteria, and who knows what else. They all contain “foreign” DNA and genes. Does that worry you?

This message was edited Feb 17, 2014 11:09 AM

Ernie....good points. Who is regulating the regulators in government? All it takes is a few people with power in those agencies and they can wreak havoc on your business or even shut you down. All it takes is for someone to let their personal beleifs or political persuasion control their decision making. People with power in government are notorius for going after those they disagree with.

Willy...I havent read the book but I am familiar with all of the methods of plant breeding past and present. Mutation breeding has been around for a century or more using chemicals, xrays, radiation etc to develop new characteristics in varieties. In fact many organic crop varieties were developed this way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/atomic-gardening-breeding-plants-with.html

But mutation breeding has been done by the sun for millions of years. Yes the good ol all natural sunshine has been causing all sorts of mutations in plants and other organisms.

Interesting thoughts.
My (maybe interesting) thought for today was:
Some people think its really weird to wonder if GMO crops can hurt us.
People also probably thought Leeuwenhoek was weird when he said " I think there might be something interesting in my oral gunk", and really weird when he said "There are tiny little animals living in everybody's mouth"

So bravo to all the scientists willing to think weird thoughts and ask the weird questions.

Put simply, mutation is the reason life has progressed beyond its first primeval form. Think of all the mutations it took to get from bacteria to man and sequoias.

I have been following this interesting thread through its second generation, but an increase in my commitments means I cannot take the time to read this anymore, so I will just make this one post before leaving.

I see a lot of nonsense and little or no science from GMO opponents just repeating the same untruths again and again. This does not help their cause. For an example debunking one of their latest diatribes, see
http://www.examiner.com/article/doctor-oz-spins-fibs-about-gmos-again?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Since as far as I know the only GMO crops are intended for large farms, I am not worried about buying seeds for my home garden.

Since the edible product of GMO crops like beet sugar is identical to ordinary sugar, I'm not worried about checking labels on grocery shelves. In fact I think that my state legislature passing a law about GMO labeling was premature and ill advised. Why? Read this article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/labels-for-gmo-foods-are-a-bad-idea/

It may be possible, of course, that future genetic modification might somehow produce a harmful product. That is why I am glad that such crops must undergo extensive (and expensive) testing before release. I must trust that interested readers like you will continue to insist upon such controls while discarding unreasonable fears based upon polemics by untrained alarmists and other vested interests.

Time for a little levity--I hope everyone finds this humorous. I heard a fellow call into a radio talk show and announce that we are actually in an ice age and he implied that Monsanto is somehow at least partly to blame for it. Also to blame are the contrails from jets, which are evidently evidence of a conspiracy of some sort. This fellow noted a lot of contrails one fine morning and, lo and behold, it clouded up in the afternoon. I am not making this up.

ha. Someone wrote a letter to the editor to our local paper recently about contrails- we have a major airport in this county. Forget GMOs, greenhousegal, it's the contrails that'll git ya!

I grew up 20 miles from an army base where National Guard trained during the summer.
When they were firing the big guns our windows would rattle.
It didn't matter weather we had big thunderstorms or drought, people blamed it on the big gun fire.
Shook the clouds, I guess.

>> announce that we are actually in an ice age

There is a pretty good science fiction novel with exactly that as a premise. The authors postulated that we would already be in the middle of major glaciation (NATURAL glaciation) if it were not for all the industrial CO2 (and cow methane) we have produced in the last few hundred years.

Then the Greens got into power and the Kyoto Protocol took hold and were successful at greatly reducing CO2 emissions.

(You have to suspend awareness of the probable fact that it will take many decades or a few centuries for atmospheric CO2 levels to actually change back to where they were 200 years ago).

So the glaciers started advancing. Advancing really fast, for plot reasons. Canada was all under a mile of ice, and the USA was half buried.

But the environmentalists wouldn't relent because the ice age was "natural", and they were in POWER.

(It was a very "anti-Green" and "pro-tech" novel.)

Falling Angels
Niven, Pournelle and someone else

I think the dispute was settled when the Warmies changed the name from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change".. No one disputes that the Climate changes, cooling like it did several years ago, and then warming like it did for a few years just passed.

But anyone that has ever cut an old tree down and looked at the growth rings can see the climate has been changing up and down forever.

Ernie

My doubt about global climate change vanished the first time I saw the Keeling curve. I think that was in the mid to late 1980s. It was just too obvious from the measurements and high school physics.

As soon as I saw how MUCH the CO2 level has risen since the Industrial Revolution, I knew that the burden of proof was on climate change "Deniers" to come up with some theory to suggest any possible way, or plausible way, that such a huge CO2 change could NOT have a huge effect on climate.

As if you had a bed with an electric blanket, and then threw several comforters on top of it and did NOT expect it to get warmer, or at least very different. How could that NOT happen?

Except that the climate is a complex system, and the changed CO2 levels are more like hitting a complex machine with a brick and then not expecting it to have an effect.

This is another one where we will probably continue to disagree, but I personally don't think it is an issue where the science is in question.

Every "debunking" site that I've seen uses dramatic language and changes of subject and attacks ad hominem instead of any plausible "here's why the obvious conclusion is wrong".

Like some of the fervent anti-GMO sites, if it's all loud fluff, I question the rigor and even the motivations of the writers.

It affects me just a little that the "Warmies" seem to be professional climatologists (plus some rabid anti-technologists) and the Deniers all seem to have political connections or an ideological bias.

Listening to George Bush "deny" every scientific study was very convincing to me - that what he was "Denying" was any science that was inconvenient to his political agenda.

I thought that the last few years of extreme weather was enough to knock the "natural variability" theory in the head. We've had a few years of hearing multiple instances per year of "the hottest X on record" or "the driest Y in 200 years" (and the paradoxical "more snow than in the last X 100 years", that still supports the climate change and extreme weather observation (no longer solely theory).

I'm willing to just say we disagree, but I expect from the last 3-5 years for it to become unarguably obvious in the next 3-10 years that we are in the "elbow" of transitioning into an obviously chaotic period, or already in that period.

Rick,

You and I both know that i am in way over my head arguing science with you, so i will not try to discuss the Carbon in the atmosphere, but as far as the electric blanket goes, I sleep under one and have not yet felt the imaginary heat from the three imaginary comforters.

If the Warmies cannot prove a positive in re the warming after several years of trying, how do you expect the Neutrals like me, or the Coolies to prove a Negative?

Isn't it pretty well understood that it is easier to prove a positive than a negative?

Having spent 75 years outside in the weather, not in the laboratory, the only difference i can see is the rapid communication about how bad the weather is everywhere. This one year dry spell in CA has already received more press than the several years of Dust Bowl Drought, and that increased publicity, not the actual weather, is what i think has scared so many people so much.

This extreme heat and cold that we are seeing has not set very many all time records, just a daily record here and there, and multiplying all the possible locations by all the days in the year, there are millions of locations where records are yet to be broken.

And until i see some proof, i am not going to want to spend a lot of other people's money preventing something that may or may not happen.

I still agree with you on a lot of other things, so we can agree to disagree on this.

Ernie

>> And until i see some proof, i am not going to want to spend a lot of other people's money preventing something that may or may not happen.

That is probably reasonable, no matter how much I disagree with it. On the other hand, it MIGHT be the epitaph for millions of people experiencing desertification and famine. Or just a few thousand drownings and monsoon victims. Or relatively minor climate change. Or the salvation of the world by sharply reversing population growth.

>> something that may or may not happen.

I do agree with that. But I'm all pumped up about the likelihood that something really serious may happen - like serious on a planetary and human species scale. I do read a lot of science fiction.

Perhaps fortunately, I suspect that unarguable proof is coming in the near future, like years not decades. I could be wrong, it could be a few more decades before it is very obviously not just "random variation". I mean "obviously PROVEN severe now" to everyone, not just climatologists saying "probably serious to disastrous in years to decades"

UNfortunately, I think it is very plausible that by the time we have totally undeniable proof, it will be like proof that yes, indeed, we DID fall off a cliff 20-50 years ago, and now the wind is whistling around our ears so fast that we can HEAR that we are falling, and closing our eyes is no longer an effective strategy.

When the glaciations recurred, there is a lot of evidence that things changed a little and gradually up to some point, and then BAM the global climate changed VERY rapidly after hitting some not-yet-well-understood "tipping point".

Most likely (in my opinion), if we had started in the 1980s, somehow made it a high priority for every country and impacted every economy, we would have stretched out and slowed down the onset of major symptoms. Maybe we could have made the peak damage less severe by starting that early.

I suspect that current delay and ineffective treaties are making the peak damage worse and bringing it closer in time.

I can't prove that. But I do feel confident of my immediate reaction back in the 1980s: "we are doing WHAT to the atmosphere?!!!?"

I would love to luck out and discover that I'm a simplistic alarmist.

That somewhere in the complexity of global climate and carbon cycle is some loophole that deals with the huge change in the atmosphere in some way that does not make large parts of the globe uninhabitable or reduce global agricultural production by a factor of 30%.

That desertification is just a random fluctuation and will go away on its own.

It would reinforce my belief in a Deity that looks out for us no matter how hard we try to shoot ourselves in the foot.

You know, I hear myself being very alarmist, like many websites that I disdain and think of as "looney". So I'll just repeat that these are my beliefs and speculations. I don't think much has been established with high confidence, scientifically, except "look at the SIZE of the brick with which we've hit the complex mechanism of climate".

There are many models speculating on what the effect of that brick will be. I pay attention to "this VERY bad thing may happen" and "these pretty darn bad things seem more and more likely to happen" and "look, dramatic extremes are already occurring".

I think you're paying more attention to "none of those are proven".

And maybe we could both agree that, "when you don't know, you DON'T know".

Rick,

I believe you hit on the key words when you emphasized MIGHT HAPPEN. If you balance that with MIGHT NOT HAPPEN, that puts you back in Neutral where i stand on it.

I have worried about enough things that never happened to finally understand that the things we worry about seldom actually happen, and so we are often surprised by the UNEXPECTED.

But to pass laws like the one banning Fluorcarbons, Freon, in the USA, raising the cost of refrigerator gas in the USA to $30,00 a pound instead of the $1.00 a pound it costs in Mexico or the rest of the world, does not make sense until it is proven that real damage is happening. We use a lot of refrigerant in this country, and wasting that much of other people's money is just as harmful as any other damage of comparable cost.

We MIGHT have another Asteroid hit the earth and change the climate like the one they think killed the dinosaurs, or maybe a few Krakatoas erupt and cloud and cool the climate, like the first one did. Either one would make every thing we spend on Climate Change immaterial.

I have no problem with Survivalists spending their own money and time preparing for disasters they think MIGHT HAPPEN, but i would hate to be forced to do what they are doing based on what they believe, not what has been proved. And that is all the Global warming regulations are doing, except on a much larger scale.

I have enjoyed all of the discussions you and i have had, both posted and on online, as they have provided good mental exercise.

To go back to a commment you made a few posts ago, where you were bowing out of the Political Discussion. I have thought the entire GMO thread has been a perfect example from the beginning, of the Political Divisions in this Country, with the more liberal factions espousing more Government Control and Regulations, the Conservatives arguing the opposite, and the Libertarians annd Middle of the Roaders trying to find a balance somewhere near the middle. .

Ernie

It seems that RicCorey feels about global warming, the same way greenhousegal feels about GMOs.
Each has something that based on their personal situation, for whatever reasons, they feel merits concern.

I agree with Ernie that
"I have worried about enough things that never happened to finally understand that the things we worry about seldom actually happen, " and soon enough, something comes from left field to tell you what you really should have 'worried about' all along, but didn't...then you deal with it.


Let's please respect the thread topic and not further digress.

Just a little clip from our local paper.

AMBOY — Blue Earth County farmer Lynn Olson has been selected as a winner in America's Farmers Grow Communities, sponsored by the Monsanto Fund. Lynn Olson selected Amboy Fire Department to receive the $2,500 donation.

America's Farmers Grow Communities works directly with farmers to support nonprofit organizations in rural communities. The program encourages farmers to enter to win $2,500, which is then directed to the farmer's nonprofit of choice. Launched nationally in 2011, the program has grown to include 1,289 eligible counties in 39 states.

This is an example of things the Monsanto killers don't understand.

Thanks, Sallyg. In this case Rick Corey and I are in agreement, re global warming. Since it's not as directly plant-related as GMOs I've been sitting this one out, but enjoying it all the same.

I think you are very wrong. Global warming & plants are very much related.
Check out what is happening in California.
Vegetable prices may go through the roof soon.

For the record, I share the concerns of GG and Rick regarding global warming, although the video posted by Seedfork on the other thread gave some pause for thought.

Higher levels of atmospheric CO2 is beneficial to C3 plants and has no effect of C4 plants. Plants need CO2 like we need oxygen. A warmer earth would in general stimulate plant growth assuming that there is enough water because the reaction for photosynthesis would be more favored. It would also open up new areas in the higher latitudes to agriculture.

I do not think anyone is denying that there seems to be much greater fluctuations in temperatures and there does seem to be an increase in extreme weather. In the 1970's records indicate the weather was cooling. In the 80's and 90's it was warming and since 2001 it has again been cooling. Obviously there has been some major changes in the poles and what is happening there. Nothing that is happening hasnt happened before which is reassuring but the pace is what is alarming.

As a scientist myself...an agronomist I think that there could be many causes for all of the fluctuations. Some of them natural and some of them caused by human activity. But it is my opinion it is not all caused by CO2. The earth is too big and too complex.

Has anyone though about how we have changed the face of the land? We have turned great deserts (which traditionally cooled th earth by reflecting heat back out into space) into irrigated neighborhoods and farms that absorb heat(yes plant growth traps the suns heat and warms the earth). How about all the roads and buildings, asphalt, rooftops, etc. You ever flown over a city in the summer in a plane and felt all the turbulence from all the heat rising from below?

How about just all the heating we do...not the CO2 itself but the heat escaping from our houses and cars and our breathing...

I am not a climate scientist...But I do know they do not all agree. here is an interesting page that describes records on all the hurricanes and tropical storms over the atlantic. It wasnt until 1966 that they were even able to detect storms over the oceans that never made landfall.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html

"large increase in short-lived tropical storms and hurricanes in the last decade, which is likely due to improved monitoring capabilities, that may be influencing the climatological average number of TCs in the Atlantic basin. With the artificial jump in the 2000s in the frequency of short-lived systems, a more realistic estimate of the long-term climatology may be closer to 13 tropical storms and hurricanes per year.
* 1950 is recorded as the busiest season in the whole database for number of Major Hurricanes with 8.
+ 1886 is recorded as the most active hurricane season for the continental USA with 7 landfalling hurricanes."

Interesting that an increase in storms is likely due to better detection. Also you will see that storms making landfall are not increasing like we are all led to believe.

Damage from storms maybe increasing as population centers have moved to the coast.

whoa nellie on that last sentence "Damage from storms maybe increasing as population centers have moved to the coast." Population centers have for millennia been either near the coast or the shore or riverbanks.

Loss to major infrastructure may be greater but maybe it is not more of a loss in life and in relative infrastructure than has gone on for ages. - seems to me anyhoo!

Sally your point is valid. But now we have virtually every beach along our entire coast with a house or some other development. Many coastal areas particularly outer banks areas were not inhabited until more recently. And populations along the coast continue to grow more rapidly.

Florida coastal areas have drastically changed just in the 20 years I have been visiting. Florida itself has increased population significantly in the same time.

People continue to build too close to the coast...probably where they should not. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2267557

All I am saying is that the frequency and or intensity of hurricanes that hits landfall has not increased....though the damage has and....that is because now there is much more damage to do. This is the same with tornados.

Many of the things global warming scientists have said would happen have not happened and this has hurt their cause. In summer the entire north pole is melting and we havent seen much rise in the ocean. We havent seen more tornados or hurricanes.

Just more damage as population becomes more concentrated in the areas where these disasters take place.

A friend whose fixed dock was built, in 1995, to be well above fifty-year flood tides is now seeing it inundated at every high tide. It is obvious to people who live along our tidal rivers that there has been a significant rise in ocean levels. Towns have had to be abandoned because of this. Streets which once were lined with houses are now far out in the bay, covered with water.

You wouldn't notice that in Hummelstown, PA, I guess.

Dr O, we agree

greenhouse gal, Well, how much higher is the ocean level?