Saturday March 22, 2008, 5:29 pm
Oh, please! Weather and climate are variable! The rest is scaremongering.

Spring will be delayed in Eastern Canada by tons of snow while further South winter has been warm.
All-Time Record Snows Creating Havoc in Canada

By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

There are many media reports on the impact of the records snows. This one from the Agence France-Presse entitled “Record Snowfall Provokes ‘Snow Rage’ in Canada” A record snowfall in eastern Canada this winter has inspired some, crushed others, led to a rash of snow-blower thefts and incited at least two armed clashes, authorities said Wednesday. Police and psychologists describe the latter incidents as “snow rage,” akin to road rage or assaults by frustrated drivers in traffic. Quebec City police say they received more than a dozen calls this winter from warring neighbors upset that snow was being shoveled onto their driveway or sidewalk by the folks next door. The city was buried this winter in a record 460 centimeters (183 inches) of snow, and is running out of places to put the fluffy white powder until spring arrives and it melts.

In nearby Montreal, where residents are recovering from a ninth major snowstorm this season, a man was charged this week with threatening a fellow motorist with a toy gun over a rare parking spot on a snow-clogged street. And in likely the worst case, an elderly Quebec City man pulled a 12-gauge shotgun on a female snowplow operator on Sunday for blowing snow onto his property, after warning her. “How can you fight a three-ton snow-blower?” he told the Globe and Mail newspaper, accusing her of trying to run him over with the plow. “It takes a man who stands up.” “People are sick of snow,” Quebec police spokeswoman Sandra Dion told AFP.

Saturday March 22, 2008, 5:35 pm
LIFESTYLES



Last updated at 8:25 AM on 22/03/08

Spring comes earlier for birds, bees, trees and sneezes due to global warming
Environment
WASHINGTON
SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

"The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast," says Stanford University biologist Terry Root.

The famous cherry trees in Washington, D.C., are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom until around April 5.

In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May.

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn't be measured until late April.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year's authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the United States, in nearly every state.

What's happening is so noticeable that scientists can track it from space. Satellites measuring when land turns green found that spring "green-up" is arriving eight hours earlier every year on average since 1982 north of the Mason-Dixon line. In much of Florida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.

Biological timing is called phenology. Biological spring, which this year began at 1:48 a.m. EDT Thursday, is based on the tilt of Earth as it circles the sun. The U.S. government and some university scientists are so alarmed by the changes that last fall they created a National Phenology Network at the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor these changes.

The idea, said biologist and network director Jake Weltzin, is "to better understand the changes, and more important what do they mean? How does it affect humankind?"

There are winners, losers and lots of unknowns when global warming messes with natural timing. People may appreciate the smaller heating bills from shorter winters, the longer growing season and maybe even better-tasting wines from some early grape harvests. But biologists also foresee big problems.

The changes could push some species to extinction. That's because certain plants and animals are dependent on each other for food and shelter. If the plants bloom or bear fruit before animals return or surface from hibernation, the critters could starve. Also, plants that bud too early can still be whacked by a late freeze.

The young of tree swallows - which in upstate New York are laying eggs nine days earlier than in the 1960s - often starve in those last-gasp cold snaps because insects stop flying in the cold, ornithologists said. University of Maryland biology professor David Inouye noticed an unusually early February robin in his neighbourhood this year and noted, "Sometimes the early bird is the one that's killed by the winter storm."

The checkerspot butterfly disappeared from Stanford's Jasper Ridge preserve because shifts in rainfall patterns changed the timing of plants on which it develops. When the plant dries out too early, the caterpillars die, said Notre Dame biology professor Jessica Hellmann.

"It's an early warning sign in that it's an additional onslaught that a lot of our threatened species can't handle," Hellmann said.

It's not easy on some people either. A controlled federal field study shows that warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide cause earlier, longer and stronger allergy seasons.

"For wind-pollinated plants, it's probably the strongest signal we have yet of climate change," said University of Massachusetts professor of aerobiology Christine Rogers. "It's a huge health impact. Seventeen per cent of the American population is allergic to pollen."

While some plants and animals use the amount of sunlight to figure out when it is spring, others base it on heat building in their tissues, much like a roasting turkey with a pop-up thermometer. Around the world, those internal thermometers are going to "pop" earlier than they once did.

This past winter's weather could send a mixed message. Globally, it was the coolest December through February since 2001 and a year of heavy snowfall. Despite that, it was still warmer than average for the 20th century.

Canadians endured almost six months of brutal winter weather that plunged the Prairies in the deep freeze, Prince Edward Island in the dark and Central and Atlantic Canada under mounds and more mounds of snow.

And now the top weather man says the country's groundhogs got it wrong - even as spring arrives according to the calendar, Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips is forecasting six more weeks of winter. Environment Canada is predicting that the first month of spring, mid-March to mid-April, is going to be colder than normal across the country.

Sunday March 23, 2008, 4:09 pm
What are we doing about it? Do you eat too much meat? I eat flexitarian. My goal is to live off the grid. I bought rechargeable batteries years ago and they last a long time. Do you worship celebrities who travel by private jet? We must all do our part, including Al Gore's 29,000 square foot residence which is clearly too big, to Teddy Kennedy's $20,000,000 opposition to that windfarm off of Cape Cod.

I believe the days of fossil are numbered - in fact, they already are, in Hawaii and Alaska. These states are now parity - it cost less for solar electricity than from coal. At the rate solar is coming down in price it is only going to be a little while before the southern states achieve parity.